At The World Is A Single Flower celebration, DSSN receives an enthusiastic standing ovation when he enters the Meditation Hall at Members of CIZC reach the summit of Kuksabong Musangsa (the new above Musangsa international Zen center on Kye Ryong Sahn Mountain, 100 miles south of Seoul). There are 36 of us from the United States, Canada, France, and Germany, plus representatives from the Hong Kong and Singapore sanghas. Standing in front of me is an old friend of DSSN’s, Rinzai Zen Master Noritake Kotoku, who has temples in Osaka and Kyoto. 

Still in the Paekche Kingdom, we travel to Magoksa (sa in Korean means temple), founded in 642 in a beautiful spot on the south side of Mt. Tachwasan. Kodranch’o, a rare bright green species of orchid, grows along the stream in front the temple. We climb Wongak Mountain, high above the temple, to the small hermitage in which DSSN began his hundred-day solo retreat in 1948, ten days after his ordination. (Dropping Ashes: 227ff.) 

 I set the alarm for 2 a.m., as we are going to join the 250 nuns at Unmun Temple for their morning chanting. We arrive on foot in time to hear the 3 a.m. wake-up bell. Before chanting inside the Main Buddha Hall, the dharma drum is struck on behalf of animals on land; the great bell is tolled for beings in hell; the wood fish drum is hit for beings in water; and a cloud-shaped brass instrument is sounded for beings in the sky. 

At the banquet in the evening Michael, who has been the genial headcounter throughout the trip, makes a short speech in which he says, "I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your wonderful teaching. I feel that I must reciprocate. I must say thank you to everyone for their cooperation - with the exception of one person."