10/10

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. After chanting (we recognize melodies similar to those we use), but while it is still dark, a nun guides us around the temple. According to legend, Master Bo-yahng discovered the ruins of an ancient temple on this spot in 930, when he saw a magpie pecking on the ground. Since 1958 Unmunsa has served nuns as a five-year training school in the sutras and the Vinaya rules. Surrounded by the Hoguh Mountains, it offers a glorious location, with some of the most graceful buildings we have seen. The calligraphy, alone, written by Gu-ha Sunim at the age of 86, on the hanging board outside the Hall of the 500 Arahats, is a masterpiece. Besides a large organic garden, there are flower beds and a 500-year-old weeping pine tree. Near it, after breakfast when it is light, I am able to add three birds to the 79 species that I have already seen in Korea: a Brown-eared Bulbul, a Mugimaki Flycatcher, and a Varied Tit.

Later, in a teashop in Seoul, a nun fondly reminisces with Ilana Trumbull (Empty Gate sangha) about her novitiate at Unmunsa, where the senior nuns sometimes poured water into the plastic shoes of their sleeping sisters. The timing had to be exact: ten minutes before the wake-up bell, long enough for the water to be stone-cold but not frozen over!

As we retrace our steps northward, we halt for lunch at Soe Il Farm, a restaurant on whose grounds we see rows and rows of various sizes of pickle jars. It’s kimshee heaven! Next we visit the Taepyung-Mu (Peace Dance) Initiation Hall at Anseong, where the Kang Sun-Young Dance Company puts on an excellent show for us, including the exacting drum dance, the Buchae dance doneby the ensemble with fans, and the exorcist dance in which a shaman communicates with a spirit. 

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