Soul-searching on a meditative temple stay in South Korea

We’re all quasi-members of the temple now that we’ve donned the knot-button vests and baggy trousers and have attended a crash orientation course on monastic mores

Located at the base of a spur of the Taebaek Mountain Range – a natural barrier of steep, forested slopes and sharp peaks – the temple of Beopjusa has stood for nearly 1,500 years in spite of fires, wars and other cataclysms. Designated a Unesco World Heritage site in 2018, the draws busloads of tourists on weekends.

I’m not one of them, though. I’m here as a guest, and so is Kim Yu-na, a thirtysomething employee of a trading company in Seoul. “I just want to have a relaxing time surrounded by nature,” she says. “And I also want to experience Buddhism, though I’m actually a Christian.”

A little further, and we’ve moved beyond the ken of the giant gold-gilded Buddha statue that looms in the darkness. Mounting stone steps to a higher level of the courtyard, we approach the side of the main hall, where we shuffle off our shoes and set them on a rack. Then we slip inside. The evening yebul (literally meaning “Buddha ceremony” – a paying of respects to the Buddha) is just about to begin.

With the temple bell resonating, a half-dozen monks silently file in and begin to intone the verses of the evening service. I follow Bo-ri and attempt to repeat the actions we were taught several hours before. Hands folded near my chest, I lower my knees, then stretch my torso forward, hands flat on the mat. I boost myself back up but stumble awkwardly.

By the time we return to the temple compound, the stars have dissolved into the dark-purple canopy above the mountains. And in the east, the ether is tinted peach. Bo-ri stops to admire the moon, an orange crescent suspended above a slanting ridge.

I notice the silver streaks in her tied-back hair. “There’s no other place where you are surrounded by so much nature,” she confides. After spending decades in Germany and India, this is where she has chosen to be.

Refreshed by the silent scene, I return to my spartan chamber for a nap, savouring the plush bedding and heated floor all the more following the cold sting of the early morning mountain air.

The sun has fully risen when I emerge to attend a tea ceremony with a monk. The Venerable Il-oh has arrived ahead of us at the temple stay common room. A portly, placid man, he sits cross-legged on a cushion behind a low table filled with tea accoutrements.

I feel somewhat intimidated about sipping tea with a monk who’s spent the last 15 years meditating and studying scriptures. But Il-oh quickly puts us at ease, pouring the shiitake mushroom-infused tea into our cups with deft motions, observing us calmly.

I ask him why the temple has so freely opened its doors to guests like us. “Traditional Korean houses had a room called the sarangchae, where guests could stay and come together to share the news, or just to talk,” he explains. “In the same way, monks and laypeople are welcome to come and stay at any temple.

The Templestay programme fits into this tradition.” The monks aren’t at all inconvenienced, he assures me. Those involved in intense meditation have no cause to leave the Chongji Zen Centre, which remains resolutely off-limits to visitors.

Before we leave, Bo-ri, Sofia and I decide to climb Sujeong-bong, a round, pine-tufted peak that rises like to temple residents – both monks and hired workers – and we pass just one other person while weaving our way up through the pine forest.