My first Temple Stay in Korea - Ivar Berkman, Exchange Student from Erasmus University Rotterdam

During this educational exchange at the weekend of 10-11 November, the International Student Volunteering team organized an very special experience namely a Temple Stay at Yongjusa Temple. A Temple Stay is something unique to Eastern Culture and it is especially relevant during an exchange to Korea where Buddhism has been a very important part of Korean Culture. Many of the exchange students were of course excited for a chance to stay at a temple and maybe even during this stay, learn more about themselves. Because of the large-numbers of sign-ups, the ISV’s even had to arrange two groups, one group which stayed from Friday until Saturday and the other group stayed from Saturday until Sunday.

In this story I will outline the experience of the Friday Group and all of the fun activities which we did during this temple stay. When we arrived at the temple, we first had an introduction to the temple by the Monks. At this introduction, we learned more about the Korean Temple life and we were even fortunate enough to have a monk there be able to translate all of the Korean into English. This made it so that the entire story was quite easy to follow. After this story, we had our first activity namely a Lotus Craft. It was quite difficult to make a Lotus Craft, we needed to be very precise with placing every paper next to each other so that the flower really bloomed. The Lotus flower was of special significance to the Korean Temple experience since a Lotus Flower blooms even in the harsh conditions such as mud, showing that beautiful experiences can find it’s footing anywhere.

After we all made our Lotus Flowers, we walked around the temple area. The temple area was very impressive, since it had a huge collection of over a thousand Buddha Statues which was truly a sight to behold. The first day then concluded with a question and answer session with one of the head monks, a lot of students asked questions about Buddhism or even their personal lives to hear the unique perspective which only a head monk has. This was truly an interesting experience, to hear the observations that only years of meditation can bring.

The start of the second day was a real adventure since we had to wake up at 5 AM. It was pretty difficult to wake up this early but definitely a part of this experience, after this we had a morning ritual which consisted of 108 bows and contemplations about life. After this we had a nice nature walk, being in nature and allowing yourself to be immersed in the scenery of nature was truly a great way to start the morning. This was followed by a unique tea ceremony in which we had to be very mindful of the tea itself and the preparation of the tea. Being this mindful about the little things in life enriches the experience you have with it. The lesson learned was that in this daily hectic life, it is very important to sit still sometimes and take in the moment.

The Temple Stay was a unique and enriching experience, and certainly one of the memories which the students on the exchange will carry with them for the rest of their life.