My fascination with Buddhism started sometime in junior high school, when I learned my family had not always been Catholic.

“You mean we used to be Buddhist?” I asked my dad excitedly. “Maybe we could switch back!” I suggested.

My pre-adolescent self was thinking of no longer having to get up for mass every Sunday morning, the (embarrassing) confessions, the Catholic guilt. Besides, Buddhism seemed so much “cooler,” with its exotic art and statues, reincarnation, karma and all that.

My dad was not amused. I grew up going to church every Sunday until I left for college.

I have never lost my interest in Buddhism. After moving to Korea last year, I discovered it was possible to stay the night at a Buddhist temple and hang out with real live monks. Well, sort of.

During the 2002 World Cup Games in Korea, the Jogye Order, Korean Buddhism’s largest sect, decided to open up its normally cloistered temples to overnight guests, especially to foreigners who would be flooding the country to attend the soccer games. It was an unprecedented move. Previously, only practicing Buddhists were allowed to spend the night at temples and rub elbows with monks and nuns, and it was usually in the context of a retreat.

The program provides non-Buddhists with a place to stay and a taste of Buddhist thought and culture. It became so popular it has been extended. This year, the temple stay program received 100-percent funding from Korea’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

“Korean Buddhism is a part of our culture and not just a religion,” says Jeong Hyun Jeong of the Committee for Buddhist Templestay. The program, she explains, is one way for foreigners to experience Korea. But, she adds, “It is not a tourist place, it’s a sacred place.”

At a weekend trip to Jakwang-sa (sa means temple in Korean) in the town of Daejeon, a two-hour bus ride south of Seoul, I am one of nine foreigners who has come to experience life at a Buddhist temple, at least for 24 hours. A typical program lasts from Saturday to Sunday afternoon, during which we are promised a taste of the ascetic life.

A peek into the secluded lives of Buddhist monks and nuns was what drew Karen Brett, an English professor at Yonsei University, to participate in the temple stay program at Jakwang-sa.

Jakwang-sa is a Buddhist temple that allows visitors to stay overnight and experience life as a Buddhist.

“When I was hiking, I kept coming across these Buddhist temples. The monks had such an enigmatic quality about them. I thought it would be interesting to see what a monk’s life would be like,” she explains with a soft Irish accent.

We begin our weekend program with an introduction into the monks’ tea ceremony, learning to inhale the scent of the tea, holding its taste in our mouths and savoring its unique fragrance. While drinking teas made from lotus leaf and chrysanthemum and Chinese green tea, we learn that “Buddha” means the “awakened one” and that Buddhism teaches that each individual has the “Buddha nature” within them. “It’s like a seed that needs to be cracked open by meditation,” we are told.