So what is the absolute truth?

“The absolute truth,” Chong Ah Sunim replies, “is beyond time and space and can never be changed, which means it will last forever.”

Huh?

I get a more straightforward answer when I ask whether I can be both Catholic and Buddhist at the same time, to which the sunim replies, “No problem.”

The group takes turns asking him questions on everything ranging from reincarnation to death to how to stop worrying about the past. He is patient with us and even invites us back to meet with him after the lotus lantern making session.

Since Buddha’s birthday (a national holiday in Korea that fell on May 26 this year) is only a few weeks away, we get to make lotus lanterns. Our fingers get stained bright pink from the tissue paper we glue to paper cups. The activity seems a little kindergarten-ish, but the group enjoys making their lanterns. Four among us are English teachers living in Daejeon. One of them, Ben van der Gracht, is from Vancouver, Canada. He wanted to try the temple stay program to “have a new experience and see a different culture.”

Erin Morley (left) with Karen Brett, who shows off her colored finger, proof that she’s been working on her lantern.

Another Canadian, Charles Dumont, thought it would be a nice way to celebrate his 37th birthday. “Instead of drinking a bottle of Scotch, I thought I’d try something different,” he says.

Bedtime is at 10 p.m. at Jakwang-sa. We have to be up before the crack of dawn.

***

It’s still dark and chilly and feels like the middle of the night when I awake at 4:30 in the morning, groggy. Outside, I spy the shadowy figure of a monk hurrying across the courtyard, the deep gongs of the bell announcing that it’s 5 a.m. and time for the morning ceremony. (FYI: at Haeinsa, one of the most beautiful and famous temples in Korea, the morning ceremony is at 3 a.m.)

Inside the main Buddha Hall, we line up and attempt to follow along as the monks chant and bow. Part of the morning ceremony is bowing 108 times, one for each of the anguishes or sufferings encountered throughout life’s stages.

Ttok! A monk strikes a moktap, a wooden hand drum struck by a wooden stick, and the monks kneel to the floor for the first of the 108 bows. My fellow temple stayers and I attempt to follow the monks who are performing full prostrations: knees to floor, then forehead to floor, palms flat on the ground, sitting up, then standing up without using their hands. With each beat of the moktap, the monks prostrate themselves gracefully while we try to keep up.

The bowing, we have learned, is not some form of idolatry of the Buddha. “We bow to show our respect to Buddha, but we are also bowing to our own Buddha nature,” explains a monk. It also helps make us humble and clear our minds, he adds.