Be-a-Buddhist at Beomosa

Yesterday I traveled to Beomosa Temple, located on the outskirts of Busan. One takes a long subway ride all the way out the perimeter of the city, and then takes a fifteen minute bus ride up the mountain to the temple. This was probably the best "attraction" I've visited so far in Korea, not just because of the temple or the natural beauty surrounding it, but the sincere spirituality I encountered there.

The East is spiritual, right? WRONG. So far the Korea that I've encountered is about as un-spiritual as it gets. Anti-spiritual, if you will. Children here go to school for many more hours than American children do, and don't have time for T.V. or just plain playing outside. According to the Organization for Economic Growth and Development, the average American works 1777 hours in a year, while the average Korean works 2390 hours! This leaves little time for hobbies and leisure, and the South Korean focus on material prosperity leaves little room for more "idealistic" concerns. Like religion.

Aside from some token nods to Jesus, the Buddha, and ancestral spirits, basically Koreans don't have their eyes on the "beyond" in any meaningful sense of the word. Of course, neither do most Americans, but I still had this subterranean sense that the "East" would be different. (I should have read my Said's Orientalism before I left...)

On an unrelated note, a Korean girl who I VERY BRIEFLY talked to in a convenience store at the base of the mountain actually followed me up to the temple and tracked me down. After about five minutes of conversation, she asked me if I wanted a Korean girlfriend. My first proposition from a Korean girl! I declined as politely as I could, but this is one in a series of what I call "Lost in Translation" moments. That is, moments when I am so overcome with the weirdness of a situation that I want to laugh, but I can't because no one else would realize why it's so funny.

Behind the temple, there's a trail leading even farther up the mountain. There's a dense canopy of trees overhead, but the forest floor is covered in boulders. That's right, gigantic rocks, with water flowing underneath them, and this goes on up the mountain for four kilometers or so. I got about halfway up but couldn't go on. Exhaustion? No. Dehydration? No. Frustration? Again, no.

I found a KITTEN on the trail who was very very skinny. I had seen cats wandering around the temple and decided that the kitten had probably strayed too far up the mountain. I was determined to SAVE HER. So I carried her down the mountain, even though she cried the whole way. I guess she couldn't understand me when I told her that I knew what was best. Maybe she only understood Korean. Anyway, I felt like it was the appropriately Buddhist/compassionate thing to do. And who could just leave a little kitty there, anyway?

Perhaps when I saved the kitty I actually saved the reincarnated spirit of a Bodhisattva, and I will be rewarded in the next life by being reborn as a RHINOCEROS.