Meditation at the Seon Center

A small boy realized that he had lost his cow. He looked for the animal everywhere, before finding it and putting a rope around its neck so he could lead it wherever he went. But soon after, he became confident ― he didn’t need the cow around him all the time. He could tie it to a stump and fetch it whenever he pleased.

This is an analogy for finding one’s inner self. The boy is the person, the cow the missing inner self. Once you realize you have lost your inner self, you are desperate to find it. Once you find it, you are never anxious again.

“Unfortunately, some people are not even aware that they have lost or do not know themselves anymore,” said Ven. Hye Yeon at the International Seon Center of the Buddhist Jogye Order in Mokdong, Seoul.

“But if you do not know yourself and have lost your inner self, you are torn apart and under extreme stress. You don’t get the energy and will to live on when you are weary, frustrated with your rutted life,” she said.

And that’s probably why so many people hail Templestays as “healing camps,” staying for a night or two at a Buddhist temple and following the lives of the Buddhist monks.

For those who cannot spare the time to visit mountainside temples, the daily Templestay programs held at the International Seon Center in western Seoul are an ideal alternative. Situated in a bustling residential area of high-rise apartments, the building housing the Buddhist Temple on the fifth floor and several meditation rooms and lodges are frequented by office workers who want to drop by for about two to three hours on weekday evenings and find their “true me.”

The visitors are given a uniform and learn the basic etiquette of the temple ― when coming across monks in the temple, put your palms together as if praying, put them outward about 30 degrees and bow.

They also learn the three prostrations. For the first, gently kneel down with your left foot overlapping your right. Bow down and place your palms and forehead to the floor, hold the pose for a second or two, then turn your hands over so that your palms are facing the ceiling and slowly raise them above your head before putting them back on the floor. Slowly stand up. Repeat the process three times. On the third bow, while you are still in bowing position, place your hands together and put them between your forehead and the floor before you stand up.

“When you are going through special training or wishing for something special, you repeat this set 800 times or 30,000 times,” she said. Sometimes people drop their palms down to the floor and slide their body down on the floor, stretching the body as much as possible.

Then you learn the meditation.

“Meditation is emptying oneself. Therefore it is important to think about nothing,” she said.

Sit on the floor and straighten your back. Breathe in deeply until you feel very full, then breathe out until you run out of breath. Repeat three times before you start regular inhaling and exhaling. Count the number of the sets of breathing in and out. Try to clear your mind of everything other than the counting. When you reach 10, go back to zero and start again. If you feel that you have been distracted, just go back to zero again. Repeat the process for about half an hour.

It’s definitely hard to maintain concentration ― with the serene atmosphere and the soft lighting, all kinds of earthly thoughts enter the mind.

“It is hard to advance to four, right? Even when you are determined to empty your mind, thoughts linger in the mind and the head for a long time,” the monk said, smiling. “So sometimes the best way to practice meditation is to do it right before going to bed, lying down on the bed and closing your eyes. But I know it is exceptionally difficult ― you fall asleep most of the time.

“I think you need to devote at least 30 minutes a day for a year to meditation to finally take a look into your inner self,” said Ven. Hye Yeon, adding that there are differences among people. “What is really important is to be consistent. Let’s hope that everyone finds his or her cow!”

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)