Beomeosa, Korea

If I keep blogging at this rate, it’ll seem more like a diary than news updates. Yesterday we went to a temple right in Busan, Beomeosa. One popular way to tour Korea is to do “templestays”. For a nominal cost, you can go to a temple and have a simple room consisting of a pad to sleep on, a covering and a pillow, simple meals, Buddhist teaching and meditation, and free quiet time for silent contemplation and strolls through the grounds. A quick count on my map of Korea shows 66 official templestay temples. From the looks of it, Beomeosa may be one of the most popular ones. That would make sense, as Busan is Korea’s second biggest city and most people coming here at all are likely to go through. there are several up near Seoul which I assume are popular, but this appeared to be the most popular one I’ve been to except one not on the map by Gyeonju which was a monestary/temple with nuns women pilgrims only.
Typically, there is a nice walk up to any temple. There are then one or two gates. Along the way, there are pillars which mark the graves of noted monks.

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The more popular temples have signs in English saying what this and that building or whatever is. They look like this, though often in poor English. I am honored to have been asked to rewrite the signs at Tongdosa, another popular temple near here I’ve written about before.

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Here are the usual temple pics.

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On the table there in the foreground of the last picture are many little baby buddhas. There were baby buddhas at the place we went a couple of days ago, and now they were here too. Aren’t they just adorable? There are sleepy buddhas, making faces buddhas, cold buddhas in stocking caps, buddhas with balls, buddha playing with his toes, as well as good little mindful buddhas. I half expected baby buddha in a manger. Cue the Christmas music.

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I’m not doing much today. The democratic convention is over, so I’m not watching TV as much as the last four days. Now I’m ruminating about Palin for vice president. Is it me or is it wierd in here?
Be well, all of you.

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