Buddhist Details: Beopjusa Retreat

3:00 in the morning. Something steady pulsing arouses me. Something knocking, steady and slow. 

Then my alarm goes off. I am at Beopjusa (BUP ju sah) Temple 3.5 hours SE of Seoul, Korea.

The pulse is a 15 beats per minute Buddhist hand-held drum (Mok-tak), 300 yards distant. 

www.koreamusic.org

The earthen bowl in which Beopjusa Temple sits amplifies each pulse, each mountainside reflecting it to waiting hillsides.

"Wake up. May the entire universe live no longer in ignorance about its true nature!"

By 3:20, monks in a pavilion bow towards the huge wooden drum, the massive metal bell, cloud-shaped cymbal and wooden fish (fishes' eyes never close), striking them in turn to awaken all sentient beings in earth, sky and seas. As these four percussion instruments take up the pulse, one hundred yards away, monks and Temple visitors (like me) gather in the huge meditation hall, picking up the cues from the pavilion instruments, as bells, gongs and small drums take their respective turns with the pulse, working their piece of the universal call to wakefulness, and then handing the pulse away to another instrument. My video below shows this.

By 3:30, the monks and visitors take take their turn with with a 20-minute ritual of chants, bows and prostrations in the great meditation hall, internalizing the steady pulse of the Mok-tak.

"Awaken! Awaken to your true nature! Live no longer in delusion, desire and ignorance!"

Two videos round out this report.

Here is my video of the monks in the pavilion, calling the world to knowing & awareness. 

And here is a video of my pictures, as I attempted to capture the art of Buddhism in various art-forms, whether it be formal painting, folk art, or statuary.

Yours in Bows.
Marc