Livin' Like a Family of One: Creating False Memories (part 55)

"Creating false memories." That was a sentence snippet I cut out of a psychology book in college and taped in my Journal. In fact, I taped the majority of my surroundings into my Journal in college. I would stay up all night at Matt's house and he and I would cut, glue, tape and wrench away. Sometimes until morning. Sometimes until the next morning after that. Eventually I'd have to go back to school and he'd have to go to work. Or vice versa. Excellent times.

But anyway...

This weekend I went on a temple stay in 대승사, which is Daesungsa. For those of you not currently in the know on temple stays, you pay a little money and live like a monk for as long as you like. We chose a modest 21 hours. We arrived at 4pm (4:20m actually, 'cause we ran stupid late) and got our cool lookin' duds. They were like brown jammies. Comfy as hell. We immediately went to our rooms and had nothing scheduled until our first meal, which ended up the meal we ate every time we ate: vegetables and rice in a bowl. What Korean cuisine lacks in variety it makes up for in dependability. Then we worshipped. This was a long 70 minutes or so. We listened to the man chant and tried to follow our cues, but having only one Korean speaker in the bunch (who did not herself speak ancient Korean), it was difficult to be sure we were doing it right. But do it we did. Then we went on a night time hike wherein we were told by a monk that blindness was simply a stereotype of the dark-you must train yourself to see without light. Crucial on so many levels. We went to sleep (some quicker than others as some of us were up until 4:30am the night before screaming and drinking) and awoke at 3am for more prayer. This round consisted of the same prayer as last time as well as the dialy 108 bows. I got to hold the stick that noted when we bow and when we rise. This stick was also the stick used for thwapping those who doze off. And did I doze off? No. Hell no. Not because I wasn't tired, but because we had been informed that the monks on the grounds had been awake for twenty-one god damn days! Whether this was a misinterpretation or not, I don't know. But every way I tried to ask, I was met with an affirmative: Yes, twenty-one days. My God. After that, it was naps, then a long hike and more prayer. Another meal, some tea, and by 1pm, we were off. I then slept the rest of my Sunday away. The temple stay really made me thin about how empty some of the things (read: most of the things) I do with myself are. Not that I want to be a monk, but being around that much devotion and meditation had better rub off on you a little. If not, you're being pig-headed. But the empty feeling was what lead me to Korea. I follow signs, though not always all the way through.

These last few days have been pretty nice at school. I've had to put a shit load of work in as I have some new classes and new students and have to write report cards and update sticker plans and discipline my mutants and entertain my muppets and all the while find a way to think I'm doing good for the universe. But overall it's okay. I still have decisions to make as far as my inclusions on Korea's future, but I have time to make them. And with that time, I hope to go to Seoul soon and see the Tim Burton exhibit I was cheated out of in January because there were too many white people there already (or something).

I feel like there were other things I wanted to say, but I'm blanking.

-I love Bryan Burgess.
-I love John Frusciante's early albums.
-I love nice guitars.
-I love pineapple.

Two of these things I have, but I left my ax with Marco and Bryan passed away a couple years ago.

Okay, I'm drinking a beer and kinda tired. I really gotta finish Bill's book or else he'll never forgive me. In closing, Koreans are very pretty and very quiet (not all of them, but many of them).

Be excellent to each other.

-LS^2