The House of Mercy

Travel Story by Jennifer Barclay

South Korea

By early evening I was standing under a shop's awning in the town of Toksan in the pouring rain, trying to figure out where to spend the night, and how to avoid being drenched to the skin. I had my tent in my backpack and would prefer to camp to save money, since all I wanted was to sleep, but it really was pouring down. Rainy season had started in earnest, it seemed. It was too late to get to the monastery, but I hoped I'd be able to find a bus there in the morning. Then a car stopped, the window rolled down and a fine-featured man with a smooth head and soft, voluminous, grey monk's robes asked:

'Odi gan?'

Where was I going? 'Sudoksa,' I said, wondering if he'd advise me on how to find it or something. But no, it appeared from his gesture that he was offering me a lift.

'Kamsamnida,' I said, thanking him, and got in.

I tried to cover my bare legs with my backpack. Of course I had to be wearing my shortest hiking shorts. As we made our way slowly through sheets of rain in the air-conditioned car, he tried to make conversation, but neither of us had enough of the other's language. Eventually, he found some classical music on the digital dial, then put in the earpiece of his mobile phone to check his messages.

After driving for ten minutes or so, we passed through a gate, and halfway up a forested mountain arrived at the monastery under darkening skies. Imposing buildings in traditional style rose from the hillside at intervals: long, black-tiled roofs, the eaves painted in delicate pinks and greens, decorated with flower and animal carvings; sturdy red wooden pillars, delicate trellised doors with paper windows. They looked like the palaces in Seoul, except surrounded by woods. Though there is no historical record, historians believe there has been a temple here on the mountain at Toksan since 599, and the worshippers practised Son, or Zen Buddhism. We stopped and the monk disappeared into one of the halls, asking me to wait.

I watched the mist rise from the trees and glanced onto the backseat, spying a football and a brochure for 'Travelling in Malaysia'. I couldn't help thinking the monk was going to emerge embarrassed, having discovered I had no invitation, no right to be here.

Instead, he invited me into what turned out to be a canteen, and asked if I wanted to eat. When I said I wasn't hungry, a boy of about twelve gave me an umbrella and two monks led me across the sandy courtyard, skirting puddles, past a stone pagoda and towards the Hall of the White Lotus. Instead of passing by, we walked up steps to a raised walkway kept dry under the long eaves – aha! Now the shape of the roofs made sense. Sliding wooden doors were drawn open on a bright, bare room. I left my shoes outside as was customary and from behind more sliding doors the monks brought out pretty satin cushioned quilts and a pink, seed-filled pillow, and I was left alone with a bow and a smile.

Incredulous, I spent the evening sequestered in that perfect, simple space, listening to thunder in the hills and the ceaseless splashing and crashing of the rain as it poured off the eaves. Opening my wood-and-paper shutters, which were held back by carved wooden turtles, I looked out into the semi-dark and smelled the fresh air. Lightning floodlit the courtyard from time to time, revealing gnarled trees and, sheltered by a wooden pavilion, a giant iron bell and a hanging log in the shape of a fish. Monks ran around in robes and slippers, carrying umbrellas, avoiding the pooling water. The two who'd brought me here returned a couple of times, once to give me a candle when the storm was too bad to have the electric light on, and again to check I was comfortable. 'Breakfast is at eight,' they said, then conferred. Wrong word? 'No, sorry, six.' Smiles, bows.

Because of the unfamiliar routine, I found myself lying wide awake at midnight and in a dead sleep by the morning. It was my first time with seed-filled pillows and quilts on the floor, but at least I was warm and dry. For someone who has always liked sitting on the floor, it's an easy enough step to sleeping on one. We've all done it at people's houses after parties.

Thanks to my alarm clock, I made it blearily to breakfast, having splashed myself down with cold water in the washroom. In the canteen a monk in brown robes mutely helped fill my steel tray with rice, boiled greens, fresh beansprouts, tofu and mushroom soup, roasted potatoes and kimchi, all of which were delicious. Breakfast was quiet. Six tiny boys with cropped hair, in T-shirts and shorts, sleepy-eyed but with different expressions like six of the seven dwarfs, were guided to sit near me at the long table. They were 'child monks', aged four and five, I was told, training to be monks. One looked especially tired and grumpy, and a middle-aged lady gave them 1,000-won notes to cheer them up.

So there I was, in a traditional, working Korean Buddhist monastery in the early morning. It was peaceful after the storm, and a fog hung close to the hillside, but it somehow felt lighter and more dewy than any I'd felt before in Seoul. A monk swept a courtyard, but everyone else had disappeared, leaving the place empty, so I ventured to explore the main grounds of the monastery. The main temple was a simple wooden structure, with a tall ceiling and plain wooden floor. Its graceful architecture bore signs of the influence of the Paekche Dynasty, of which King Muryong was a part, a sign of the venerable age of this Buddhist site. A hidden inscription on the main beam in the temple apparently said it was completed in 1308, 'the thirty-fourth year of King Chungnyol'. Few wooden structures had survived that long in Korea, thanks to repeated invasions and the war. Most were burned down and rebuilt again and again.

Five golden statues faced benignly through the open front wall out across the valley, three of them representing the past, present and future Buddha. Hanging paintings – paper or cloth, unframed and unmounted – lined the walls with stylised but lively, intensely detailed scenes of gods and kings. On the roof beams were faint centuries-old dragon paintings.

Finding it was still only 7 a.m., I took a path up the moist hillside, vaguely following the tocking of a wooden instrument. Steps led into forest beside a stream cascading over boulders just as I'd seen in paintings in the temple. Several groups of monks passed me on their way down, smiled happily and wished me a good day. One asked cheerily, "Where are you going?"

I grinned and shrugged. 'Up the mountain!'

He laughed, and pointed up the steps: 'Only two minutes! See you again!'

I continued, and fifteen thigh-tightening minutes later realised the monk had a wicked sense of humour.

I'd reached the top of the steps when I found a thatched house. An inscription on the rock said it was the hermitage of Mangong, a Son master who lived here in the early twentieth century and helped revive the Buddhist tradition in Korea. During the Japanese occupation, monks who didn't agree to support the occupiers had simply disappeared.

With the repression of Buddhism by the Confucian Choson Dynasty, and all the burning down of temples by the Japanese invaders, monks seem to have had a tough calling. Christianity, which arrived in Korea in the eighteenth century, has grown in popularity, particularly during Korea's recent economic boom. But a quarter of South Koreans call themselves Buddhists, and people are often Confucianists, Buddhists and Christians at the same time.

As I turned away from the hermitage, I realised the path continued straight up. Although it was tough walking that steep path in the growing heat and humidity, and views down the valley were obscured by clouds, the forest was peaceful: just rocks, short bushy pine trees, whistling birds, and mist blown along on a faint breeze. I continued up. There were mounds of pebbles by the stream, and slabs of rock for bridges, and little messages I couldn't understand on flags hanging from the tree branches over the path. Then suddenly, the path turned into a clearing and revealed the most beautiful statue I had ever seen, standing in the mist, against a cliff of pink rock that had been crept over by moss and ivy. The Buddha stood the height of two men, holding a vial, with an expression of absolute serenity. Candles and flowers and brass bowls had been laid at the statue's feet. Across the clearing was a spring beside tall bamboo. The trees around held still the moist air, and the mist enclosed the whole scene – nothing could be seen beyond. The only sounds were of birds and water.

Later I tried to find out about the 'child monks' I had seen at the monastery. Monasteries have for centuries taken in small boys to receive a religious education, while giving them the freedom to leave if they choose not to become monks. I read online about a programme at another South Korean monastery, Haeinsa. Most of the thirty-seven child monks there had been abandoned by parents who were divorced or too poor or too young to care for them. More than ninety per cent had been physically abused before being left at the temple. Buddhists say these children were monks in their past lives, and hardship at a young age is necessary to lead them back to the path. But they attend a local school and will make their own decision as to whether they want to become monks. Local volunteers cook the meals and wash their clothes. Muhak, the monk who started that programme, says he refuses to accept children at the parents' first request, as it's not simply an orphanage.

"This is the house of mercy where we cultivate souls."

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Illustration by Bob Veon
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Jennifer Barclay

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