Simple Lessons from Buddhism

There is much to learn from Buddhism and even during short temple stays, solid messages can be taken away. I could could go into detail again, but it don't think I need to. For a look at what Korean Buddhism can teach Christians, click here.


From a recent conversation on the Korean temple stay program:


The problem, however, with temple stays in Korea is that they are often just that: a short term stay where little philosophical or theoretical instruction is given so that the Westerners visiting can take home with them something to alter their worldview and free their minds from the torment of stress, confusion, and negativity, and ideally recognize their true nature as human beings.


He continued:


After years of practicing Zen in Korea and abroad, I remember vividly a conversation I had with a Buddhist nun from Europe who was practicing and living in a temple in Northern Seoul. She confirmed what I feared the most regarding the state of Buddhism in Korea….”if you really want to study Buddhism temple stays are not the place, this is merely tourism Buddhism.” I couldn’t have agreed more, sure the temple stay was a break from the fast pace of modern Korean society where time seems short and everyone wants life to revolve around them, but I was truly searching for a place to dig deep and grow roots under the guidance of a proper teacher where the full import of Zen practice could take hold.


A temple stay is clearly designed for both domestic and international tourists and I fail to see just how that is a problem. To me, the intention of the stay is NOT something meant to "alter...worldview[s] and free... minds from the torment of stress, confusion, and negativity, and ideally recognize true nature as human beings." If you were to ask a monk or even a layperson in Korea whether or not a stay is meant to be anything more than an interesting tourist activity, you'd get a resounding, "NO!"

Anyone who practices any form of Buddhism knows that not only is breaking free from foolishness in search of right-mindfulness a difficult and long-term goal, but those who seek Enlightenment by name usually fail. The goal of these retreats is not conversion and most people have no expectation (or desire) for such a thing. The goal is the same as what most people want when they sign up -a relaxing and semi-spiritual taste of something that is different from what they're used to.

In some cases, a casual tourist really connects with the retreat and chooses to stay on longer in a different capacity and study the religion in greater detail. That is always available to "tourists". From where I'm standing, temple stays don't represent Korea's departure from its already checkered past with Buddhism, but appears more as a stab at combating the rabid globalization that is consuming much of the spiritual and philosophical world. Most religions and places of worship open their houses to the curious knowing that the full experience is impossible to gain in a short time.

My own experiences with religion in Korea have easily proven this. They happily welcome me into their fold, yet put the burden on me to seek a deeper connection and understanding. In fact, some of them have even openly challenged me to engage directly with them and their text.

Why does Buddhism have to be any different? Their burden only goes so far and, until recently, most Orders haven't pursued any form of aggressive proselytism. This, to me, is a good start in the right direction.

Muslims in South Korea

Here's the question:

I'm a Muslim/UK citizen and interested in coming to Korea to teach. I saw a recent article about Islam in Korea and was wondering how I might be looked upon.

I assume by "recent", you mean THIS article (or this one) and if that's the case, I commend you on your reading of Korean papers before you make the leap.




There's some, but not an overwhelming amount of decent English info on Islam in Korea. Sure, you can read Wikipedia (which I found pretty interesting) or some other "Islam in Korea" pages, but other than a few snippets in the news, there isn't much on how you'd be treated here. I'll try my best.

Since Korea has a pretty high number of non-religious citizens and religious persecution is relatively low (although Islam has a tendency to be tied to terrorism in the minds of many Koreans), I think the best way to go about this is to highlight the fact that non-Korean Muslims here are viewed as very foreign. As I mentioned in a comment on Diffism, there are different categories of foreigners and each one typically carries a certain reputation or stereotype.

You can pretty much break it down like this: Caucasians (teachers, military, government, contractors, business-types and tourists); Asian non-Koreans (laborers, cooks, nannies, tourists and "entertainers"); and other. The "other" is where many western-Asian/Indian/black or otherwise dark-skinned people would be categorized because many Koreans aren't sure where to put them. True, there are hundreds of black teachers here and probably thousands of dark-skinned contractors, businessmen and skilled laborers working here, but the average Korean just doesn't know for sure.


For instance, if an Indian fellow was walking with a bunch of Korean businessmen at lunchtime, it would be assumed that he's involved with business in someway, but if he was alone, it's pretty unlikely that he would be considered to be part of the business crowd. Another good example of this on Korea Beat today. The police refused to believe that an Indian man could be a professor at a Korean university.

Since I don't know your race or ethnicity, I won't offer any simple race-relations tips, but if you were to wear an igal or a thawb, I can say for sure that you'd be given a few looks, yet I wouldn't expect anything worse than what you are used to in the West. Exposure is a huge part of tolerance and acceptance here and since the Korean Muslim population is very small (only a few mosques with 30,000-70,000 followers), the average Korean just doesn't have much experience to go on. You can largely avoid this if you live in Itaewon, but that might not be what you're looking for. I would suggest checking out the Seoul Central Mosque though.

The government is trying to promote closer ties as well. I think you'll be fine and might even find a nice little community to join if you felt so inclined.

***Update***

September 26th, 2009: Korea Times reports on feuding going on within Korean Islamic groups over the misuse of donations.