I heed you this one piece of advice: in contradiction to the old saying "let no deed go unpunished" visit a Buddhist temple and you will find at the end of an impossible climb are great splendors which defy this sentiment. I have struggled with documenting this experience most of all because I feel that words only mere in comparison to seeing such an organization of architecture, art, intellect, and emotion in one place. I felt guilty with my cell phone and my digi camera slowly editing this experience in a few moments which had taken centuries to build, fall, and recreate in the effort of meditative peace. "Elaborate care" were the words that kept passing through my mind. The silence in these places is haunting, but haunting in a sort of way that beckons quietly "if you were more like this you would be more like everything . . ."
We were in an active temple and the evidence was in the tiny pairs of shoes at every closed door on the grounds. I felt people praying for me even in my complete invasion of their solitude. I could go into great detail here: about the tile roofs covered in wishes which were donations paid to the temple, the giant drum which hung in such stillness that I could feel the force of its percussion with out it being touched. . . . intrinsic murals richly painted of dragons and heroes: an abstract vocabulary that in its profoundness, I could only absorb it as a pedestrian.
I was an accidental tourist in the presence of trancendence. This encounter created in me a sense of clarity that I can best summarize as absolute. I realized (standing atop of this lush green mountain with the stone dust of this holy place settling on my toes in Gwanyong, South Korea) that in this brief and wonderful moment "Everything is perfect and I love you".
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