Autumn comes, leaves go technicolor

First autumn in Korea or i should i say autumns? From the early fall blossoming into a flamboyant and colorful one before turning shadowy.

As bright hues bloom, summer's green slowly recedes in a technicolor of amber, red, yellow, purple, orange, scarlet, golden, pink...














In the branches, the soft rustling of the leaves has become crispier. Soon, the leaves start falling, swirling and twirling slowly or diving down. First soft and colorful, later dry and cracking under the feet...


Zen question: when did it fall?









... til finally there are only pale leaves, muted colors and naked trees.



Winter is here.

Garbage is Buddha

"Garbage human being becomes monk, and garbage monk becomes a Zen student, and garbage Zen student becomes a Buddha." Korean saying... or truth?

On a boat with a monk

Ganwol-am (간월암) is an island ermitage. It is tiny, lovely and... it is on an island! It is only a few meters from the mainland, but still... the island is the ermitage and the ermitage is the island! How can you not love that?!

How do you get there? When the tide is low, you can simply walk to the ermitage. But it is when the tide is high that it gets fun. Because then, you have to use the boat. And if you're lucky, like we were - my personal opinion, my parents may beg to differ -, you get extra fun when the monk from the ermitage decides to take into his own hands the matter of transporting a group of hesitant visitors to the other shore - pun unintended but Buddha's way is impenetrable!

Seeing that the Korean women on board, including my mother, were not quite reassured, the monk decided to show them their fears were unjustified and started... swaying the boat! He bent on the left then on the right, with increasing force, water splashed on both sides of the boat while the women let out scared little cries. He then yelled, laughing, "So, will you make big donations to the Buddha when we get to the ermitage?" The women yelped feably, "Yes, sunim! We'll give a lot of money. Please stop swaying the boat!" But the monk swayed some more, joking, "Oh, i'm not sure you're really gonna do that! Will you, really?"

As for me, i was laughing so hard it's a wonder i didn't fall into the water!

*The* boat!

Coup de coeur for Buseoksa

A wonderful temple as tiny as it is delightfully charming and quiet.






Flower Jijang Bosal




Inside the small mountain cave where Man Gong Sunim - one of the great Korean zen masters and our teacher's "grandfather", dharmically speaking! - lived and practiced for some time. To get there, a sign indicated, "30m from Man Gong's cave". 30 meters later, you arrived... to a second sign saying "30m from Man Gong's cave"! A test of perseverance, maybe?

Naksansa H(e)aven

A temple by the sea. Waves crash to the shore. Wind gushes shake trees and lanterns. Free noodles are offered for lunch. The sea is blue and wide. So is the sky. And a zen nerd is in bliss.













In 2005, a fire ravaged Naksansa and destroyed almost all the centuries-old buildings and pine tree forest. Turned into ashes overnight. As our teacher once said, if you look closely at this life, you'll see no meaning, no reason, and no choice... But, he continued, if you truly attain what this realization is about, you'll get great meaning, great reason, and great choice. So the temple was destroyed. Then, reconstruction started and is continuing.

A zen student's spare time

A student once asked Suzuki Roshi, "What should a zen student do with his spare time?" Suzuki first looked perplexed and repeated the phrase, "spare time?" He then began to smile and repeated again, "spare time", and started laughing uproariously.