Guryong Village in the Foothil
24. 미륵산 자락 구룡마을
24. Guryong Village in the Foothills of Mireuksan Mountain
Yu Hui JungI unlocked the firmly fastened bolt and looked at the stars in the dawn sky. Straightening my posture and gathering my breath, I sounded the wooden bell in early morning prayer. From the distance, I heard the sound of pattering feet.
Crossing the grass, five white puppies came trotting up. As I continued offering my silent declaration, they hovered around my legs—rubbing against them, licking them, and tugging at my shoelaces. Only after I finished my prayers did I shoo the puppies back into their pen, but I didn’t mind the dirty pawprints on my pant legs.
As soon as I finished my seated meditation, I vacuumed up the dust that had gathered overnight, hoisting my rump high as I ran a rag over the floor. Going into Ven. Chwasan’s shower stall, I saw that the floor was clean, without a single drop of water, nothing left for me to attend to.
Hanging by the bedroom windowsill were socks that had been hand-washed and straightened out. Now it was time to go outside to sweep and collect dog droppings from around the temple grounds.
As activity in the kitchen picked up, I selected a few well-dried logs from the firewood pile to stoke the fire in the oven and cook some sweet potatoes and yams. Only then did the elders arrive with their acolytes and everyone could begin their breakfast.
Ven. Chwasan put down his utensils and went to quickly brush his teeth before heading out to the garden to pull weeds. When the time came for him to take a liquid herbal medicine, I went to the kitchen to take it out from the refrigerator to heat it before serving it to him.
I was told to take over supporting a ladder. Ven. Chwasan headed up the tree with his pruning shears and a saw, clearing away branches so that the sun and wind could pass through. Stepping back, I saw that the shape of the tree appeared excellent.
Even as he trimmed the branches, he never lost his eye for the whole. I busily raked up the clippings and trucked them to a pile far away. Later, a visitor came to see Ven. Chwasan, and I took the opportunity to lie down and take a nap. A cat silently climbed onto my belly, laid its body against me, and purred.
A nursery for dawn redwoods was located on the other side of the fence from the Yongeun Center. Where a rice paddy had once been, Ven. Chwasan had dug out waterways in the shape of a pound symbol, laying down intertwined bamboo stalks so the water would flow well and then covering them up with dirt.
He had also spread fertilizer and dug furrows, making it resemble a regular field. The saplings were planted on the evenly spread ridges, with sprinkler hoses placed in between. No plastic sheets were used; he weeded regularly with a hoe and brush cutter under the roasting sun. At over 70 years old, Ven. Chwasan carefully tended to all of it, willingly taking on the grueling work.
I boiled strawberries to make jam in an iron pot hung over the brazier. I boiled soybeans to make fermented lumps known as meju that I would hang from braided twine. I peeled the sweet persimmons that arrived as offerings, hanging them up in strands in the pavilion to dry, and prepared the firewood acquired from pruning in the neighboring orchard.
When he went out for his walks, Ven. Chwasan would always take a bag with him to pick up trash in the village. All this work outside continued until the sun had set. Even then, I could not rest until Ven. Chwasan was asleep.
