A Farewell Dishwashing

53. 이별 설거지

53. A Farewell Dishwashing

Yu Hui Jung

In summer 2008, when I first unpacked my bags at Mandeoksan Mountain, I was supposed to stay for one month. I was not even a Won-Buddhist at the time. Scrawny, pale, and sharp, I was embraced wordlessly by the Won-Buddhist ministers.

There was no need for their guest to share his first name; I became known as “Baek-gun,” or “young Mr. Baek.” There was another Buddhist layman who, slightly older than me, shared my name and was referred to as “Mr. Baek.”

Mr. Baek told me that while he was studying for a PhD in Germany, he suddenly became aware that the pinnacle of sociology was something that would make sociology itself collapse. On that day, he let go of everything and boarded an airplane to Korea.

He moved into a red clay dwelling in Junggil Village just below Mandeoksan Mountain, practicing Sŏn meditation before finally joining the “merit-building office” at the Mandeoksan Mountain training center, where he performed prayer for 100 days.

He would occasionally instruct me in seated meditation. He suggested two lotus positions to me: the “good fortune posture,” in which the left foot is first placed over the right thigh and the right foot is placed over the left thigh, and then the reverse of it, the “demon-banishing posture.”

He stressed that this would not only ensure a proper sitting posture with a straight head and back, but also be very well-suited to the Sŏn dharma of resting in the elixir field. Even if it was painful at first, he insisted that I persist with it dedicatedly.

Speaking with Rev. Nongtawon, he arranged time for me to work on cultivation rather than being bound solely to activities around the temple grounds. As a result, I was able to immerse myself in meditation daily at the Choseonji prayer site.

He would be there, in a samadhi state, along the path to and from the site, and when my mind opened and achieved tranquility, the hidden birds and butterflies of the forest would come out to frolic and the roe deer would gambol about freely, having forgotten that there was anyone nearby.

One evening sometime later, he did not leave after dinner as readily as he had on other days. Instead, he remained silent, sitting alone in his chair. After everyone had finished eating, I went out to fulfill my responsibilities: emptying the pots of food scraps, giving them a rough rinse, and putting them away.

After I’d finished, he stood up and approached me. Then he squirted detergent onto a sponge and carefully washed the pots, placing them upside down to drain properly. After that, he walked away.

The following morning, he simply left. I heard that he went to Boriam Hermitage in Namhae. Practitioners always end up going on their way after staying somewhere for a time. The sadness that I felt to see him leaving was my own doing, something that resulted from the affection for him that I had held.

The empty room where he had stayed, the clean pots used for food scraps, the meditation positions ingrained in my body, and the peaceful scenes of the two of us together—these would remain as memories, moments from the distant past that are now part of me today.

The lives of all practitioners are connected, from Mandeoksan Mountain to Guryeong Village by Mireuksan Mountain and from Iksan to Philadelphia, New York, and Jirisan Mountain. And so it will be in the future. As our bodies journey through life, our affinities remain strong, blossoming into grace.

With each of those moments, we remain connected with feelings of love for one another even when our bodies are in different places. We will at some point come to understand the truth—how each of us comes to resemble the true self, wherever we happen to be.

When he came, he came with a white cloud

When he left, he left with the bright moon

The master who comes and goes

ultimately exists somewhere.

—Hyujeong