I'm sitting at the temple, 죽림정사, alone. I'm by the altar where you have the best view of the valley, looking across to 지리산 (Jiri Mountain). You can faintly make out the echoes of the cars zipping along the highway in the valley below. Otherwise, the chorus of insects and birds in the fading light is more clear. No bells, gongs, wooden fish gourds, or singing bowls tonight though. Tonight the only sounds in the temple are the sounds of forest on the mountainside, the society in the valley, and the clinking of my spoon against the bowl in the place where those two places touch.
It’s not much of a sunset, but little hues of pink are caught in the clouds, like there was an underpainting of cherry blossom petals, and the grey and white pigment was layered on top of it. The lanterns are already lit, one on each side of the altar. Some of the lights in the valley are already twinkling. On a day like this, when the fog hasn't completely engulfed the temple, and the summer rains have taken a brief respite, you can see all the way to the other ridgelines, and they adopt the same blue hue as the mountains that I know at home. I somehow always find myself back in the mountains, by a river, surrounded with the kindest people I can imagine. Maybe it's just that mountain people are kind. Maybe that's why I always come back. The whole world over, it’s the mountains calling out for me, and I reverently obey.
The mountains beckoned for me, and I returned to 구례 County. I walk beneath the groves of 부리수 (Bodhi) trees from which I've picked a thousand seeds. These are holy trees, the heart shaped leaves a silver white underneath, with golden and pearl white flowers in late spring, the tree alive with a thousand insects after their pollen. In the rainy season now, they ring with the song of cicadas and frogs. Beneath their branches the 강아지풀 (Dog-tail grass) grows tall, and innumerable crickets and grasshoppers flit back and forth. I ponder what all these maples, which patiently await their moment to display their own admirable talents, will look like in autumn. I've seen the spring, when I was here four years ago, and now I see the deep summer and the 장마 (rain season). Yet I have not had the chance to observe the red and orange descend the mountain slopes in fall, nor the icy white winters here. I hope those days will come when I can witness it, to see this place and its beauty, all times of the year, all pieces and parts in of the cycle of time.
I ate 미역국 (seaweed soup) alone, but upon descending down the stone steps to where my humble lodging is, 은행 the temple dog joins me, and I am no longer alone. Her cheery wags and exited dance make me smile, her joy at the sight of me is infectious. She comes to sit with me on the wooden porch, and together we watch the bats emerge in the dusk. The peace of this place- it pours out over you like rushing mountain rivers. Working and living here, it re-centers your soul. It is much like working with one’s hands on the land, and pausing to look out to the mountain view and behold the beauty of a place where so many generations have toiled as you do. Here, I find the contentment of understanding my place in a small, nearly forgotten part of the world, before wiping my brow and getting back to the task at hand.
love and miss you.