Our
family’s car drove up to middle of Baegunsan Mountain in Gwangyang to visit two
women monks living there at their small Buddhist temple. Those two monks are my
mom’s one of the closest friends after my mom had interviewed them for her magazine
article. Surrounded by the range of mountains and gorges looking like folding
screens were spread widely, there was one little temple that we would visit.
That temple was so tiny so that it almost looked like a dot in the green
canvas.
We
finally reached to their temple, and those two monks greeted us from the narrow
drive way. Wearing grey and modest-looking clothing covering almost entire skin
and having no hair, two women monks smiled gently and kindly at me and my
family. They folded their hands together and bowed to us for welcoming. In the
serene and motionless temple, I bowed to golden Buddha statue standing in front
of me. After bowing down three times, I was allowed to get up and look around
the temple. This place was made of traditional Korean style of architecture that
can be seen as houses built from old dynasty. As I approached near to the
kitchen, I could smell warm white rice along with hot August breeze. I was
suddenly awakened completely because of mixture of fragrant of colorful burning
candles that praises Buddha and strong smell of soy paste. My family and I
helped out two monks for cooking lunch. I cut tofu into small pieces and
mingled them with shredded red and green peppers. The strands of oyster
mushrooms swirl into hearty soup of soy bean paste. After helping them for five
minutes, they asked us to just sit down on the floor and wait for foods. For
another ten minute of waiting for food, it was like the worst torture that I
had in my life because the smell and sound of making foods made my mouth
watered.
The platters started to come out from the kitchen. On the
table after setting up all plates and a pot with food, we started to dig our
chopsticks and spoons into food. These foods were all vegetarian foods since
monks are the strict vegetarians, and they are not even allowed to eat fish and
eggs according to their laws of Buddha. I thought the foods would taste dull
and unflavored because there is no meat or condiments that smeared onto each
food. However, it was opposite of that as soon as I had the first bite. These
foods have adequate amount of seasonings to awake my taste buds joyfully. The
color of all these foods were contrasting together: translucent green lotus
root to wrap rice with purple eggplants or mushrooms, red kimchi that monks
made with town people in last fall, hot soy bean paste soup with grated
garlics, white and soft tofu, peppers, and mushrooms, and yellow ginger with
little bit of salted green beans. These were side dishes for this whole meal.
When I put the spicy soup, the hot liquid quickly came down and warmed my
stomach. Every food went into my mouth was amazingly soft, crunchy, and fresh. I’ve
never thought that I would be satisfied with solely vegetarian foods since I
was so used to the cities’ aggressive and overly flavored with excessive
condiments of texture and flavor of foods. I could see and taste more lively
ingredients in these dishes because of these ingredients were free from culture
of continuous adding more and more condiments to dishes.
My
family and I were amazed by those wonderful dishes and asked the monks for tips
for cooking. And then they told us that more you add, it is showing more greed
of humans, and it will not contain essence of truth taste of food. They
continued, “Foods loaded with greasiness, non-nutrient junk ingredients, and
overly fried and cooked make people unhealthy and unhappy since these foods
control their pure minds to be corrupted souls.”
I
learnt the lesson that day. It was my first food to change my view of
perceiving world of consuming food. It changed my life to be less consumptive
and suggested me that vegetarian foods can be more delicious than omnivore’s
style of food. I realized that I was not privileged for being omnivore to taste
every kind of food without feeling guilt or thankful to ingredients that
compose my body and soul. The monks told us this, “Eating should be the act of
not only fattening our bodies but also fattening our soul.”
This
was my first time thinking that I should be thankful to the lives that
sacrificed for my foods, sunlight, air, water, and earth, all the things on this
earth. I criticized my own food habit: being hungry and seeking for only
delicious and large amount for food without throwing out my greed.
I
know the answer. Eat moderately and be humble to the living things. What a
blissful joy that I haven’t known for seventeen years!
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