Buddhists Emerge from Winter Seclusion

February 23, 2005

Source: The Korea Times

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200502/kt2005022318062611690.htm

On February 23, 2005 The Korea Times reported, "No newspaper, no television and no e-mail. Any form of communications with the outside world was strictly banned. Speaking was discouraged or, in some cases, prohibited. Reading of any kind, including letters, was forbidden. Ending yesterday, many monks had isolated themselves at Kumdangsonwon Monastery in Hadong for three months, each seeking the answer to a single question given by a teacher. Far from secular distractions, each spent the winter contemplating such questions as 'What is nothingness?' 'Where do I come from?' and, perhaps the most elusive of all, 'What is it?' Kumdangson Monastery is an annex of Ssangyesa Temple, one of the nation's largest. It is one of 60 monasteries and 31 nunneries belonging to the nation's Chogye Order of Korean Buddhism taking part in the ascetic winter retreat, or 'Tongango.'"