amazing day
I went up to the Vairocana International Buddhist Meditation Center in northern Seoul today to talk to them about helping out with teaching the kid's English Dharma school (bowing and readings and such). On the brochure it said the class was today at 3, but I got there at 3 and there were no kids lol So instead of helping out with the class like I had planned, I ended up sitting around, drinking green tea and chatting with 2 Buddhist nuns for 3 hours! Ja Woo is the nun who opened the center and Ja Eun is a nun from Calgary who came here several years ago to teach English and ended up staying here and becoming a nun. Both very cool, very sweet women. We talked a lot about music, travelling, cultural differences between Korea and America, teaching English, and how you never know what the future will bring you, that you should never be afraid to just go with it. Being from Canada, I assumed that Ja Eun knew Loreena McKennitt, and she did! So we were talking about her music for a while, and how inspirational it is, and Ja Woo became intrigued... so I brought out my iPod and had her listen to The Never Ending Road. She told me that when she was a girl, one of her favorite songs had the same name and the same meaning behind it :) So she now wants to go out and buy a copy of An Ancient Muse! lol
They told me about a concert that they hold every 3rd Saturday of the month (this month's was today because last Saturday was the Lotus Lantern Festival) with a group of lay Buddhist singers called the L.M.B. Singers, and that there was a wonderful cellist playing there today as well. I told them that I was a cellist, and now I'm going to be playing at the June concert!!! My first international gig :D They want me to play something and possibly sing something if I'm up to it. So I'm definitely playing Vocalise by Rachmaninov (figured it would be a song that Buddhists would love) and I might possibly sing something, though I'm not sure what. After the concert, Ja Woo gives a Dharma Talk, which Ja Eun said she'll translate for me. I told them that my initials are LMB and they got all excited :)
Ja Eun actually lives up in a hermitage in the mountains outside of Seoul, and she's invited me to come up any time I wanted! She also said that they would love it if I brought my cello with me! I now have her email and can contact her whenever I want to go up; she said it is an easy bus ride up to the village nearby and then, if I have my cello, to call her and she'd come pick me up.
The family who usually teaches the children's Dharma school is leaving for the states for the summer, so I will be helping out with that for the rest of my stay here. Then on Thursdays is meditation instruction in English and apparently I am currently the only one who will be going, so she said she'll just use that time to introduce me to Buddhist practices in general, until others start coming. Apparently I have very good Eastern karma... the position I sat in to drink my tea was excellent and apparently Westerners usually have problems getting comfortable in that position. I told them that I've been doing yoga and meditation for the last 4 years, so it comes fairly natural to me.
I'm really excited about this! I got on the subway today, not really sure what to expect, and I met 2 of the kindest women I've ever known who welcomed me into their world without a second thought :)
They told me about a concert that they hold every 3rd Saturday of the month (this month's was today because last Saturday was the Lotus Lantern Festival) with a group of lay Buddhist singers called the L.M.B. Singers, and that there was a wonderful cellist playing there today as well. I told them that I was a cellist, and now I'm going to be playing at the June concert!!! My first international gig :D They want me to play something and possibly sing something if I'm up to it. So I'm definitely playing Vocalise by Rachmaninov (figured it would be a song that Buddhists would love) and I might possibly sing something, though I'm not sure what. After the concert, Ja Woo gives a Dharma Talk, which Ja Eun said she'll translate for me. I told them that my initials are LMB and they got all excited :)
Ja Eun actually lives up in a hermitage in the mountains outside of Seoul, and she's invited me to come up any time I wanted! She also said that they would love it if I brought my cello with me! I now have her email and can contact her whenever I want to go up; she said it is an easy bus ride up to the village nearby and then, if I have my cello, to call her and she'd come pick me up.
The family who usually teaches the children's Dharma school is leaving for the states for the summer, so I will be helping out with that for the rest of my stay here. Then on Thursdays is meditation instruction in English and apparently I am currently the only one who will be going, so she said she'll just use that time to introduce me to Buddhist practices in general, until others start coming. Apparently I have very good Eastern karma... the position I sat in to drink my tea was excellent and apparently Westerners usually have problems getting comfortable in that position. I told them that I've been doing yoga and meditation for the last 4 years, so it comes fairly natural to me.
I'm really excited about this! I got on the subway today, not really sure what to expect, and I met 2 of the kindest women I've ever known who welcomed me into their world without a second thought :)