Jimjilbang

Jimjilbang

Lying on my back I feel the salt crystal rocks settle below me. It is like being on the beach, the way sand will embrace your body no matter what your body is like. I feel the bottom of my back scream with elation at the support that it desperately desires being answered. My hand are sweating, I pick up a crystal or two and roll them around between my thumb and fingers slowly. It brings me back to the beach again. And why not? It I shot in here, real hot. Maybe hooter than any beach I ever laid my body on. Dry heat. The kind that forces all unwanted or unneeded thoughts and toxins out of the body. I can feel every body open, free to breath. I breath, deeply. I ask for Reiki to flow through my body and wait for it to begin its flow, or maybe it was already flowing and I was just now acknowledging it. Breath, slowly and full. I allow the salt air to fill my lungs and belly. Cleaning. I feel the cleansing inside and I and people like me need plenty of cleansing. It could be a full time job. In fact, there was a time it was my full-time job. But these days I have an external full-time job so the need for cleanser is greater, much greater. I enjoy the sensation of the sweat dripping down the sides of my face and it is proof of the cleansing. Evidence. I tend to make thing up in my head so evidence it always helpful. The cleansing continues. There is a handful of other sin the slat crystal room, all enjoying their own version of the same process. We are together but doing it singularly, but I am conscious of their presence, of community. Salt, heat and sweat go way back, back before we had words like salt, heat and sweat. I like experiencing this kind of community in silence.

Once when participating in a retreat at the Abbey Gethsemane where Thomas Merton lived and wrote, I remember reading a little folded white standing card:
“silence is spoken here”. Is there a greater way to experience community than in silence?

Time is bending and I get up after about twenty minutes or maybe three or fifty, and make my way out. My face is red; I can feel its redness. It is clean; I can feel its cleanness. My body is soft, I can feel its comfort as my arms dangle as I open the door and leave. I am brought back to the fact that I am in a public place with hundreds of people at the local Jimjilbang, a Korean bathhouse. I love these places! Jimjilbang and bowing are my two favorite aspects of Korean life. I have been to a couple of Jimjilbang and each time my experience has risen above the previous. I feel at home here dripping with sweat amongst people I do not know and cannot orally communicate with. There are families, couples and friends resting, talking, reading and sleeping in the large main room. It is warm in here but not like the Korean versions of a sauna. The salt crystal rock rooms are one of my favorites. They are always my first stop. If for no other reason, I stop there first to seat ad to mold my body to the crystals and rest till I separate myself from the me that is not me that I walk around pretending to be all day, every day. I am simple here, very simple. Heat, sweat, silence, breath and water.

While walking around the main area to allow my body to regulate a little, I decide it is time to venture to my other favorite room. I do not actually know what it is called. It is a room shaped like a dome with part of the walls pine, which I live the smell of, and part id bamboo think. We lie on the floor or lean against wooden plank to prop yourself against the wall. If lying down, we lie on a sack made of canvas or burlap or something like that. It is comfortable but not as much as the crystals nestled in the back in butt. I start on my back for a short period. This room is always significantly hotter, much like the heat of a cranked up sweat lodge in the middle of summer. A specific one comes to mind near Charlottesville, Virginia, USA this past summer where I had an incredibly forceful experience with a bunch of recent college graduates I just met and camped, ate, sweat and did Reiki together. Sweat lodges are typically naked, Jimjilbang every body is given cotton shorts and t-shorts that are strong and comfortable. Five minutes later I sit up, legs crossed and do some basic meditation leaning against the wooden plank. I notice others are seated differently but I continue being different because I an doing what I need to be doing for right now. I breathe heavy an deep. I pray for those in the room with me and thank them for being here. I feel our connection with my eyes closed and glasses hanging for the collar of my shirt. I sweat more and more. Peace. Love. Sharing. Two young ladies enter together. There is only one wooden plank to lean against which is directly to my left. They sit, one on the plan and one in front of her sitting crossed legged. It tales a minute for me to respond but I motion for her to take my spot and I slide over slowly to an open space against the wall. I am again reminded of that sweat in Virginia. I decide in need to write stefin and graham and tell them I miss them, love them and am grateful our paths crossed for a short but profound four days. Love can do that to us, at least me. More softness while totally grounded and present. I soak it in and feel my breathing start tot strain from the heat. No reason to stay to stroke my ego. I exit through the door that looks just like and oven door from the outside. The water fountain is right next to the door outside in the main room again. I allow a woman with her head wrapped in a towel go ahead of me, she is sweating profusely and looks as if she needs it more than me. She does not smile. I drink my water and walk towards door number three, no numbers do not label them. They have writing outside in Hangeul, which I cannot understand, yet.

It is the room that I think is referred to as the “kiln”. It is not as hot as the other but I have been to another Jimjilbang that has three:”kilns” with varying degrees of heat. I do not remember much about the room except it is a semi-dome with little sacks full of herbs hanging above your head. The strength of the herbs that enters my nose and throat make me a tad dizzy but still grounded. I stay just a few minutes, done with heat for tonight. I leave and reflect on what to do next; stay and reads in the main room, spend a few minutes in the ice room, shower, leave for home, take a nap or head to the gender-segregated Korean communal hot bathtubs. I decide to brave it and go to the ice room. I enter the double sliding glass door and see this one is not like some of the others that have more than a foot of ice on the walls and ceiling. It is just cold, real cold for bare feet and shorts. It feels like such a relief and balance from the heat. A little girl comes in to sit next to “the foreigner”. She smiles sweetly and somehow lets me know she likes me being there. I try to do the same for her. Our exchange is complete in two minutes and she leaves to join her little brother outside to watch “the foreigner”. When cooled enough, I leave and head down towards the men’s area still not sure what is next of the list above.

I go for it and join the naked Korean men and boys in the baths. They are all smooth-skinned and bare of nay body hair except their head and pubic. I am a bear. I have more hair the city of Cheonan. I slide into the mini pool and observe a young boy startled as he looks at me. I am self-conscious for a brief moment but choose to stay present on my experience. It is nice but not thrilling for me right now. I get out and enter the room that is similar to a steam room with little cement mounted “stools” to sit on. There is one man in there already completely absorbed in his experience. I do the same. A few minutes and done. Ready for a shower and to walk home. This all costed the equivalent of $8.00. I walk home totally satisfied, renewed and breathing in the winter night air. It is near midnight on Saturday night and I am happy. I feel alive and part of the world. I exist and I count. This is why I go to the Jimjilbang. Maybe I will sleep there next time. And there will be a next time, and another after that.