Go Ask The Mountain

Go Ask the Mountain

It’s just a simple three-kilometer hike, nothing of great proportions. I do it almost daily, well, really nightly. It is a mountain, like but not like every other mountain in Korea, with one bug except. It is the mountain I will miss when I leave here. Tang San is my best friend in Korea.

Tonight while climbing up the side by the Golden Buddha of the Temple I sit at on occasion, it occurred to me I would leave this mountain, soon. I was sad for a moment and then felt my heart twitch with joy. I have lived and learned on this mountain. I meditate every morning in my room but Tang San is where I ask the questions that I need and often do not want the answers. Tonight the question was simple while slowly stepping on the bed of fallen pine needles with the refl3tio of the almost full moon shining a light for me over the branches and stumps. “What do I need to learn to tonight about myself, us or how I can be of better service or become of better man?” A simple question.

What struck me as I came to one of the side paths which I took a left around the family trying to coax their little dog with a red light blinking around its neck is this; why do I always ask to be a better man? Why not a better person?

I passed the dog and headed toward the bench I spent Saturday afternoon in the slight drizzle on Buddha’s Birthday sitting and reflecting. It one of my favorite spots on the mountain. Yesterday late afternoon I had an energizing experience of standing Qi Gong in front of the bench while sensing the curious Koreans passing by looking at the strange Foreigner. Strange indeed but not because I was standing and meditating. Tonight I kept walking. I wanted to stay focused and present. There is something here I need to learn.

Then another question slid into my consciousness. Why do I get irritated when women speak of themselves as something separate and, therefore, special and seem totally fine with making that distinction myself? Hummm good question. Maybe someday I will have the answer. I was not able to let go of a nagging feeling in my belly. It was initially stirred yesterday afternoon during a Skype session with a friend discussing our departures from Korea. What have I done here? How is it that a mountain in a city of a half million people is my best friend? Maybe my only close friend? How did I spend this much time here and really only make a few semi-strong relationships and they were predominantly with Koreans? Why have I avoided non-Koreans with such commitment?

Well, I have done some things! I have done the rough drafts of a novel, a book of essays and memoirs and the foundation of a cultural and social book about Korea and Koreans. That is something. And I learned about non-verbal communication, especially energetic exchanges between people. I leaned that sex is not a given. Good friendships can be formed with folks I have never seen or heard online. That writing is important to me, no, essential at this point in my life. That I could fly 8,000 miles but still miss my dead family members. I still don’t have a clue about much, not a surprise. That going months between ANY physical contact with humans above grade six is challenging, very challenging. Koreans do not share physical affection with other that are not family except for women who walk with their hands or arms wrapped around each other as a matter of course. Hugging matters, even to a semi-cold distant man like myself.

Tang San is my friend. It is hard for me to visualize my experience here in Korea without my time on this mountain. Like all good friends, Tang San lets me come to my own conclusions but rarely leaves me without something new to chew on. Tonight, while reaching the base of the mountain and walking down the staircase in front of the Church with large red cross in the sky and the larger painting of Jesus n front of the building I realized where I am headed next has many mountains. They are larger and dry with little else but rock. Deserts are like that. This particular desert is without sand, just rocks, mountains and space. I will try to make friends with those mountains like I have been fortunate enough to with this one. And hopefully that will not give me the answers without forcing me to search and claw a bit first too. Tonight I was thinking of Gurdjieff while walking- a Teacher, a model and haunting face with intense expressions of locked eyes, forceful cheeks and a forehead that tells stories of many miles. I will walk some of those same miles soon enough.