This is the second instalment of a three-part account of the temple stay I did at Baeknyunsa the week before last. For the first instalment, click here. Day 2 [Sometime in the late evening] I was outside staring at the stars just now and my eyes started playing tricks on me. I was thinking about the Milky Way and the time I saw seven shooting stars in one night when I started to fancy seeing the auras of trees and streaks of light behind stars and clouds made of faintly glittering dust between them. So I blinked and got up from my position squatting in the courtyard and walked to…

On the morning of Sunday 6 June, I took a train from Seoul Station to Ulsan, located in the south of the country, where I stayed at Baeknyunsa temple (백련사) for two nights. In the midst of monks and mountains I found unexplored territories of headspace and time to think and write and draw. Below is the first part of an account of my stay, pieced together from journal entries and observations I made at the time. Day 1 10:10 am – What wonderful places train stations are! A sense of new beginnings, of adventure, of possibility is suffused in the very air, taking form perversely in the mundane benches…