Attaining freedom of mind through temple food

Ven. Jeong Kwan poses in her new temple food studio in the hermitage Chunjinam, located at Baekyang Temple in Jangseong County, South Jeolla Province. / Korea Times photos by Kim Ji-soo

By Kim Ji-soo

JANGSEONG, South Jeolla Province — The verdure in this southeastern region is so dense and lush that the sunlight seems unable to penetrate through and lingers atop trees.

Near the Naejangsan National Park is Baekyang Temple, where Ven. Jeong Kwan, who heads its Chunjinam hermitage, is busy taking care of one chore or another.

One of the leading masters of temple food — along with Ven. Seon Jae, Ven. Dae An, and Ven. Jeog Mun of the Jogye Order — she was putting the finishing touches to the hermitage’s temple food studio and experience center, scheduled to open later this month, and she asked this reporter to take photos first. The Chunjinam is beautiful at this time of the year with its main hall the Daewoongjeon, the Samseonggak and the residential and guest quarters within the corner of the national park.

Traditional Korean sauces such as soybean paste, chili pepper paste and soybean sauce are stored in pots.

The Zen Buddhist nun, who converted to Buddhism at a the young age of 17, is regarded as having retained the traditional temple food style favored by the great monks. Recently, she has been sought out by such leading chefs as Eric Ripert, the French chef from Le Bernadin, in New York City, and has recently exhibited temple food in the United States. Even now, foreign visitors in small groups, encouraged by the positive word of mouth, trickle to the hermitage.

With only two other monks in Chunjinam and one believer to assist her in the kitchen, she is as busy as she can be. But this constant busyness is in a way a method for her to practice discipline, and practice Buddhism.

Jeong Kwan then invites this reporter for a simple luncheon, featuring dishes that she and the other residents at Chunjinam eat: vegetable curry and a variety of side dishes, including the delectable pickled leaves of the chinaberry tree, known in Korea as “gajuk.”

Monk Jeong Kwan and two residing bhikkhuni nuns reside here at the hermitage Chunjinam, seen from across a stream.

“The pickled gajuk, that is the most precious but the most basic (of the temple food’s side dishes),” Jeong Kwan said in an interview held with The Korea Times.

The vegetable curry, which is made with a variety of veggie produce, such as carrots, shitake mushrooms, potatoes, pickles, and zucchini, bell peppers, and onion, that is first gently fried in oil and then seasoned with a mix of curry powders .

“First, stir fry the vegetables, starting with the dense ones, for example the carrots firsts, followed by the shitake mushrooms, potatoes, and pickles and zucchini,” she said. For the curry sauce, she uses one-third tumeric, and two-thirds curry powder, starch flour and a bit of homemade soybean sauce. She then mixes the two, and stirs for four minutes or so and before covering the pot with a lid to let it simmer.

This dish, which would serves up to five people, will only take 20 minutes to make. For more flavor, salt can be added after the curry is done. At first, the curry did feel slightly bland, but with each spoonful, it grew nutty and flavorful, making one’s body and mind feeling happy.

Vegetable curry, left, and side dishes prepared by Ven. Jeong Kwan

With each dish she serves, one can feel Jeong Kwan’s passion for temple food and just food in general.

“Food is an instrument for people to exchange feelings. And when people engage in such an exchange, they can feel happy, optimistic, energetic, and full of life,” she said.

Because people can instantly feel something about food, it could serve as a medium or channel for people to open up and exchange energy, she said.

She said she freely shares her food with the foreign visitors as well, whom she sees as having recognized the need to regain the freedom of their minds from the havoc brought about by consuming meat and fast food and meat. “More people are starting to think that a vegetarian diet may help them purify their minds,” she said.

However, she stressed that she is merely a practitioner when it comes to food, not a food expert.

“All monks cook. But I would say that I do not feel tired or anguished when cooking. I want to be with the masses (through food),” she said.

Yet once she talks about seasonal food, words flow like the stream nearby the hermitage. The principles of temple food, according to the Buddhist teachings, are eating at the right time, eating seasonal food, eating proportionately, and avoiding meat. Monk Myojin, one of two resident monksmeditating at the temple, and the Buddhism believer who was learning temple food, listened on closely, hanging on to her every word. Monk Jeong Kwan shares her knowledge about food mainly through her teachings and demonstrations, and not books.

“Temple food is characterized by the personality of the monks, the type of food favored by the great monks, and the combinations of their different styles over the years,” Jeong Kwan said. The food that the monks experienced before entering Buddhist priesthood also mattered.

“For example, monks differ in how they cook the bean sprouts. Or how they make the lettuce pan-cake. Some monks do not use the lettuce stem, saying it’s bitter. And they also differ in how they make the fry batter. Some mix flour with potato powder or buckwheat powder,” she said. “So temple food, while it does not follow a mathematic formula, is singular in that way,” she said. “It is changes, varies ... just like our minds,” she said. “We laugh, we get angry ...”

When she first entered Buddhist nunhood, food was scarce, and people had to scour the mountains or fields for it.

“I first entered the Dongwha Temple’s Yangjinam hermitage in Daegu. It was a big temple that had visiting monks, and we (aspiring monks) had a chance to show off our food-related skills,” she said. Having grown up on a farm (she was born in 1956 in Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province), she had no trouble spotting wild edible greens or mushrooms — unlike those who came from the city.

“The great monks told me I was good, so I thought I was good and I kept at it,” said Monk Jeong Kwan. Over the years, she has learned to cook according to seasons. In the spring, she made steamed dish of a variety of wild green edibles, such as bracken fern and chinaberry tree leaves, to unify their flavors.

In the summer, she made curled mallow porridge using curled mallow, fermented soybean paste, chili pepper paste and hand-torn dough flakes. In summer, she also made potato pancakes and a clear soup with hand-torn flakes made from potato. In the fall and winter, she made soups, pancakes and other dishes using Chinese lettuce and on special occasions, sweet-and-sour shitake- mushrooms.

But why spread Buddhist teachings through food in particular? The monk said that in 1977, Ven. Myoeom in 1977 at Bongyeong Temple in Suwon advised her and fellow practicing monks to practice “specialized” Buddhism.

“She told us monks should do one thing that they do well, whether it be Zen meditation, propagating, or teaching, or others,” she said.

“It is just like the Buddhist teaching in ‘Heart Sutra,’ that one path will lead to 10 paths. When we prepare food, we should know our state of mind. Regardless of whether you’re a practitioner or not, from the West or from the East, one should know oneself, and then with food, you give your best effort, every second, every minute,” she said.

And it is here at Chunjinam and Baekyang Temple that Jeong Kwan hopes to regularly share her accumulated knowledge and experience with the larger public.

As soon as the third week of May, the hermitage will open for weekly classes on Friday’s at 2 p.m. and on Saturday’s at 10 a.m.

The hermitage will also be open for a one-night, two-day stays, where domestic and overseas visitors can make and eat food together and meditate on how the food affects their bodies.

“When these classes grow, I hope to form a supportive community here where we can sell our food, such as pickled vegetables and soybean paste,” she said. “It would create jobs in the community; it would be creating good for all,” she said.