[Buddha-l] Perhaps the Buddhists in Korea have

[Michael J. Wilson]

Michael J. Wilson wrote:

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> A big hurdle is studying the language.  You might want to take a course in motor mechanics first.
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From: Christopher Fynn <cfynn at gmx.net>
What is the relationship between Korean language and motor mechanics ???



Chris

Korean language is very difficult to learn.  I started studying it after spending a couple of months studying Tibetan - of which you are probably fluent right?  Was it you I had an email conversation with back in the 1990's about putting Ethiopian script into Latex, then making webpages?   Well, actually I found learning Hangul (Korean alphabet) a lot easier than Tibetan and at first learning elementary Korean speech was much easier than I could ever do with Tibetan.  Maybe it helped that no one where I lived in Korea spoke English so I was forced to hearing, listening and speaking Korean all the time.  Korean buddhist chanting reminds me of motor mechanics only because the sutras (kyong) are written in a square nuts and bolts letter style and order, so while accompanied by the rhythmic beating of the muktak, one ends up in a sense of being propelled along in a mechanical fashion, or face the consequences of slipping under the gears and being ground up
 into kimchi.  The entire society moves at a fast paced rhythm as well - and that afternoon or one day meditation retreat you went on in a mountain temple in Korea has just lulled you into the illusory belief that one can stop the machine by sheer dint of sitting still.  Korean language generally is a fantastic language to study, and is bragged as a phonetically perfect language invented by a Korean King Sejong and his team of scholars in the 15th c.  If one reads Korean poetry, Hangul substitutes for Hanmun (kangi) and a few Hangul words create wonderful images.  Guess my motor mechnics analogy is bad.  One favourite Lonely Planet guide to Korea advice I still love is "riding a bicycle in Seoul is guaranteed instant death!"

Michael