You may notice quite a few homeless people around Seoul Station. A lot of visitors ask me, “Why are there so many homeless people here?” One of the biggest reasons goes back to 1997, during the Asian Financial Crisis. In Korea, we usually call it the IMF Crisis . A lot of companies went bankrupt, unemployment rose very quickly, and many people suddenly lost their jobs and income. Some people eventually lost their homes as well. And many of them came to Seoul Station . Why here? Because this was one of the main places to find day labor and temporary jobs , and it was also the main railway station if they wanted to go back to their hometowns. But some had no money left and nowhere else to go, so they stayed around the station. That is one reason Seoul Station became one of the main gathering places for homeless people after the 1997 crisis. Then another thing happened. Once many homeless people were here, churches, charities, NGOs, and the government started providing help here. Th...
사찰음식 /오신채
In Buddhist temple food, monks traditionally avoid five pungent vegetables: garlic, green onion, chives, wild chive, and heunggeo. Heunggeo is a strongly scented plant that is hardly used or cultivated in Korea today.
These five ingredients are called osinchae, literally meaning “the five pungent vegetables.”
Chemically, many of them contain strong sulfur compounds that create their sharp smell and taste. Garlic, for example, produces allicin, which gives it that strong, spicy aroma.
So why do Buddhist monks avoid them?
Traditionally, Buddhism teaches that eating these vegetables raw can stimulate anger, while eating them cooked can stimulate desire and the appetite. The basic idea is that strong flavors stimulate the senses.
For Buddhist monks, controlling desire and keeping the mind calm are important parts of meditation and spiritual practice. If food strongly excites the senses, your attention can shift from the mind back to the body.
That is why Buddhist temple food is not mainly about giving pleasure to the tongue. Food is traditionally seen more like medicine that supports the body so you can continue your practice.
This philosophy also appears in baru gongyang, the traditional Buddhist monastic meal. Monks eat from a set of bowls and try not to waste even a single grain of rice.
Why? Because every meal represents many things: the work of the people who produced the food, what nature provided, and the simple fact that you have food in front of you. It teaches gratitude, self-control, and respect for the labor and nature behind every meal.
So Korean temple food is not just vegetarian food. It is really part of Buddhist practice — a way of reducing desire, practicing self-control, and learning gratitude through something we do every day: eating.