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Wednesday, Janua y 28, 2009 -The Michigan Daily

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ABOUT CAMPUS

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN OQUIST

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"It is clear that the boy,
I remember the first at the age of three, knows
thought I had was,'Oh, what to do with a lighter
crap, I just died.'" and cigarette."


E

I ff 'f t i E :'..

Students of Zen
The joys and challenges of
living in Ann Arbor's Zen
Buddhist Temple
It's about 7 a.m. on a Wednes-
day morning at the Zen Buddhist
Temple on Packard Street. LSA
junior Joslyn DeVinney is demon-
strating how to do a prostration in
the sonbang, or meditation room.
She slides a mat onto the floor in
front of an altar, kneels down,
bends over until her head is almost
touching the floor and sits back up,
her elbows bent and her hands in
a praying position in front of her
face. Every morning.- except for
Wednesdays, when the residents of
the temple hold a group meeting -
she does 108 of these.
"You don't have to do it with a
mat, but if you don't, your knees are
going to kill you," DeVinney said.
"But 108 - it's a good workout."
DeVinney, one of the temple's
seven live-in members, isn't who
you'd expect to find in a Buddhist
temple. Or rather, the temple isn't
the kind of place you'd expect to
be a student residency. But several
of the residents are like DeVinney:
non-Buddhist students who were
drawn to the tutelage of Reverend
Haju Sunim, the temple's resident
priest.
"I came to the meeting, talked to
the other residents and I got a good
vibe," she said..
Consisting of a modest house,
sangha hall and garden surrounded
by an imposing wall, the temple is
not a typical college residence, nor
does it look like a typical temple.
Sunim said that before it was
converted into a temple in 1981,
the house was at separate times a
doctor's office, a bordello and a fra-
ternity.
While the temple is far from

the cinematic imagining of Bud-
dhist monastic life -there's no
monument on the mountain and
no thousand steps to climb for the
daily water -DeVinney endured
an extreme lifestyle change after
moving in last September.
"It was difficult," she said. "It's
counter-student lifestyle."
The daily regiment is enough
to make any undergrad shudder.
Every morning, except for Sat-
urdays, residents wake up at 5:30
a.m., stretch and practice yoga
for a half-hour and do the afore-
mentioned 108 prostrations - all
before breakfast. Then there are
the smaller but equally important
rituals they must do throughout
the day, whether it's making the
traditional breakfast of grains,
vegetables and yogurt, bowing
when entering or leaving certain
rooms like the sonbang, or saying
prayers before meals.
"Initially, there was a lot of con-
fusion," said Daniel, a graduate stu-
dent who preferred not to give his
last name because of the nature of
his work at the University. "There's
lots of rituals and I was afraid to do
the wrong thing."
Like DeVinney, Daniel, who
considers himself "a Jew who's
interested in Buddhism," made the
decision to move into the temple
primarily out of convenience.
"I was moving from Kansas and
I was looking for a place to live," he
said. "I had been exposed to medi-
tation and had traveled through
Southeast Asia. I showed up for
a Sunday service, and came back
again and it turned out there was
an opening ... so I took the leap."
BothDaniel and DeVinneynoted
the soothing, welcoming atmo-
sphere of the temple as one of the
best reasons for livingthere.
"I look forward to coming back
here," Daniel said. "There's a real

C.

TALKING
POINTS
Three things you can talk about this week:
1. Contaminated peanut butter on campus
2. Violence on the hockey rink
3. John Updike
And three things you can't:
1. The Jonas Brothers in the White House
2. SarahPAC
3, "The Curious Case
of Benjamin Button"

- DAVE KREEB, a 30-year-old man from
Pasco County, Fla., on being hit by the side
mirror of a semi truck on the shoulder of a
highway. Kreeb had pulled over to tend to an
injured deer that was on the side of the road.
Kreeb walked away with minor injuries.

- JONATHAN REES, a prosecutor in Britain, argu-
ing that 24-year-old Kelly Marie Pocock should be
sentenced for cruelty to a child under 16 for letting
her child smoke. The boy was filmed smoking in a
cell-phone video that was given to a social services
agency. Pocock was present during the filming.

"I tried to wake her up every day. I wanted to talk to her."
- SAM SACO, co-owner of Romulus Liquor in Michigan, quoting an 8-year-old boy who came into
his store and tried to purchase food with his mother's expired credit card. His mom had been dead
for more than a week, and the boy had been living alone, subsisting on dried rice, butter and flour.

peacefulness to this place. It has
this really profoundly calming
effect."
The residents come from diverse
backgrounds, ranging from a mid-
dle-aged auto industry worker to
an ordained priest, but there's a
unifying philosophy that creates a
positive community.
"It's a refuge in away," DeVinney
said. "The people who come here
are on the same page. We're look-
ing for real connections with peo-
ple. It's been very helpful to have
this kind of support as I'm navigat-
ing my way through the world."
Each daily routine in the temple
has served as a learning experi-
ence, although some, like the early
morning shoveling of snow - a

task signaled by the ringing of a
bell - seem physically grueling
before spiritual.
"I'm happy and sad when I hear
the bell," Daniel said, referring to
both the hardship and bondingthat
come with waking up early to labor
alongside his housemates. "Even
when we shovel, it's an opportu-
nity to practice mindfulness."
Chad Johnson, a student at
Shimer College in Chicago who
commutes, agreed that a mixture
of joy and apprehension are a part
of adjusting to the temple lifestyle.
"I'm enjoying (the experience),
but I'm exhausted right now,"
Johnson said.
But despite the difficulties of liv-
ing there, the temple has had pro-

ILLUSTRATION BY LAURA GARAVOGLIA
foundly positive long-term effects
on the residents.
"It's having this slow, subtle
effect on me, particularly in my
work," Daniel said. "It's just been
improving the quality of my life."
DeVinney originally moved
into the temple because she felt
she wasn't ready to spend a year
abroad in France. But she said that
living in the temple, with all its cul-
tural differences, has turned out to
be "kind of like studying abroad"
itself.
"I'm definitely more mindful,"
she said. "I might get caught up in
school issues ... but being here, it's
just kind of like,'Stop. It's going to
be OK."'
-BRANDON CONRADIS

YOUTUBE
VIDEO OF
THE WEEK
A musical in the mall
If the cast of "High School Musi-
cal" ever decided to join forces with
a comedy troupe, the result might
be something like this - minus the
teeny hboppers hyperventilating at
the sight of Zac Efron.
A production from the group
ImprovEverywhere, titled "Food
Court Musical," the video opens with
a screen of text declaring the group's
mission "to create a spontaneous
musical out of nowhere." The group
is about to test its mettle in the mall
food court.
The group's act begins when an
employee at an eatery spills a glass
of lemonade on the counter. Instead
of cleaning it up, she breaks out in
song, singing "there's ice and lemons
everywhere, and I've got to clean it
up!" Dressed in a yellow, red, white
and blue uniform (including hat),
she laments the fact that she only has
three napkins. Soon enough, a dozen
people are united in song, belting out
their plea for more napkins.
The best part of this video is with-
out adoubt the reactions ofthe people
sitting at the tables in the food court.
They are perplexed and taken aback,
embarrassed and indignant. They
roll their eyes and stare in disbelief at
the absurdity of this spectacle.
Perhaps the only thing that could
make this more unbelievable is a Zac
Efron guest appearance.
-BRIAN TENGEL
See this and other
YouTube videos of the week at
youtube.com/user/michigandaily

BY THE NUMBERS

Number of students who applied to Harvard this year
Number of students who applied last year
Number of spots in the freshman class

THEME PARTY SUGGESTION
Chinese New Year Party - Whether you knew
it or not, Monday marked the start of the Chinese
New Year. The Year of the Ox has officially begun,
and this calls for celebration. Of course, Chinese
astrologers are saying that prospects for the Year of
Ox look dismal. But that's even more of a reason to
distract yourself with fireworks and dim sum.
Throwing this party? Let us know. TheStatement@umich.edu
STUDY OF THE WEEK
Women who use "I" in IMs are happier with mates
The more often young women use the pronoun "I" in their instant
ntessages, the happier they are with their partners, according to a study
published last month in the journal Personal Relationships by research-
era at UCLA.
In the study, the researchers examined 10 days of IM conversations
from nearly 70 couples who had been together for about a year and a
half and had an average age of 19. The researchers also asked the couples
questions about their relationship satisfaction.
After six months, the couples reported back whether they were still
dating. Then, the researchers analyzed the IM conversations again, tak-
ing note of the use of pronouns and the emotional words.
The researchers concluded that women who frequently used "I" in
the conversations were 30 percent more likely to still be in a relationship
than those who didn't. The study showed that men are also more satis-
fied with their relationship when women use "I."
- BRIAN TENGEL

WRITE FOR THE STATEMENT

E-mail vosgerchian@michigandaily.com