Day 16 of our program in Taiwan entailed a 6 hour visit to Dharma Drum Mountain — a monastery nestled in the hills of northern Taiwan. We started our visit by receiving an introduction to the monastery, and then proceeded to engage in several meditative activities. Previously we had only meditated the way most people would imagine it — sitting, eyes closed, and letting your thoughts and feelings wash away. We did this too, however we were introduced to several other techniques. One of these involved slow walking in nature, where we walked in a slow pace while taking in the nature around us. The other technique was rather interesting — we actually sang “oooh”, “aaah”, and “mmmm” in chorus. It was honestly really cool to hear everyone be so in unison, and I didn’t realize meditation can have such a vocal aspect to it. After these practices we sat in a square and drank tea and snacked on tomatoes and crisps, where we discussed how we were feeling about this experience so far. Next we ate lunch — I learned that monks and nuns actually have a vegetarian diet, and eat no meat. The following activity was a lecture about Buddhist history, which was given to us by a man who was formerly a monk. It was a rather fast spaced and dense lecture, but it was really interesting to learn about Buddhism’s origins and the ways in which it spread and has developed over time and across different regions. We then had a Q&A session with 2 nuns, who gave really detailed and insightful answers to our questions about their experiences with Buddhism and being nuns. The final activity of the day was drinking various types of tea, which were prepared right in front of us by our tea masters. The teas were delicious and the table I sat at had a really interesting conversation with a resident of the monastery, who had actually only joined a few years ago, after living and working in the US for many years. I really enjoyed how slowed down life in Dharma Drum was, and I feel like I was able to develop a better understanding for why people join monasteries and become monks or nuns. I’d definitely want to visit a monastery such as Dharma Drum again!
