Today is the last journal post for the trip as tomorrow will be for presentations and enjoying our last night out in Taiwan. It has been a wonderful trip and experience, and it has been an enlightening to be out here with all these new friends I have made. I would like to thank the professors for this chance of a lifetime, and I feel that I have fulfilled a long time goal of mine being here.
For our last excursion, we decided to go to the Dharma Drum Mountain to learn more about meditation and the monk lifestyle. We started off the day learning about the Dharma Drum Mountain as a school and what they offer to the people that attend there. Seeing a school dedicated to Buddhism really confused me but it makes sense as there are similar concepts for different religions in America.
Next we did step by step explanation and demonstration on how to properly meditate. We learned this previously with both Professor Young and the monks and nuns at the giant monastery but it was nice seeing the consistencies in the demonstrations. The concept remained the same in all of the teachings I have seen; relaxing your body but not to the point of sleep.
Next we stepped outside and did a form of slow walking meditation. The setting for it was pretty cool as it was pouring down rain during our time at the school so there was more background noise to tune out for our session. I appreciate rainy weather as I believe it is a calming setting, as long as you are not stuck out there without any rain protection. I sometimes like walking outside in the rain as it allows me to ease my mind with subtle background noise, like these meditation events.
We did the same form of meditation outside later on except we incorporated forms of screaming and humming as a way to release our inhibitors. Felt weird but was interesting.
We had a nice tea session that involved eating some fruits and vegetables grown and collected in the school’s area. We talked about what we thought about these meditation events and what they made us think about. I talked about how my mind can get pretty crowded with the extra thoughts about the future and past, to the point where I can’t even focus on the present. Letting those thoughts breeze by as you focus on the present is the ultimate form of meditation for me. After this, we had lunch (I will never be vegetarian ever) and had a lecture about the beginnings and present of Buddhism. Really slow but I was fine with it as it was a good refresher for my presentation the next day. Afterwards, we had a tea session where we tried various forms of tea leaves. I usually do not like tea at all so it was interesting how I actually enjoyed the tea’s presence during the session. I was arguing with Joelle during it and I have never felt so calm and relaxed arguing with someone (especially Joelle) ever and I believe it was because of the tea.
I really enjoyed this trip. It has highlighted to me that there are still so many experiences that I need to get through and that America is just the tip of the iceberg. Thank you everyone for reading these posts and I hope you all have an amazing day and summer. 谢谢！