“I think this silence thing is getting to me,” I said. It was two days into my seven-day silent meditation retreat at Dharma Drum Mountain’s sprawling campus nestled in the beautiful mountains of the Jinshan District on Taiwan’s scenic north coast. Zarko Andricevic, Dharma Teacher for the retreat and a direct Dharma Heir of the DDM founder Master Shen Yeng sat before me, backlit by two windows streaming sunshine on each side. His stark silhouette, face wreathed in shadow imparted a mystical presence.

I explained to him that I’m a very verbal person. Deprived of conversation, my mind runs on overdrive – imagining everyone’s lives from their appearance and behavior, inventing entire life stories, a myriad of thoughts and ideas and images popping into my head. “What can I do about that?” Zarko leaned forward, his face half emerged from the shadows, he furrowed his brow and said in a deep, resounding voice,“Congratulations. This is your mind. Your job here is to learn how to deal with it.”

Five months earlier a friend had told me about the retreat at DDM to be done in English and Chinese. As a morning meditator, I had been chomping at the bit for a deeper experience but my poor Chinese skills had prevented me from doing so in Taiwan. I was living just minutes away from one of the best known Buddhist organizations on the planet with 58 affiliates around the world and my lack of language skills kept me from taking advantage of this precious resource. Finally, this bi-lingual retreat would afford me a chance to dive into an infinitely deep pool.

I admit I was concerned about the magnitude. I’ve been to weekend retreats but never seven days of such intensity – hours of daily meditation, work practice, eating and walking in silence. It was intimidating to say the least.

The bus picked us up at Taipei Main Station on Sunday at noon. The sky gloriously blue, dotted with puffy marshmallow clouds on the drive to the coast. Check-in was easy and the air of anticipation was palpable among over 130 excited participants. The entire event was contained in a single building. Living quarters, meditation hall, dining hall and outdoor trails for walking meditation.

At orientation they outlined the daily schedule:
4:00 Wake up, stretching, meditation, Morning Service
6:40 Breakfast, free time
8:30 Meditation, Dharma Talk from Zarko, walking meditation, private interviews
11:30 Lunch, work practice
13:30 Meditation, walking meditation
17:00 Dinner, free time
18:30 Meditation, Dharma Talk from Zarko, Evening Service
22:00 Lights out

Average days were 4-5 hours of sitting meditation. That’s a lot of time spent on a cushion doing nothing, which is exactly what you’re instructed to do in their “Silent Illumination” technique. You train your awareness on “Just Sitting”. Thoughts, physical sensations, sounds and other things may arise but when your mind wanders, you return to just sitting, aware of your body sitting in the space for 40 minutes at a time.

Paraphrasing Master Shen Yeng himself in his book “The Method of No Method”, you view distractions as you would clouds in the sky, merely observe them as they come and go of their own accord. Some days the sky is sunny, some days dark and stormy but you know there is always a blue sky behind the clouds. Easy in theory, harder in practice but definitely a worthy pursuit. The meditation hall where the sessions were held is pristine, austere, inspiring and beautiful with a large, elegantly rendered Buddha statue.

Meals, eaten in silence except for affirmations of gratitude for their source and preparation spoken in unison, consisted of a delicious and healthy vegan buffet. Always rice, 2-3 entrees, soup and fruit. You’re assigned two bowls, chopsticks and a cloth for cleaning up. When you’ve eaten your fill, you pour a small amount of hot water into each, swirl it around and drink it. Now you’re ready to wipe your bowls clean and put them back in their assigned place in an orderly manner.

I was excited to receive my personal work assignment with visions of chopping wood, carrying water and maybe raking the gravel in a rock garden. Instead I was assigned to clean the 15 urinals and 3 toilets in the men’s restroom. Though a bit crestfallen, I did my best to do it mindfully every day. Knowing we were all on a vegan, high-fiber diet, I eyed everyone entering the restroom with suspicion. “Keep it clean!” I projected in their direction. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn’t.

Morning and evening services were a glorious departure from maintaining the silence and quickly became one of my favorite activities. We weren’t allowed to talk but boy did we enjoy chanting for the 30 minutes. In the expansive, high-ceilinged meditation hall 130 voices soared nearly as high as our spirits. It always left me tingly, charged up and ready to hit my meditation cushion in earnest.

In his first Dharma Talk, Zarko said a 3-day retreat is actually more difficult than a 7-day retreat because it takes 3 days to get settled and then it’s over. I found it hard to believe as 7 days sounded a lot more difficult. It turned out to be true. In fact 5 days into this retreat I became so comfortable that I forgot what day it was. It turned out that my mind did calm down considerably and I even found myself “just sitting” a few times.

At times, I couldn’t wait for it to finish but when it finally ended, I was sad it was over and now I can’t wait to do it again. Dharma Drum Mountain is holding another bi-lingual retreat March 2-March 9,2019. The retreat is free of charge but they gratefully accept donations. The deadline to apply is February 2^nd. Submit your application at http://onlinereg.ddm.org.tw/2019_bilingual_retreat.I hope to see you there.