It’s 1am in California and I get a call on WeChat. It’s the monk from Foguangshan.

Literally, Light Shining Mountain, Foguangshan (FGS) is one of the major Buddhist sects in Taiwan. They have a big monastery near Kaohsiung which is a big tourist attraction, and also a temple. The Buddha there is the largest in Asia (or something like it).

Going to this meditation was part of my “Eat, Pray, Love” journey since leaving my job last month. In California, it’s trendy to do meditation retreats. A lot of my friends have been participating in one called Jhourney, which costs several thousands of dollars and takes the Silicon Valley startup mindset and applies it to meditation retreat. In contrast, the FGS is thousands of years old, and provides their retreats free of cost.

“Have you told your family you’ll be away?” Yes, I nod. “Okay, now eat the orange you brought.” I nod again. They take my phone and seal it in a ziploc bag with my Chinese name; a matching nameplate is handed to me. On it, it says, “vow of silence, Bu Tianlan”.

As I don the blue-ish-gray robes, I scarcely realize that it would be my last time walking freely until after the retreat.

Day 1. As promised on the website, wake up time was 5am. They are extremely punctual at Foguangshan. They strike a wooden percussive instrument at 5am on the dot. We have about ten minutes to rouse, make our bed, and come out to the main hall.

The main hall has a statue of the Buddha in the middle. He has a light smile on his face, and his legs are folded in the lotus position.

When we sit, we are asked to be cross-legged, or do half or full lotus. All of the options are difficult for me. I realize that I’m not used to sitting for extended periods. In fact, when I was in 12th grade in high school I started a campaign, “sitting is the new smoking” to encourage more standing breaks in school. Apparently, sitting for 6 hours in a row has the effect on your life expectancy as smoking a cigarette.

The monks at Foguangshan didn’t seem to get the memo. There are many rules and restrictions at FGS. Sitting properly is one of them. You are not allowed to rest your back against the wall while sitting. When sitting, you must use a “knee blanket” to protect your knees from the air conditioning (I can’t tell you more than that). When you walk, you must step softly so as to avoid disturbing others. When you receive food, you move the rice from the top right of the tray to the bottom left, then the soup from the top left to the bottom right.

The experience of being at the retreat is something like being at Catholic school, the military, on an airplane, or in prison – or some healthy mix thereof.

By the end of Day 1, I begin to despise the slight smile on the Buddha’s face. He is in the full lotus, an advanced sitting position which I can’t even bend into. Cross-legged, my legs are aching like nobody’s business. When I stretch out one muscle, another one starts aching. Enduring pain is part of the Buddhist practice, the monk says. Be in the present moment.

No one else in the retreat – all Taiwanese locals – is fidgeting around like me. After the meditation settings, the men I’m dorming with stretch and flex their muscles, so maybe I’m not alone.

I remind myself that I’m here voluntarily. I can leave at any moment. I came for a reason. But at hour nine on Day 1, I find myself thinking, what was my reason again? “All the cool kids are doing it” feels like flimsy logic at this point. At the end of the day, I calculate how many more waking hours I have left. I’m about 20% of the way to the end of the retreat. It’s not very “be in the present moment” of me, but I can scarcely wait for the end.

I’ve been into Stoicism recently, an Ancient Greek philosophy that has some overlay with Buddhism. The Stoics believe it’s good for you to put yourself through difficult situations: having no money, not being able to talk, not having any freedoms. I didn’t realize that the “retreat” would be so challenging. Besides being physically uncomfortable, I mentally resist almost every instruction given to me. I resent the fact that I can’t walk around in the evening, that my only time outdoors is walking to and from the cafeteria, and even then, we’re in line accompanied by a monk like we’re in second-grade (I wasn’t a very well-behaved kid in second-grade).

Servitude. Devotion. Acceptance. I recall the story of Cyrus Habib – former Lieutenant Governor of Washington – who left politics to join the Jesuit order. With the Jesuits, you spend ten years in complete servitude – cleaning toilets, vow of silence, etc. Only then can you become a real monk.

Another thought that comes up is Davy Jones’s in Pirates of the Caribbean. Davy Jones is captain of the Flying Dutchman, a mythological ship that ferries souls from the world of the living to the world of the dead. When he takes over a ship, he offers each person about to be executed the chance to live forever aboard his ship. Those who join the Flying Dutchman become “part of the crew, part of the ship”. Their bodies become crustacean, blending in with the texture of the barnacles and seashells in the lower decks. Their personalities and memories slowly erode, until they are only in servitude to Flying Dutchman and its captain.

The monks at the monastery live, eat, and sleep Buddhism. They wake up at 5am to baby-sit us, and are alert and focused until 10pm, lights off. I have to say, I really admire the devotion. I mean, either these people are idiots, or they really know what they want. It’s not so different from what I hear from my friends who work in consulting or finance. When you’re this committed to something, I feel it affects every corner of your mind. In a beautiful, totalizing, somewhat intimidating sense.

Day 2. The food at Foguangshan is impeccable. The volunteers serve us. It’s all vegan, there’s tofu served at every meal. For lunch, they even give grass jelly pudding and an orange.

After lunch, the monks pull me aside. I’m in the waiting room, my heart beating slightly faster. The head monk comes around, and says roughly: “Hey. We’ve noticed that you keep jostling about. Have you done this kind of meditation before?” I said I have done bits and pieces, but nothing nearly this long. “This is a five day retreat! By the time you get to the end, you’ll be aching as soon as you sit down. This is not to say that you’re not welcome, but given that you are constantly leaning against the wall and moving about, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

It was a relief. Two nights – that’s all it took. And about 16 hours of meditation. By some counts, it’s an extraordinary feat.

The monk says, “if you want to practice meditation, you should start in small doses. Do 10 minutes at home each day, keep track. Then do more and more. Just like running a marathon. Don’t do 5 days all at once! We have a one-day retreat, and a 3-day retreat.”

I nod, and smile. I am going to taste the sunshine, I’m going to have boba tea. I can wear clothes that have actual colors, I can sleep and read any book I want, and I can talk again!

I feel directionally good about the meditation retreat. By the end, I did feel more at peace. And I had some realizations. For instance, I started the retreat with a cough; I realize that by focusing on deep breathing, I could will the cough away. I also had a lot of thoughts bouncing around my mind, and by focusing on my breath, it felt like my brain waves lowered in frequency.

It’s funny, since I consider myself a somewhat mindful person. I also realize that meditation is not for the faint of heart. It’s the kind of thing where I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad it’s over. For now, I think I’m good on the multi-day retreats – at least I don’t feel the FOMO anymore.

I am generally supportive of cultivating discipline, presence, patience, these kinds of things. But in terms of mental health, I feel at my current stage in life, I prefer to more actively engage with my thoughts through journalling; and clear my head with a good run, bike ride, or swim, or laughing with a friend.

Kudos to the monks at Foguangshan! Maybe they know something I don’t.