The theme of the retreat was “appreciate your life” and it involved spending most of the day in silence: rising at 5.40am to start zazen (meditating) and not finishing until 8am; eating a silent breakfast with the other 20 people participating in this lunacy.
Seeking Zen at a silent Buddhist retreat comes with its own challenges It was supposed to be a quiet and peaceful weekend, but it left one writer lost for words.
Silence was suspended during the afternoon Dharma talks (Dharma is simply the teachings of the Buddha), during which Manu told tales of a Buddhist monk, Dogen, who travelled from Japan to China to learn about Zen.
On the first two occasions this was simply embarrassing, but on the third day, along with a man and woman, both about my age (late 60s), we separated from the group during a walk to a local lake.
As the taxi approached the remote Lake District house where I’d be spending a week doing a silent Buddhist retreat, a thought struck me with Zen-like clarity.
