Mindfulness, Music & Monasteries: Getting Zen with Ben

In this episode of Gap Year Radio, host Julia Rogers speaks with Ben, a gap year alum who integrated mindfulness practices into his varied experiences. Ben recounts his journey, highlighting his residency at Zen monasteries in the US and Japan, a farm stay in Costa Rica, and learning audio engineering. He shares insights into how these experiences enhanced his personal growth, creativity, and approach to college. Listen to Ben’s wisdom for advice on incorporating mindfulness into gap years and balancing diverse interests with intentionality and community support.

Transcript:

Julia: [00:00:00] Hey, Ben. Thank you so much for being here. How are you today?

Ben: I’m doing well. Thanks for having me, Julia.

Julia: Oh my gosh. I’m so excited for this conversation because, I hear from so many students now about how they want to, practice either more mindfulness or even get into meditation or yoga or other types of wellness practices on their gap year.

And I feel like you’re a student I know incorporate a lot of that. into your gap time. But I guess I’m curious, when you were first starting to think about taking a gap year, did you think about grounding yourself in those practices or in those types of experiences? Or was it a broader idea, when you started thinking about planning a gap year?

Ben: Yeah, it was for sure. I think honestly my main reason for wanting to take a gap year. was that I, wasn’t so sure what I wanted to do in college. And I thought that long term I did want to go to school, but that I was really trying to figure out like my place in the world. And I think that’s a very common thing for lots of students who take [00:01:00] gap years.

And so mindfulness, because I’d been practicing it before, seemed like a good answer to that uncertainty. And so I said to myself, I need to definitely try to integrate these practices more into my life over the next few years. And what a great opportunity to be able to intensify that in a gap year.

And yeah, I already had a lot of interest and a clear practice set out before the gap year. But it very much strengthened it and especially the experiences that I ended up having did that.

Julia: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Were there other things at the beginning that you can remember being like really important in your kind of overall what you got to do or experience on your gap year?

Ben: Yeah, the Japan was definitely the biggest part because I’d been taking Japanese in high school. And in normal times, one could expect to possibly take a trip to Japan through, the high school I go to, but because it was COVID, that option was pretty much off the table.

[00:02:00] I thought if I have this time, and the means to be able to go to Japan, Then I really want to. The mindfulness was the other really big driving force, and those met well together because the type of, Buddhism that I’m most interested in is Zen Buddhism, which is a Japanese thing.

But other than those two kind of anchors, in a sense, I didn’t have much. I was really just thinking, what are the things that I, can do with my free time and with my interests that I currently have, but I might not be able to do while I’m studying full time. And so I guess that was the kind of, I was very open to a lot of things.

And when you initially sent me the first list of proposals, I was like, Oh my gosh, all these things aren’t exactly like what I would have thought I wanted to do. But then when I was prompted to look into that, I was like, Oh my, I really want to do this.

I think having [00:03:00] openness and, A few anchors, but not too rigid an idea, was very important for me.

Julia: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point overall, is making sure that you’re not going in totally blind because then it can be really overwhelming,

so that’s a good point. So you participated in, two of these retreat experiences, I guess I would call them, but please adjust my language if I’m not using the terms properly, you did, you bookended your year with these longer. Time spent at these proper kind of, centers for, wellness slash meditation.

But why don’t you, I want you to take it from there and describe the differences between those centers, what you were able to do at them and How you chose them and I know that like I was involved in some of that choosing and advising But I feel like you did a good job actually isolating the ones that you actually ended up landing on doing so Walk us through the process because I think it would be really helpful for people who are interested in this type of thing To know how you found them and how you chose them and then what the Differences in those experiences ended up being

Ben: Yeah, I guess it’s funny looking back that I started with, a month of [00:04:00] residency, at a Zen monastery, But it’s funny to think that I started with a month of residency and then I ended with two weeks in Japan. And I think what was interesting to me, it was very illuminating in some ways. was, the stark contrast between them. The first monastery that I practiced at, was in the United States.

And so there’s a very distinct character that, Americans and Buddhism has. And it’s very much of the culture in a sense. It was adapted to the American mind in some sense. And was very interesting, but everyone there was American and was practicing and had priors or had the upbringing just like I had basically.

And so that was a very kind of. I don’t want to say rigid, but it was a very, regimented practice, so we had the schedule, for weeks in advance, I was just a one month resident, which is a program that this, monastery offered, but [00:05:00] there were monks who had been there for years, and we were basically just all practicing the same schedule, and those monks could expect to know what their life would be like in one year if they, obviously, Circumstances allowing them to be at the monastery for a year.

They could pretty much expect. Okay. I know what’s I’m gonna meditate at 5 a. m In one year from now because that’s what the schedule during this period is and I going into my experience in Japan, I thought it would be similar because I had associated that kind of regimentedness with zen, but then when I got there, I realized, Oh, it doesn’t have to be that way.

They pretty much just decided what they were going to do the morning of or even like a few hours before. sometimes we would have a tea service in the morning that we didn’t know we would be preparing for, until it was basically happening. And then we might meditate again in the evening [00:06:00] or just have a discussion or something like that.

And it felt in some sense, more, more just natural and flowing. But also there’s a sense of uncertainty. Cause it’s they called it like surprise practice. Like you’re just gonna not know what’s happening and that’s what you’re practicing. It’s not having this fixed sense of what’s going on.

But then I also, from the first experience realized how much structure and discipline and having. certain habits, can be helpful for me. And so I think both of them were clearly Zen practice. So at bottom, we practiced, Shikantaza, which is. Just the Zen meditation style for Soto Zen Buddhism.

in the fringe or really in the daily day to day stuff, it was very different. We chopped wood at both places, but the way we chopped wood was different and we cooked at both places, but it was very different. I think that was really, illuminating to have those two contrasting experiences.

Julia: Yeah, it is so fascinating. I can see how each of [00:07:00] them could have been a gift in different ways of, especially, I think that I don’t know if it’s the American mindset or if it’s the young adult American mindset of appreciating knowing what’s happening. I think that one of the reasons why we don’t see, 80 percent of young people taking a gap year is that it seems like such a scary unknown, comparatively to a culturally more known option, like a four year college experience or community college or something like that.

But at the same time, I think that, jumping into something that could be considered intense, like a, meditation or a yoga retreat knowing the schedule can make it seem almost less daunting in a way. So I can understand why the American system is set up like that, but the other option sounds so good for the, Unraveling of rigidity of mindset and schedule that we Hold so dearly here in the West that’s really interesting.

Yeah.

Ben: Yeah. It’s interesting that you say that and I think having that kind of Alternative view to a clear track of just right after high school. I’m gonna go into college I [00:08:00] think the fact that I allowed myself to not think that way and to take a gap year, I know this is the whole point your podcast and what you do, but I think that was so important to my growth and my understanding of myself, even now that I have started a school, and I think having both of those things is really important.

Julia: What else did you do during the day? Because I think that’s another kind of thing that people sometimes wonder is that if you have a couple sessions of, depending on the type of retreat, like meditation slash yoga slash, like you said, tea service, I know that some centers have, service to the community that you’re in and that kind of thing, as well as, quiet time or whatever.

So what did what did a daily, what did a. What did the average day look like?

Ben: Yeah, it was busy the whole time, basically. Especially at the first place. We would get up in the morning, to meditate. We would do two periods and then a service. So that’s, like about two hours or something.

And then we would have some type of work or [00:09:00] some type of movement. Then we would have breakfast, and then we would have work, so that’s because we were in this community with lots of, green space, and lots of plants, and all the, obviously, issues with needing to clean a large space that’s shared, and people using the bathrooms, and whatnot.

So we did all of that kind of stuff in between, breakfast and lunch, and then after lunch we also had, A five hour period of working as well. And so there was lots of stuff to take care of. Part of that work practice, at the monastery I went to in the United States was called caretaking practice.

I think it was a good way to frame it. It was taking care of the things we need to in a very clearly mindful way. So it’s taking that meditation that we would do in the morning. And integrating it into a more mundane kind of experience where one can be much more, susceptible being distracted and chit chatting and not really [00:10:00] paying attention to what experience is and so even though it was like, sometimes we would be weeding or chopping wood or, cleaning a toilet or something like that.

It was very clearly still in line with all the rest of the practice we were doing. And since it was I was practicing in October. And so it was the Ongo period, which in Buddhism is a more intense period. You have the whole year split up into four quarters and two of them are more intense.

And so we had lots of sitting. So after that five hours of work, we would sit again for an hour, then we would have supper and then sit again for two hours in the evening. So it was quite, quite an intense period. And then that was like the regular schedule for three weeks. And since I was there for a month, I completed, a Sashin at the end, which was, Sashin is just a universal Zen.

Julia: Thing which is a more intense one week, retreat and that’s pretty much you’re not going to be [00:11:00] doing any of that, caretaking practice and stuff because we’ve prepared for it so it’s easier and then you’re pretty much sitting the whole day, as long as you can. Wow. Yeah, that does sound, like full on and also just, such a skill building type of thing.

this is a perfect segue into kind of talking about the other pieces of your year that had different aspects of them. After that first experience, with your month long retreat, you then went to Costa Rica and did a farm stay. And so you were doing a lot of that type of caretaking practice types of things in your work on the farm, but also meeting people from all over the world and that kind of thing.

So how did you bring your learnings from your first experience into the farm experience? And just how did you enjoy being, doing like a work stay in Costa Rica?

Ben: Yeah. It’s nice to have this framing to think about, the ways that, my first experience interacted with the second one.

And I think my experience in Costa Rica would have been quite different had I not been participating in practice at the monastery. And like you said, it was a lot of, [00:12:00] caretaking in a sense, we would do a lot of, gardening and stuff, that was the main point, but also cooking maintenance, which I ended up really liking, I realized at the monastery and at Costa Rica, that I liked working with power tools and trying to build stuff and whatnot.

But I think the thing that was so interesting was that. I still felt incredibly integrated into a community when I was in Costa Rica, and I think that’s another aspect of being at the monastery that I really liked, was that there was this communal, responsibility that every individual had, and also a communal kind of feeling of support.

Even though in Costa Rica it was a lot more social, and so it was easier for me to get distracted and just, get into a more habitual kind of day to day, just like I might be at home, patterns of thought and things like that. I was still able to integrate, mindfulness into that experience.

So a lot of the gardening that we did is Very compatible with mindfulness. And honestly, most of [00:13:00] the stuff that we did in Costa Rica, I had also done at the monastery. It was just not really, bookended with meditation, at least in a formal sense, but I still meditated while I was there.

that farm also had a yoga aspect to it. I. did some yoga at the beginning, like a more intense period of yoga practice. And then throughout, with some of the people that were there, we decided we all wanted to deepen our yoga practice.

And so in the morning before we started work, we all met in the common room and we’d do that together. I think both of them were very interesting experiences to have and made me realize that these are two aspects of myself, and of my life that I care about and want to nurture.

But they were also very distinct and it was nice.

Julia: Yeah. It’s almost like the Costa Rica experience was like the retreat the training wheels off Like you had to have the discipline to implement. Your own practice, [00:14:00] in a situation where it wasn’t going to be forced upon you scheduled for you.

Ben: Yeah, I do think, that one important aspect of, Buddhism is the Sangha, which is the community, and so regardless of whether, I don’t think it was only the augmentation of the schedule that was different, it was also the fact that not everyone who was there to meditate.

And so when you’re in a space with lots of people who are there for the express purpose of deepening their practice and answering the questions that, anyone might have around life and death and what is a good life. I think that wasn’t. incredibly strong in the monastery, whereas in Costa Rica, people were interested in those kinds of things, but that’s not the reason they went there.

And so that wasn’t the character of the experience.

Julia: I’m sorry,

Ben: no, I pretty much finished just to say that, Yeah, I think the community aspect of it, there was a very strong sense of community in both, but for different reasons, we were at [00:15:00] the place in Costa Rica to learn about other cultures and practice Spanish and have fun as well.

It was a lot of young people in Costa Rica and versus at the monastery, I was the youngest by far.

Julia: And so I guess for listeners, if anybody engages in this type of learning on their gap year, but then needs to take it back into the real world, whether it’s into other gap year experiences or, post gap year life, do you have tips for how to bring along, those practices and how to translate the full on experience into the real world experience?

Ben: That’s, like the biggest question I always ask myself, so I don’t think I’ll have a perfect answer, but, I think

meditation, for me at least, and the type of meditation that I am most attracted to, definitely. Compliments and creates space in life for everything that comes about and so When you have a [00:16:00] deep Practice for a few weeks if you go into a retreat setting What you realize is that meditation isn’t something that you’re adding Onto life or you’re not taking away from things that are happening.

You’re just Able to more clearly see what’s going on, in the rest of the time and to use that kind of frame of mind to come to things and experience them is incredibly powerful and difficult, as well. How to integrate that into day to day living is to continue your practice.

one has to sit they want to continue to cultivate the state of mind, that meditation brings about, but also to have a community and to have a clear intention. One thing we were talking about is the thread that links all of my, gap experiences and I think intentionality was that thread.

. It was the intention to learn about what kind of person I want to be in [00:17:00] the future, but also the intention to just explore the wide world around us and to be open and curious about new things. And to also live a good life and to be ethical and to care about the world that I’m in. And so that kind of common thread, that thing that was the basis for all my experiences in some sense, it was very helpful in linking this kind of intense period of practice with the more mundane things that I ended up doing, or even the, scholarly things I ended up doing. I, in the winter, I went to a place to learn about audio engineering. And that was very much of very mundane in a sense, like living in the real world, quote unquote, or the modern world.

It was, I was around technology all the time with a bunch of people who didn’t know anything about meditation, that wasn’t the reason they were there. We were there to learn a skill. But because I had framed this [00:18:00] skill as continuous with the rest of my gap year, all of those things blended in together and I still was mindful during that time, even though it was a very different thing.

Julia: No, I think that was great. I was going to ask about how the sound and audio engineering course wove into this. Cause I think that does bring in more of the creative mind into your gap experiences too. And did you did that experience or just playing with music throughout your gap year?

Did you discover anything about yourself as a creative during those experiences or through that intentional practice as well?

Ben: Yeah, I think,

Julia: it’s okay. If the answer is nah, not really. That’s fine too.

Ben: No, but Yeah. What did I learn about myself creatively? I think that through creative practice over my gap year, Which was most intense during the sound engineering portion of it.

I think I realized

how I would like to express myself. I was able to see the things that were hard for me to express or were stopping me [00:19:00] from being able to share myself with the world in a sense because that’s what you’re doing when you’re being creative, at least when I think about it, you’re showing a part of yourself to the world and to people around you if you’re vulnerable about something, I think it creates a better Experience because it’s more real to you and so That creativity that I had was an external aspect of myself.

It’s like, how do I want to show up in the world? And then the other parts of my gap year, especially like the monastery and stuff were almost reflecting on my internal dialogue and, my internal state of mind, but both of those come together really importantly, because if you’re, Not paying attention to what’s going on in your life and not being present, then you’re not going to really be able to express your feelings or your thoughts or be vulnerable, and create something, important, is what I would say.

Julia: That’s a really, I’m so glad that [00:20:00] I asked that question because I think that idea of the duality of the internal and the external exploration of Processing and expression is a really cool concept to think about. like big picture, you experience such a variety of these different experiences from the retreats to the farm stays to traveling in Japan to the sound recording course.

Overall, how do you feel when you think about, you touched on it a couple times, but that kind of what you gain from your gap year as far as your own personal growth, is there anything that you feel is the thesis statement of what you gained from the collection of these experiences and how they all interact?

Ben: Yeah, I wouldn’t be inclined to sum it up in one kind of phrase. But I guess what, I learned is that there are lots of things that I’m interested in, and all those things are worthwhile, in a sense. When I explored each of those things, I realized how deep each of them go.

[00:21:00] Part of what I realized is that I could, pursue music and try to make that my life, but I might not be as motivated to do that as I am with other things on the gap year that I explored. And I think it helped narrow down my interest to say, okay, these are the hobbies I want.

These are the things I want to pursue on the side. But not make my life revolve around them. And then it helped strengthen the things that I was already pretty sure I wanted to keep strong, like meditation and, intellectual stuff as well, like school. It made me realize, okay, I do want to pursue this stuff and having the gap year also helped me appreciate the opportunity that one has when they go to college.

This is something we touched on earlier, but when you have this clear path of, I’m just going to go to a four year university after high school or do something else, but when it’s a [00:22:00] clear idea that you feel like you have known that’s what you’re going to do since you were 12 years old, I think there’s some wonder and, Opportunity to really appreciate it that gets lost when that’s the case because it feels predictable and it feels like it’s set in stone, but there’s so much that college can offer, that is, you need to be ready for it in a sense, and I think I wasn’t ready for it before my gap year.

And after the gap year, I felt like I was more so able to appreciate that opportunity. I read a bunch of stuff over my gap year and especially was reading stuff about political science and philosophy and ethics and whatnot, which now is what I’m focusing on and what I’m studying.

Julia: I would be curious to hear about the three paths of Ben, like what [00:23:00] you feel like you would have done or what you would have been lost maybe about if you’d gone straight to college, because you had a college that you were, thinking about going to, and then.

During your gap year, you changed course and applied to a different school, which you are now at. So there’s like those three sliding door situations of not having taken the gap year, gone to original college, deferred, gone to original college, and then the path you’re on now. So yeah, I don’t know if you can predict like the kind of different, multi, the multiverse versions of yourself, but do you have any thoughts on like how.

I don’t know, like how things would have gone in a different way. Not that it would have been bad, but just most intentional version of you in that, sense.

Ben: Yeah. Honestly, I think if I had just gone to the original school without taking a gap year, I think I would have studied, Zen Buddhism and Taoist philosophy and stuff, which is what I’m most interested in.

I think I was going to risk the chance of being disenchanted with them because as I learned over my gap year, the best of those traditions [00:24:00] is not their intellectual character and Zen in particular emphasizes, direct experience versus, dogmatic belief.

And not practiced meditation in a deeper sense, I probably would have studied it and then gotten discouraged because that’s not the way, I want to practice those traditions. And I think, over the gap year, having learned that, if I had still gone to that same school, I probably would have studied some of those philosophical traditions, but then also more keen to focus on the social sciences and sociology and political science and whatnot, which is what I’m doing now.

And so I think I would have had some kind of mix of those things. But I also think I would have changed a lot over the years, especially because that school was the kind of school where you can really pick and choose what you want to do. now my current situation is that I’m on a track to [00:25:00] look at a bunch of different disciplines on a more surface level while still learning a lot this last semester I’ve never worked so hard in my life, to be honest, to learn a lot of different things and then decide to focus on one or two of them more next year.

And I’m in definitely more of a kind of pre professional kind of program in a sense, like I’m learning skills that will help me. With work in the future and also I decided to go somewhere that’s more recognized in a sense because, I realized how much, in some ways the brand kind of does matter.

So yeah that’s one thing, but also I wouldn’t have been in an international context. So now I’m going to college, abroad with a lot of international students and I definitely wouldn’t have met all these people. Had I gone to that first school that I deferred from.

Julia: Yeah.

Man. I think for everybody, do you have any other advice [00:26:00] for people who are right now, maybe senior year of high school, wavering on the idea of a gap year, trying to decide if it’s right for them, maybe feeling a little bit nervous about taking that leap.

What would you say to those people?

Ben: I would say if you have, a lot of ideas for what you might want to do and you’re really curious about things I think you feel that you can explore those things over a gap year And you think you can, if you think that you’d be just so excited to do so many different things, and you don’t know what to choose, then I think a gap year is a great choice.

Because college, in a sense, will always be there, or work will always be there, but having gap time can be really instructive to narrowing down, exploring new things. If you’re unsure whether you could even fill your time over a gap year and you really just like to read and debate with people and stuff, maybe [00:27:00] going to college right away is a better idea.

And you can always take a gap year after you graduate college or take, a semester abroad or some colleges are fine with taking a semester off So I think making it all or nothing decision, puts a lot more pressure than is needed on the decision because you can change your mind and pivot later.

I think with regards to mindfulness over the gap year, if you’re interested in mindfulness and you haven’t practiced before, I’d say before you decide to go do something really intense, like what I did, try to find a community that practices meditation where you live, and sit with them and see what you think about it.

And there’s also a lot of different like levels of practice or, experiences you can have, you can do something like a yoga retreat or a meditation session, or just like a weekend retreat. They offered those at the monastery that I was at, and that could be a good way to, to start.

I think starting with a one month long residency Was [00:28:00] good for me because I had been practicing for two years, but it was still incredibly intense. And I don’t think I could have done it had I just started, right away. And so I think, meditation is a lifelong kind of practice and journey.

And so if you’re interested in it, Try to see what are the ways you can plant some seeds over your gap year, explore some things that will help you to see what kind of practice you’re interested in, why you’re interested in that practice, and then move on from there.

Julia: It’s really good advice and there are so many different ways to explore this both, like you said, starter, intermediate, advanced settings, even structured gap year programs often have a couple of days or a week long.

Meditation or yoga, component as part of it. So that’s like a little bit of a a testing ground for those experiences. So well said ben and thank you so much for being here and Sharing this with us and thank you everyone out there for listening as well yeah, thank you Yeah, thanks, So thank you again for listening today.

[00:29:00] You can find us at gap, your radio on Instagram or Facebook at gap, your radio, or online at gap, your radio podcast. com. You can email us your gap, your questions or comments at gap, your radio at gmail. com. And lastly, you can download the show wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And if you have a moment, we’d love for you to leave us a review on Apple podcasts, so more people can discover gap, your radio. 

Ben: Merci pour avoir écouté, bonne journée, arigato gozaimasu.

Julia: Ooh, we got a combo there. France for where you’re going to school and Japanese.

Ben: That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Gracias. Gracias. Ben.

Julia: Bye.

Ben: Thanks.