Hey, look! there's the Buddha!" She was right, in a sense. Amid the dead and dying leaves by the roadside, a portly mini-Enlightened One, clad in sheets and made of stone, sat on a rock. But, then again, she could have been referring to the rock, or the leaves, or the ground. They're all the Buddha. At least that's what one weekend in a Zen Buddhist monastery taught me.

Everything is relative, and Dai Bosatsu Zendo, relative to everything, is incredible. Six hours from Memorial Church rests a very different center of religion, isolated in the Berkshires (and yet conveniently located 30 miles from Woodstock). The monastery has the simple beauty of classical Japanese style, except that it snuggles against a pristine New York lake and L.L. Bean rivals the soy bean for appreciation on cold winter nights.

Ten of us had come from Harvard for the weekend, on the coattails of Adams House Senior Tutor Janet A. Viggiani, whose brother is ordained as a Dai Bosatsu monk. Most were Religion concentrators, but a few of us were just trying to find Enlightenment for a weekend before midterms. We came fairly close.

I should be honest. I didn't come to save my soul, which is probably a good thing, because Buddhists don't believe souls exist. I came to further my recent interest in Yoga, to twist my body into a pretzel in the middle of the woods, and to maybe get a little religion out of the whole thing. It was touted as a "Zen yoga" weekend, after all.

But the profundity of their simple, directed lifestyle has made me reconsider ideas of religion that I left with Santa Claus and "family values" in the land of happy-thoughts-for-those-who-can-believe land.

I may not have got the religion down, dharma and kharma and all, but I sure got the rituals of a Buddhist lifestyle that, frankly, are much better understood once you've experienced them first-hand. That's the point.

Serenity, for instance. An idea easily entertained by Harvard folk, and then dropped when midterms arrive (last week being the most recent, painful example). But the monks and the residents of Dai Bosatsu live in a relatively serene state, buoyed by tranquil post-meditation moments and long yoga stretches.

I remember Saturday, 8 p.m.--my meditation epiphany.

Zazen, the act of meditation, is the most obvious characteristic of the Zen sect. It is not as initially calm and comfortable as monks make it look. Even the little pillows we squash under our squatting hinds can't alleviate the aches and numbness of 45 minutes of physical inactivity. Seigan, a monk from Brooklyn, NY, graced our buttbones with a special hint on how to fold the pillows just right, so that I could be content in my almost-Lotus position for a good 20 minutes before my sparkling clear concentration began to drift below the hip.

But at 8 p.m., when I began my third meditation of the weekend, my "monkey mind," as the monks call it, began to tone down. I was squirming and dreaming of their organic, vegan carrot soup instead of counting my breaths one through ten and getting lost somewhere around four.

I became creative in my concentration: picturing a lotus flower floating on the water--away on the inhale, back on the exhale--and, crowned by white Enlightened petals, the number of the breath. I actually cleared my mind of the deadlines and the thoughts that pressed to the forefront; Harvard-on-the-brain was left behind, and the calm breath floated to the fore. It was a moment of serenity.

I found that similar cessation of thoughts, something I had never thought possible, during morning and mealtime chants. Putting aside preconceptions of chanting as a cult practice that requires me to wear orange robes (ours were gray) or to perform nocturnal sacrificial rites, ours was the most incredible group experience of my life. The resonance of the vocal chords of 50 focused persons could have been the hum of a machine. The bones of my nose began to reverberate in concert with the rhythm of the chanting. Harmonic resonance in action.

The clarity I achieved in my actions is something which I have never had, something I honestly don't expect to attain for a long, long time (pending retirement or mountain trek). Everything was done purposefully and silently, even the meals.

Except for the initial chanting, our vegan delights (cheese and eggs were optional) were taken in complete silence. "Clappers" directed our actions, while we placed our bowls side by side, aligning our chop sticks 30 degrees (I kid not) from the table's edge--tips out. With a bow or a hand signal, we took the food sliding down the table. This had to be devoured in all haste, because slow eating is indulgence.

These rituals serve Dai Bosatsu residents dually. By giving both a directed regime to follow and an opportunity for unhampered reflection, they allow one to nurture the golden moments of silence, the fleeting embodiment of stillness, which is so lacking in daily life.

I don't profess to have found the key to spiritual calm and the quintessential soul-searching experience in a weekend trip to the mountains. I know a fragment more about Buddhist philosophy. A few new yoga bends (asanas), maybe. A new way of life, no.

It is easier to find an "inner calm" hundreds of miles from textbooks, tens of miles from towns with dots on maps. I was lucky enough to enjoy the beauty and the serenity of Dai Bosatsu Zendo. I went for a walk around the lake in a post-storm mist that hung like cobwebs in the air. It was as still as zazen. I imagined it in winter, the surrounding mountains a crown of white, the water solid and still. The Zen of Ice-skating? Sounds like fun.

I may try it some day.