Draped in identical, generic blue robes, we lined up to enter the room single file, arranged in order of our height. As we approached the entrance, an attendant stood to one side waiting to rinse our hands with cool water.Once inside the cavernous lunch hall, not a word was spoken. The entire room was enveloped in silence.Before we were served any food, the Zen master entered like a Jedi from Star Wars, sat at a table in front of us and solemnly explained the ground rules:—Nobody could begin eating until everyone had been served their meal.—We were not to leave our seats until everyone had finished.—No cell phones (they had been confiscated earlier).—No talking to our neighbors.—Eat slowly. And focus on what you’re eating.—Savor the food. Feel its taste in your heart.“Nowadays we are always playing with our smartphones and we are not focusing on what we eat,” the Zen master told the 12 or so of us sitting at the very spare wooden tables before him. “The goal is to focus on our food.”Eating is only for eating, he explained. And sleeping is only for sleeping.If this sounds like a cross between a reform school and a cult, that’s close but not quite accurate. This is a Zen lunch designed to teach participants about slowing down and focusing on the present moment.It was merely one part of the posh Zen retreats offered at Lingshan Juna Paramita Hotel in the Lingshan region of China’s Jiangsu province.The elegant 418-room hotel, which opened in 2015, attracts all manner of visitors, including China’s wealthiest citizens—many of whom, sitting around the lobby on a recent afternoon, looked as though they stepped straight from the pages of a Ralph Lauren catalog with their tennis skirts and polo shirts.The resort specializes in educating guests about the Zen lifestyle, whether that be through meditation classes, attending a Zen lunch, participating in tea ceremonies or sitting in nature quietly copying pages of the Sutra.“The whole property has been designed to integrate the spirit of Zen into your daily life,” Ling Song Xia, the marketing manager explained to me. “We teach you how to walk in the Zen spirit, how to live in the Zen spirit, how to eat in the Zen spirit and also how to meditate in a Zen manner.”PHOTO: Zen lunch at Oriental Zen MICE Tourist Destination. (photo by Mia Taylor)Zen Buddhism, for those not familiar, is a spiritual practice that emphasizes living from moment to moment, in the here and now. It is a way of thinking and viewing the world. What really matters in Zen is not God or the afterlife, but the present moment.Following the Zen way of life also involves doing one thing at a time, doing things slowly and deliberately, developing rituals and devoting time to simply sitting. There are three levels of Zen lifestyle in China today, Xia told me.The first is a serious Zen adherent who does everything in a Zen manner throughout every level of their life.The second approach is something of a middle ground, where people perhaps find ways to integrate small Zen acts into their daily life.And the third is to visit a place like Lingshan Juna Paramita Hotel everyone once in awhile to take part in Zen activities for a few days, engaging perhaps in a Zen lunch, like I did.The resort offers half-day, full-day and multi-day Zen retreats. Or you can simply attend a Zen lunch.The Zen meals are incredibly popular at the resort, particularly for corporate events Xia told me. (As he said this, I tried to imagine corporate titans from throughout Asia in spare blue robes trying to get through a meal without their smartphones, without networking and without thinking about their many obligations. I wasn’t convinced.)The Zen lunches attract participants of all ages, from thirtysomethings to Baby Boomers. People come from as far away as Canada and Spain.“The Zen meal is just a small example of Zen life,” Xia said. “The goal is for you to learn from the meal about the Zen attitude toward life. (The Zen instructors) would like people to enjoy every bite of the meal and the color of what you’re eating and you should calm yourself."As for the lunch l participated in, the food, color and all, was outstanding and beautifully presented on a wooden tray with wooden utensils to eat.As instructed, I worked my way through my meal without speaking, a task I found incredibly difficult.I was sweating in my blue robe. And at one point felt faint. But I wasn’t sure if that was from my robe, (which felt like it weighed 100 pounds), or from the experience of withdrawing from my phone and from talking to the people around me for a protracted amount of time while sitting on a less than comfortable wooden bench.The only sound in the room was the clicking of chopsticks.READ MORE: China Beyond the Great Wall At one point, our Zen master, who disappeared after providing the instructions, reappeared in the corner of the room. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and panicked, thinking he caught me rushing through my food too quickly, a total no-no in Zen 101.The whole experience was excruciating. Which is also exactly why it was such a beneficial experience.In the end, it was liberating and exhilarating to be completely free of everything, to check all excess mental and physical baggage at the door and simply focus on enjoying my meal.PHOTO: Zen lunch attendees in Zen robes. (photo by Mia Taylor)No scanning Facebook , or snapping pictures of my food for Instagram posterity. I didn’t even have to talk to the servers. They just magically appeared and placed food on my tray and refilled my teacup.I encourage you to try this at home, or something reasonably close to it.Go sit at a restaurant somewhere and don’t speak during the entire meal. Train your mind to focus on the food that’s on the plate before you. Focus on the colors and the tastes and the textures. And no matter what happens, do not pick up your cell phone. Perhaps try living dangerously and don’t even bring your phone with you. And then bask in the luxuriousness of simply focusing on the moment. Just have peaceful, positive thoughts about your food.“In modern society, we are never faced with a lack of something. Everything is so abundant. And we never stay still, or sit quietly, not even to eat” the Zen master said.Try it. I dare you.Follow @MiaTaylorWriter