The Quiet
A Longing for Quiet
When we long for quiet, it turns out there is a sacred work happening in our experience. With a noisy world and fever pitches of thinking, at some point, we break. It would seem our spirit peaks through calling us back. The home of spirit is away from the noise of the world and our mind. It is what we would call a still place, a silent space, within. Yes, there we can hear it speak to us in thoughts, feelings, or knowings. But it is first and foremost known as still, seemingly empty—this gentle place, with no worries, judgements, or fear— is our true home. It is the most fundamental aspect of us, being something that is present and available at every stage of our life—unchanged.
Grappling With Silence
At first, we may grossly underestimate and grapple with silence from a human perspective. Think of our need to fill conversation and our general discomfort with pauses. Think further of how we are hard pressed to turn off the tv, put down the phone, or stop intaking anything from the world and just to rest in ourselves. You might say we have a certain fear of the void that is so fundamental to our life. Stepping into silence, without all the noise and all the thinking, two questions sit palpably there: who am I and why am I even here? We realize that we’ve put our worth and identity into a personality, a story, which is very hard to keep up—it requires, well, a lot of noise!! But from that first intrigue with silence, even if we aren’t very “good” at abiding it, we will always keep trying in some way to return. Not knowing what it is or increasingly even what we are—we do know deep within that we are much more than the story of us and the noise about us would suggest.
Making the Effort
At twenty one years old, I fortuitously came upon a book, The Power of Now. I don’t recall it was even popular at the time. It was prior to its discovery by Oprah, who went on to give it an incredible platform to reach so many. I sat in my studio apartment in Washington, D.C. in 2001 — an apartment that had seen much psychological distress, confusion, loneliness, depression, substance abuse, and all manner of disorder I don’t have a name for — and I sat lotus style, thinking this was a good approach for this book, which proactively invited silence and meditation.
I was fervent about reaching this silence. In fact, initially, I used my thinking to almost bring on the experience. This it turns out wasn’t exactly a bad thing. At the start, thinking and the physical was all I thought there was, so I used both. I started to turn my thinking to activating sensation in each part of my body—my hands, me feet, my head and chest — until I felt as though I was vibrating in every nook and cranny of my physical self. Still sitting cross-legged in lotus, as I read, I happily took the invitation for the pauses offered. My eyes were closed. I was expectant of something good, as all the novelty of the moment felt fresh and thus I expected just that—something new to occur. Positive expectancy is a gift and we should all take note when its in operation.
Something new did occur—I noticed I was thinking. And taking the invitation in the writing, I asked—what is the I that noticed these thoughts? All of a sudden, just like that, there was an I that was aware of thoughts, putting thoughts at arms length from it verses the incredibly entangled (and you might say strangled at times) web of identity where you just are a combination of thoughts and a physical body that is destined to the grave. There was something more here… this I, which was fundamentally aware, had no contour and no discernible content. It simply was. Its essential issness could only be rested in—not really described or analyzed. Any such description or analysis would inevitably be witnessed by it, so therefore secondary to it.
Finding Relief
There was something relieving about this, as the array of thoughts that had made up “me” were a mix of harrowing and hopeful and I never knew what side of that coin would be most present from moment to moment. Being bound in thought, I was also quite anxious, although it was hard for me to recognize as the world itself can be quite anxious. That day as I walked out of my apartment, something wildly new happened—I heard the birds singing. Quite literally I hadn’t heard them as my thoughts were much too loud each day I’d exit my apartment and head off to work. The trees also seemed to glisten, as if they had light surrounding them. Everything simply sparkled. I realized after that day that the birds were always singing. I remember asking someone if this was the case, as it was so shocking to me that I didn’t hear them (they were pretty prevalent in this little park outside my home actually).
From then on, the quiet started a slow permeation of my life. I noticed I loved silence in car rides —no radio. There is something about transit, be it a car, train, or plane, that seems to offer such an incredible and profound moment for silence. Perhaps it’s because we are out of our home environments, which we have filled with distractions and, even if not, reminders of our to do’s or things that need fixing or relationships that need mending. Home for many is one big list of thoughts, so travel gives us kind of a reprieve. Home however made its gradual way to being a quiet place. Removing TV from all but one room in the house, rarely watching, and keeping a minimal aesthetic that invites peace and little thought for objects around were profoundly helpful.
So keep trying. Stillness is essential to knowing ourselves, our safety, our love, and our Life.
