Silence In Meditation - Episode 10

Episode 10 of the Nature of Meditation podcast explores Silence in Meditation.

Nature of Meditation monthly podcast is an exploration of the nature of silent meditation practice. Produced by Ayla Michelle at The Therapy Garden, a BAMBA accredited, registered and supervised mindfulness teacher.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Michelle and welcome to episode 10 on silence in meditation practice.

So apologies for my my sore throat.

My voice sounds probably husky and deeper than usual.

So let's start with a five minute silent meditation practice.

Find a place where you can sit comfortably,

Where you won't be disturbed and don't worry about any external or internal conditions that are present here now.

Silent meditation doesn't require perfect or ideal conditions.

If we if we wait for ideal internal or external conditions to meditate,

We'll be waiting forever.

So let's start somewhere,

Anywhere,

No matter where or what the moment is like here and now.

As best you can at this moment in time.

Sitting still for a while and see if you can experience some silence.

Becoming aware of whatever's in front of your gaze,

Having a relaxed,

Soft gaze downwards and becoming aware of what's going on inside of you as well.

This is natural,

Because when we're silent,

We become more aware of things.

Because silence brings awakening and awareness.

So let's sit with our own silence,

Just as it is,

And not not worry too much about it.

Back in the present moment,

Perhaps slightly more present,

More self-aware,

So there are many different forms of meditation and in this episode,

I'm speaking about silence in sitting meditation practice.

As a pathway to inner peace and self-discovery.

By self-discovery,

I don't mean any ego project.

I mean,

Becoming your true nature.

Well,

You already are,

So you can't become it,

But resting in your true nature.

So on the surface level of the mind,

On the ego level of the psyche,

Which is the surface of the mind,

It may seem that silence refers to an absence of noise,

Both the absence of external noises,

And the absence of internal noises.

Internal chatter.

Silence has nothing to do with either thought or no thought,

Feelings or no feelings,

Sensations or no sensations,

And nothing to do with noise or no noise.

It doesn't require any contrived effort to achieve some special state of mind or state of being.

So there's no trying to get rid of thoughts,

No rising above thinking,

And you don't necessarily have to be mindful of any specific object of meditation,

Such as your anchor or your breath.

Silence is just unmediated immediacy,

Contact and directness,

And purity of reality just as it is in this moment now.

So I know that when we stop and become more still and listen,

We become aware of our internal agitation,

Our internal chatter,

Our aches and pains,

Thoughts,

Feelings,

Emotions,

Sensations.

So the invitation is to give yourself to whatever arises in your field of awareness,

Including any distraction,

Discomfort or agitation.

So everything is included.

Nothing is excluded.

So no avoidance or resistance,

No ego project is in place.

We're not trying to achieve anything special.

Nothing is more or less important than anything else in the experience of silence.

Negative experiences,

Affects,

Perceptions have no sway or power in silent meditation.

So we're not trying to avoid or reject anything or overcome or transcend anything.

We're not trying to find a way through.

We're not trying to make meaning or discriminate good from bad or right from wrong in any way.

We're not judging anything at all.

Not any sensation,

Thought,

Feeling,

Perception or fantasy.

We're not interested in or engaged in whatever narrative may want to work itself through our mind.

We're not concerned with the story of this moment,

Of this time.

We're not concerned with any story about ourself.

Our attention is free and unconcerned and uninvolved,

Unattached and not bothered by whatever is going on.

In our field of awareness.

Our awareness that is open and free.

So we're not using our mind to seek silence.

Mostly people seek silence with their mind.

With the instrument that creates the impediments to silence in the first place.

For example,

Meditators might try to get rid of their thoughts and stop thinking.

They might try to have peaceful thoughts and positive,

Compassionate,

Loving responses to their experience.

They might try to create a quiet environment by getting rid of any noise around them or inside them.

But using the mind to get rid of the mind is not the answer.

And silence happens naturally when we stop giving our allegiance to our mind.

We're not trying to stop the mind.

But we are no longer slave to our mind.

We're no longer controlled and dominated by our mind.

We're no longer devoted to the selfing process,

The ego identification process of the mind.

And this may be difficult at first because humanity is unconsciously devoted to the seeking mind.

Seeking an identity for itself from what it wants,

What it perceives.

What it positions,

What it idealizes,

What it desires.

And in such egoistic striving,

Selfing and agitation,

There's no silence.

Something different is required.

To be peace,

To be silent.

Take courage.

To go where the surface level of the mind cannot go.

To be what the ego cannot be.

So we let the surface level of the mind take place and we don't bother trying to change or stop or fix anything going on at the surface level of the mind.

We let go of our aversion and our resistance to the surface level of mental chatter.

Letting go into silence.

A silence that's untroubled and undisturbed by the waves on the surface of the psyche.

Dropping down into being the actual water,

Into the ocean of being.

Silence doesn't mean passivity.

It's out of silence that true nature arises.

And I appreciate that learning to abide in silence isn't always easy.

It's not easy at first.

It's a bit like learning how to ride a bike and it takes a period of training yourself.

It takes some time to get used to the new experience of being,

Just being,

Without an identity,

Without using your mind.

And it takes repeatedly falling off your bike and getting back on,

Trying again,

Repeatedly falling off the mind.

And when we've fallen off the mind enough times,

We start to get used to what it feels like to have experience without thinking,

Without selfing,

Without being involved in one's identity.

We can get used to the experience of just being,

Just experiencing,

Just perceiving.

But we need to have a few goes of perhaps at first glimpses of the experience,

Then moments,

Then minutes.

And gradually we can get used to the experience of beingness.

So everyone has to go through a learning process,

Learning how to abide in silence,

Get used to the experience of pure being.

And once you've experienced what it's like to quiet the mind and have no thinking,

You start to enjoy the experience and it becomes usual.

And because you've enjoyed it,

You want to have it again.

And it's no longer something elusive or difficult or unusual.

It becomes normalised,

It becomes a usual normal experience you have.

So I don't want to go too advanced and that would be wrong and unfair.

Because in the modern world that we live in,

Silence can be a rare experience and people are uncomfortable or can feel awkward with silences.

In this noisy world,

Silence can be unusual,

Unsettling.

It could be disturbing,

A threat or a sign of disapproval or rejection.

Because our modern life is characterised by overstimulation,

Our technological devices increasingly intruding on our silence.

For newcomers to meditation,

Coming to know or learning how to be silent can make us more aware of our thoughts,

Our feelings,

Our internal chatter,

Our fantasies,

Our hopes,

Fears.

And becoming more aware of our internal narrative,

Our internal dialogue,

Can lead to a heightened sense of self-consciousness.

So paradoxically,

Learning to be silent can increase one's self-identification process.

And being self-conscious is unhelpful in meditation.

So there's a bit of a catch-22 going on when you first start learning how to practice silent meditation.

Because you encounter your internal chatter and you do become more aware,

More self-aware and self-conscious.

Of your thoughts,

Your feelings,

Sensations,

Perceptions.

You become more aware of your neuroses,

Your anxiety,

Your avoidances,

Resistances and many other defence mechanisms.

So it's not necessarily easy to learn how to be silent.

So I want to turn now to perhaps some positives because where there are negatives,

There are always positives.

So with this increased self-awareness,

As I've said,

It does allow us to become more aware of our thoughts,

Emotions and sensations.

So although we become more aware of our internal chatter,

Our internal narrative,

Our selfing process,

We don't have to be distracted by it.

So in a way,

The increased self-awareness and self-connection that silence fosters and brings is a good thing to become more self-aware or connected with oneself.

And becoming more connected with oneself and more self-aware enables us to become more emotionally regulated.

We can learn how to regulate our emotions,

Observing them without judgement and learning what our symptoms are,

What our behaviours are,

What our habit energies are.

Getting to know ourselves,

How we respond and react.

Knowing how we respond,

How we defend,

Gives us a chance to begin to respond more skilfully,

More holistically.

More knowingly,

With clarity and understanding,

Self-understanding.

So silence also enables and facilitates access to our inner wisdom,

To our true nature,

So that we can come to know ourselves.

In silent meditation we can discover insights about ourself,

Our relationships,

Our life and we can deepen our connection to ourself.

We can deepen our connection to all levels of our being,

Including the subtle aspects of our human and spiritual nature.

So in silence our true nature reveals itself and life reveals itself to us because we're able to pay close attention to what's actually happening inside us.

So we become more aware,

Self-aware of our true reality as it is and of course in silence the wonder of life reveals itself.

In many spiritual traditions and religions silence is seen as a doorway and a pathway to spiritual growth and a deep connection with the divine or with oneness or all of the universe.

And on a more mundane level,

In our everyday life,

People often say that they know someone is a true friend if they can be quiet with them and still feel comfortable.

So sitting in silence with yourself,

With your friends and loved ones,

Helps you bond and helps you develop deeper connections in your relationships with others and with yourself.

So let's take some time in this episode to practice silent meditation with each other.

So sitting in a comfortable posture,

Making sure you're comfortable and you yourself will know what's right for you,

What's comfortable for you.

Sitting in a way that allows you to be relaxed and yet alert.

And as I've taught in each episode,

You can use your breath as an anchor for your attention or you can use your hands.

So you yourself will know where is a place for your attention to rest,

To sit and be still for a while.

So that your attention doesn't need to wander.

And resting your attention will help prevent your mind from wandering off and mindlessly chattering to itself.

It doesn't need to be moving.

So using your attention to help your mind rest.

And of course,

As always,

You're more than welcome to notice any passing thoughts,

Feelings and sensations without judgment.

With a kind,

A kind awareness,

A compassionate awareness,

Allowing whatever's flowing through your mind to freely come and go without being troubled by it.

So allowing yourself to embrace silence through being present with whatever arises,

Just as it is.

Because whatever it is,

Whatever thought,

Feeling or sensation is merely passing through silence.

And the silence is bigger and greater and more real than this fleeting thought,

Feeling,

Sensation.

And silence is the backdrop of all our experience.

So we're not going to arrive at silence or achieve silence because it's always there and it was there before us and it will be there after us.

So whether we like it or not or believe it or not,

It's always there.

Noticing whatever's here for you now,

Whatever sensation,

Whatever feeling,

Emotion.

Noticing the thoughts and also the space,

The empty space between thoughts,

The silences between any object of mind.

The silences between any object of experience,

Any phenomena of experience.

So here,

Silence is not the absence of noise.

It's not the absence of perception.

It's not the absence of experience.

But it's an experience of inner quietude,

Inner peace.

An inner peace that allows for all your experience to pass through the psyche unimpeded.

And so that your psychic energy is flowing smoothly,

More peacefully,

In a more regulated way.

Connecting with your silence,

Being present and aware.

The silence allowing and enabling a stable presence.

The silence allowing and enabling contact and awareness.

Aware of your breathing or your hands or the sensations of breathing in your body.

Or your feet,

The temperature in the room,

The sounds in your body and in your environment.

Taking a deep breath,

Perhaps consciously taking three deeper breaths than usual.

Coming to the close of the episode.

So abiding in silence.

Enjoying silence.

So I wish you luck learning how to experience silence.

And as I've said,

It takes a few goes.

But if you have a brief experience that you enjoy.

And that you find beneficial to your health and well-being.

To your sense of ease and joy in the world.

And that you find awakening and enlivening.

You'll want to experience it again.

So in one way or another,

In some time and place or another.

You'll give yourself the opportunity to experience it again.

And again.

Okay.

So I hope this was helpful in some way.

And I look forward to being here with you next time.

Bye for now.