What The Heart Finds In Silence

What The Heart Finds In Silence || In the Buddhist tradition we are asked to develop a quality called Noble Silence, which serves not only as a sacred vehicle for us but also is in a very real way our destination. In essence, the more we can create the space of Noble Silence, and live and practice from within it, eventually, it is what we BECOME. In this talk, Shell explores this multi-layered topic of silence, and how we can use it to become more joyful, awake, and at ease in our lives.

Transcript

Hyundai NiINA So as I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about this month,

The theme that kept arising from me was something I've not only been really craving for myself lately,

But also something I've really been trying to nurture within myself as well,

Which is something called noble silence in the Buddhist tradition.

And the thing that I really love about noble silence is that it's something we can not only use as a vehicle to get to where we want to go,

But in a very real way,

It's actually also the destination.

And because this practice of noble silence is so rich and has so many multiple layers to it,

I thought I'd spend a little time exploring it in this talk and kind of suss out a bit what it means to not only create and enter noble silence,

But to nurture and even become the actual quality of noble silence itself.

Just this past week,

Actually,

I was incredibly grateful to be able,

After a year and a half,

To experience a more extended period of noble silence during a five-day residential retreat that I led in West Virginia on the four foundations of mindfulness.

And honestly,

After,

Again,

More than a year and a half of not being able to lead retreat or attend my own annual private retreats,

I just felt so incredibly thankful,

Especially to be able to sit in silence with a group of other people for that long.

And I so often say this,

But it's true that there's really nothing like retreat that can show us how truly powerful that space of sustained silence can be and how transformative it can be.

And I also know that for many people who are new to practice or new to retreat,

It can often just almost feel impossible to imagine being alone in the silence for an extended period,

Even if it means maybe just 15 minutes of trying to sit alone in silence with ourselves.

But honestly,

Almost every single time after being given some guidance,

Most people tell me that in the end,

After they've been in the silence for an extended period,

They really don't want to leave what they've discovered in that space.

And in fact,

They tend to want even more of it.

So whenever we're able to finally enter that deeper space of noble silence,

So often it just seems really difficult to go back into our daily lives with all the noise and the energy and the distraction that comes with it.

And this is also exactly what we're training ourselves to do whenever we're practicing sitting in the silence.

As the great Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh explains,

Silence is something that comes from your heart,

Not from outside.

Silence doesn't mean not talking or not doing things.

It means that you are not disturbed inside.

If you're truly silent,

Then no matter what situation you find yourself in,

You can enjoy the silence.

And so this is one of the things that I really love the most about the teachings is that it not only shows us how we can be in the noble silence and how healing it is,

But how we can nurture that same sense of silence within ourselves,

Even within what can seem like a lot of chaos.

In fact,

We might even imagine that the entirety of the teachings is showing us how we can develop the skills or the ability to be able to do this,

To be in silence,

Which is we all know isn't as easy as it sounds.

About 70 years ago now,

Actually,

There was a study done where researchers asked participants to simply sit in an empty lab room in silence for 15 minutes without any distractions.

So for instance,

Without things like magazines or cell phones or games,

They took everything away.

And apparently,

The only thing they were told they could do was to push a small button that would shock them.

And before entering this room,

Each one of the participants had actually filled out a series of questions.

And every single one had agreed that they would pay money not to be shocked.

And yet,

After those 15 minutes in silence,

A full 67% of the men and 25% of the women chose to shock themselves,

Sometimes many times,

Rather than just sit alone in the silence.

And one of the researchers of the study who studies consciousness said this.

She said,

I found it quite surprising and a bit disheartening that people seem to be so uncomfortable when left to their own devices,

That they can be so bored that even being shocked seems more entertaining.

So the good news out of this study was that while the researchers concluded that many people do have a difficult time being alone with their thoughts,

They also suggested that meditation and other contemplative training practices can really help us with this.

Again,

By training us how to be with our thoughts in the silence and how to better direct our thoughts so that we're not sort of unconsciously harming ourselves.

And I think that last part is what our whole practice is really addressing,

Which is,

How can we use our practice of being in silence with ourselves in order to reduce the harm that we cause,

Either to ourselves or to others?

So that's what the practice is really essentially addressing.

And one of the first ways we can begin to use our mindfulness practice is to start becoming more and more aware of how good it can feel,

How healing it can be to allow ourselves more and more quiet time in our lives,

More periods of just being,

Just being present.

It might even be helpful to remember that thanks to modern science,

We now have clinical proof that less noise in our lives can create a healing effect on both the mind and the body,

Along with proof that a lack of silence actually creates the opposite effect.

Just as a,

For instance,

Research has shown that even moderate levels of unwanted noise contributes to an increase in cortisol,

Hypertension,

A rise in our blood pressure,

An increase in the incidence of coronary artery disease,

A whole bunch of other things.

In fact,

The Latin root meaning of the word noise actually means queasiness or pain.

Way back in the mid 1800s,

Actually,

Before science was able to prove her right,

Florence Nightingale,

The famous nurse and social reformer was really onto this idea.

And she wrote,

Quote,

Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on sick or well.

Every careless clatter or banal bit of banter can be a source of alarm,

Distress,

And loss of sleep for recovering patients.

Quiet,

She said,

Is part of care as essential for patients as medication.

As essential for patients as medication.

It's pretty powerful.

So physiologically,

Whenever we're exposed to noise,

It is literally shaking us.

Sometimes in very small ways,

But sometimes it can become chronically stressful over time,

Sometimes in really powerful ways.

We might notice,

For instance,

That whenever we pay attention to or become aware of sound,

We might also sense a vibration because really this is how sound is received and experienced in the body as varying levels of vibration.

To get a little technical here,

What happens is that sound waves vibrate the tiny bones of the ears,

Which convert these vibrations into electric signals that are received by the brain.

In the brain,

These signals are received by clusters of neurons that are associated with memory and emotion.

And when the noise is received by these neurons,

It prompts an immediate release of cortisol,

Which of course is the toxic stress hormone.

In the body,

A rush of cortisol is supposed to give us a quick bit of energy to help us to respond to stress.

And we evolved this way.

It was actually super helpful for our ancestors who needed to be on high alert for any rustling in the bushes because it literally might be a huge animal ready to pounce on them or maybe someone from another tribe who might actually want to kill them.

So they had to be really alert.

Today,

What we're hearing is rarely a giant tiger or an enemy,

But our bodies still react to noise like something or someone is out to get us,

Something we need to be wary of and pay close attention to.

This is why people who live in consistently loud environments often experience chronically elevated levels of stress hormones.

They're actually unable to find relief that silence can bring,

Even in sleep.

In fact,

In order for the body to come into more balance,

Scientists are now telling us that we actually require longer periods of relative silence so that we can return to homeostasis.

It's just like we might require food or water or like,

Again,

Florence Nightingale suggests,

It's like medicine for us.

And we get this most often during the nighttime,

Right?

So we can sleep and restore.

And I'm assuming that most of us turn off the loud music and the TV at night so that we can access that quiet.

And yet so many of us might not even think about getting our daily doses of silence throughout our day.

And sadly,

Here in the US at least,

Silence is not really a part of our culture,

Which if we think about it seems to want to keep us constantly swimming in noise and distraction.

You might consider that almost everywhere in restaurants,

Gyms,

Stores,

Grocery stores,

Even hospitals and doctors' offices,

Which are supposed to be places of healing,

There's usually either a television or many televisions on at the same time,

Or there's music.

And sometimes there's even both,

Right?

Rarely is there simply just silence.

And like fish in an ocean,

This water of noise,

If you will,

Can start to somehow feel normal,

Like the TV or radio being on constantly,

Maybe in our cars or in our homes.

So much so that we might not even notice that they're on at all.

They're so much a part of the constant distraction in our lives.

The problem is,

Is that again,

We actually need the silence for our very health.

In fact,

Just a few years ago,

Researchers discovered that silence actually creates the opposite effect on the brain,

The noise.

And what they discovered is that just two hours of silence a day can create new cells in a region of the brain that is associated with memory and emotion and learning.

One of the researchers said about this,

We saw that silence is really helping the newly generated cells to differentiate into neurons and integrate into the system.

Freedom from noise and goal-directed tasks,

It appears,

Unites the quiet within and without,

Allowing our conscious workspace to do its thing,

To weave ourselves into the world,

To discover where we fit in.

That is the power of silence.

And here you might have noticed that this quote includes the words freedom from noise and goal-directed tasks.

Again we're talking about the kind of silence that leads to more balance and ease and healing.

What we're really talking about is not just a quiet room or a space,

Although this is really a part of it.

Again we're talking about this quality of noble silence.

And happily in the sutras,

The Buddha gives us very specific instructions about how we can practice and cultivate noble silence.

As you might imagine,

It includes not only how we can find and create quiet surroundings,

But also how we can quiet the body and the mind,

Which are our true homes,

Quote,

Free from goal-directed tasks.

So to begin,

The Buddha asks us to make a true effort to practice in silence as much as possible by,

Quote,

Going to a forest,

To the foot of a secluded tree,

Or to a solitary dwelling.

And what I love about these instructions is that the Buddha suggests going outdoors as the first and best option for us,

As a way to really connect with nature.

Because if we think about it,

Don't we all feel a natural connection and peace when we're outside?

And aren't natural noises,

Even if they're loud like a rainstorm or tree frogs or even a wood fire,

Aren't they vastly more pleasant than human or mechanical noise like a refrigerator or talking or a heater?

This is because as the teachings urge us to remember,

We are truly not separate from nature.

We are all made of earth,

Air,

Fire,

Water,

And stars.

And so there is a natural attunement that we can tap into whenever we're out in it,

And it becomes much easier to discover that sense of silence and connection.

And I just want to stop here for a moment,

Though,

And say that it's important for us to remember that even though we want to create and find a quiet space,

Absolute complete silence is nearly always impossible.

So part of our practice is really learning to be with or allow the sounds,

Remembering that our resistance is what's going to cause us a lot of unnecessary stress and suffering.

When I was living in New York City some years ago,

I actually learned a lot about how to practice with noise because it was really literally so constant.

It really was like boot camp,

If you will,

For working with silence.

And I ended up making up a meditation for myself to help me to work with the noise,

And I still practice with this sometimes.

What I do is that I imagine while I'm sitting,

Not to be morbid,

But I imagine that I've died and that I have these precious 45 minutes or so to be alive and awake and to figure out what period of my life I've landed in for 45 minutes.

With my eyes closed,

The only way I can figure this out besides investigating the state of my body to find out maybe what age I am is to listen to the sounds.

And so in New York City,

What I was listening to was things like the buses and the ambulance and the laughter outside and the TV being on in the next apartment and the sound,

The really loud sound of the heaters in the apartment.

And also my upstairs neighbor who used to walk around in her high heels and really loudly.

And so I remember when I was in New York City doing this,

Just kind of laughing in a way inside and feeling so grateful for those noises,

Saying this,

Ah,

I'm in New York City.

This is it.

These are these precious 45 minutes here.

And just listening to them as they arose and passed or appeared and disappeared as part of my practice of being present.

And honestly,

Today,

Now living on a very quiet farm,

I would love to spend 45 minutes meditating in New York City again and hearing all those noises.

So it really helped me,

This practice,

Not to resist the noise and they become very curious about it instead,

Which is really part of our practice.

In general,

Though,

Having said that,

As per the Buddha's instructions,

We also really try our best to find the quietest place and time to practice so that we can better access that quiet.

Then once we've created the quietest space we can,

We allow ourselves to become quiet.

And again,

This does not mean just not speaking.

It means consciously quieting the body and allowing ourselves to become more and more still.

And in the beginning,

This might be difficult,

But for those of you,

Especially who are new,

I really want to encourage you to stick with it because the more we practice,

The more we learn that we really can still the body,

Especially.

We can stop fidgeting so much eventually or shuffling our feet or playing with our hands or changing our posture.

That's just a part of it in the beginning.

As we do,

We begin to sense that silence in the body actually feels pretty good.

As our practice deepens,

We discover that we can access it much more easily as we go along.

As you might imagine,

This then translates into our daily lives.

We almost naturally start to pay more and more attention to the body and to slowing the body down,

Quieting the body.

And the more we do this,

The more we can start to notice when the body is in some way noisy or fidgety or stressed.

And our awareness of this can help us to consciously let things drop and soften.

We can drop our shoulders and soften our jaws,

Let our tummy be soft.

We can open our hands,

And this can help us to quiet the body through the day.

And as we become more mindful of how much noise we're making with our bodies as we go through our lives,

What we often discover is that we really like or prefer to move more slowly and savor the walk rather than constantly running.

There's actually a famous story about Thich Nhat Hanh and how he learned to go slower.

He tells the story this way.

He says,

One day when I was a novice monk,

My teacher asked me to do something for him.

I was very excited to do it for him because I loved my teacher very much.

So I rushed out to do it.

But because I was so excited,

I wasn't mindful enough,

And I slammed the door on my way out.

My teacher called me back and said,

My child,

Please go out and close the door again.

But this time,

Do better than you did before.

Hearing his words,

I knew that my practice had been lacking.

So I bowed to my teacher and walked to the door with all of my being,

Every step with mindfulness.

I went out and very mindfully closed the door after me.

My teacher did not have to tell me a second time.

Now every time I open and close the door,

I do so with mindfulness,

Remembering my teacher.

Many years later,

I was in Kentucky with Thomas Merton,

The Trappist monk.

And I told him that story.

And he said,

Well,

I noticed that without you telling me,

I've seen the way you closed the door.

And I just love that story.

I've seen the way you closed the door.

So as we are practicing to consciously mindfully slow down and eliminate noise during noble silence,

We're also eliminating all the things that tend to distract our minds from our direct experience.

So for instance,

During retreats especially,

We practice this noble silence by agreeing to not do things like read or write in our journals or listen to music or use the internet or even eat snacks after our meals,

Which can be a distraction.

And I know many,

Many people find these instructions difficult in the beginning.

And it really is hard to explain.

But I like this explanation that I received years ago from a longtime practitioner,

Which is about why we refrain from journaling,

But it actually applies to all the rest as well.

This person wrote,

The problem with writing in a journal during a deep retreat is that it pulls our mind out of the non-discursive,

Non-conceptual state we've cultivated by meditating all day and keeping complete silence.

One of the goals of retreat is to quiet the chattiness of our mind and become more open to non-conceptual understanding.

Writing down our experiences in a journal works against this and draws us back into a discursive and conceptual way of thinking.

I really like that explanation.

So when we're on retreat,

We're also agreeing not to speak with one another and to avoid eye contact for very similar reasons.

One of these is because social conversation,

Even through nonverbal connection like eye contact,

Tends to keep the mind really active.

And periods of not talking or communicate can really help the mind to rest.

And what I find interesting about this is that so often not only are our emotions activated by communicating,

But they are activated even when we're anticipating these communications.

And so while silence at first might feel completely awkward,

It really does eventually work to quiet both the mind and the emotions.

And as you might expect,

As our mental and emotional lives calm down more,

Our bodies then start to follow and also come down as well,

Since again,

They're not disconnected,

The mind and the body.

Another aspect of entering noble silence during our meditation practice is that we are also consciously giving ourselves sacred time to not do,

To not direct,

To not anticipate,

To not plan.

Instead,

What we're asking ourselves to do is become very quiet and to simply take the time to listen inwardly,

To be,

To listen rather than do,

Which of course can be so difficult,

Which is why it's a practice.

The idea is that the more we practice this way,

The more this translates into discovering more and more moments in our daily lives of just being,

Just sitting,

Just walking without distracting ourselves,

Without planning and looking at our phones,

Figuring things out,

Etc.

,

Going away from ourselves into some kind of an escape or daydream,

Whatever way that looks.

We learn to simply be present and awake to our lives as we're living them.

I really like the way Norton Juster,

The children's author,

Describes this.

He says,

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before dawn,

Or the quiet and calm just as the storm ends?

Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked,

Or the hush of a country road at night,

Or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak,

Or most beautiful of all,

The moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house.

Each one is different,

You know,

And all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

I also think it's really interesting that the words silent and listen are actually made up the same letters,

And I really think they're interchangeable.

Because when we enter the silence,

Or if you like the sacred pause,

What we're actually doing is listening,

But we're not waiting for answers or explanations.

What we're really doing is being that silence and allowing everything else to pass through the silence without resisting,

Without having a particular goal.

The writer Anne Young writes that quote,

Silence enables us to see the sacredness of all life,

To see life steady and to see it whole.

In an age that has lost all sense of the sacred,

Of awe and wonder at the divine penetration through the physical human plane,

How much we need the recovery of silence.

Without some sense of awe,

There is little basis for meaning.

And so when we can become quiet and simply listen,

Often what happens is that we can suddenly sense that awe along with the sense of wholeness and connection.

And in that silence,

We can also more clearly hear finally what our hearts have been trying to say,

Trying to tell us.

In that silence,

When we're suddenly present to what's actually here,

We can sometimes suddenly feel what we might have been ignoring or trying to suppress.

So maybe we can suddenly hear or feel our sadness or grief or anger or loneliness or whatever it is.

Or maybe we feel pure joy or peace or awe in that moment.

Then we can access that silence,

We can also start to hear all those things that we've been saying to ourselves,

Everything that we've been automatically believing maybe.

And instead of being swept up in a constant flow of thoughts,

We can then start to better access the silence between those thoughts.

And after a while,

Those periods of silence become longer and longer.

And we can not only connect with that silence,

But we can actually dwell there.

We can become that silence so that we can more clearly hear our thoughts and our beliefs.

And this is a great place to be because this is when we can begin to question our thoughts and our beliefs and offer ourselves great kindness and compassion for these habitual beliefs.

And that last part,

Of course,

Is the most important.

We listen with great kindness,

Really important.

The great and late teacher Ram Dass tells us,

For someone deeply trapped in a prison of thought,

How good it can feel to meet a mind that hears a heart that reassures.

As if a listening mind is in and of itself an invitation to another mind to listen to.

How much it can mean when we accept the invitation and hear the world anew.

So of course,

We actually can't do any of this well,

Listen well or feel well,

When we are constantly distracted by all the noise in our lives,

Which of course includes our own constant mind chatter,

Our own constant conversation that we're having with ourselves.

And yet,

As those researchers showed,

Being in the silence can be incredibly difficult,

Even when we want it to be quiet.

Our minds tend to have other plans.

The reason for this is because when we start to sit down and listen,

The silence can often magnify actually our inner chatter.

And it can often feel overwhelming like,

Oh my gosh,

This isn't working at all.

I'm actually thinking more now.

I hear that a lot when I start teaching meditation,

Wait,

I'm actually thinking a lot more.

I can really hear my inner dialogue.

And this inner chatter,

If you will,

Can include all those thoughts and feelings and conversations and even uncomfortable physical sensations that we've mostly been trying to avoid.

And so in a very real way,

Often the noise or the distraction is serving as a kind of salve or an escape,

Maybe just like a glass of wine might or watching a television show.

It takes us away from hearing what's going on in the mind because often we don't want to hear what's going on there.

The good news is that the more we practice,

The more we become comfortable with and familiar with the silence.

And we become more comfortable with the listening to our own thoughts and feelings without judgment and without suppressing them.

We become more comfortable with just watching them arise and pass,

Resting in awareness,

In silence,

In pure presence that is simply letting it all flow through.

And after a while,

What happens is that this internal dialogue at some point also starts to quiet down.

When the mind becomes more quiet then and we become more present with what's actually here right now,

Instead of being so caught up in the noise and the distraction that is our talking mind,

We can experience a more heightened sense of intimacy with the whole world,

With a deeper sense of just pure presence.

And as we start to achieve a more sustained silence,

Both in our practice and our daily life,

What happens is that we start to feel like we're more awake to our lives.

Our senses feel more alive and both our inner and outer worlds can appear to us with much greater clarity.

Here you might think of a pure blue open sky that was somehow obscured with clouds and it's suddenly clearing and we have more sky in our life and our mind.

So for instance,

We might begin to notice the sound of birdsong more often.

Maybe we actually start to notice all the different sounds all around us,

All the different songbirds individually.

And again,

Whenever we can allow ourselves to tap into that silence,

We can also start to hear our quieter thoughts and emotions,

Which normally get drowned out by either the outside noise or the constant inner noise or dialogue that we don't hear those quieter thoughts or emotions.

And in this more sustained silence and presence,

We can begin to really just experience all of it exactly as it is,

Not how we think it is.

So in the silence,

We can actually begin to let go of words and concepts and preconceived notions altogether and go right to direct experience.

The great teacher,

Krishnamurti,

Explains it this way.

If you would look at a flower,

Any thought about that flower prevents you from looking at it.

The words,

The rose,

The violet,

It is this flower,

That flower,

It is that species,

Keep you from observing.

To look,

There must be no interference of the word,

Which is the objectifying of thought.

There must be freedom from the word and to look,

There must be silence.

Otherwise you can't look.

If you look at your wife or husband,

All the memories that you have had,

Either of pleasure or pain,

Interfere with looking.

It is only when you look without the image that there is a relationship.

Your verbal image and the verbal image of the other have no relationship at all.

They are non-existent.

And so I think I'm going to end with that and invite you into a meditation on silence just for a moment.

So whenever you're ready,

Just finding a comfortable posture,

Maybe closing the eyes.

If you're driving or walking,

You might just become more embodied and slower,

Sensing the breath,

Maybe feeling the sit bones if you're in your car and your hands.

Or if you're walking,

Feel your feet walking on the ground and breathe.

If you haven't already,

Taking a nice deep breath in,

Filling the body.

So exhale,

Letting go.

Couple of rounds of these on your own just to tap into the body and the mind.

On each exhale,

Seeing if you can access that silence,

That place of noble silence within the mind,

Body,

Heart a little more,

Letting everything slow down,

Mind,

Body.

Depending on what's right here,

Right now in the present,

In the breath.

I invite you now just to begin to notice sound.

Might even hear the sound of birds on this recording.

It's outside the window right now as I'm speaking.

You might hear traffic,

Other noises.

Just noticing the arising and passing,

The appearing and disappearing of sound.

And as you do,

See if you can access that place within you that is quiet,

That is silent,

That is noble,

That place of awareness that all the sounds are simply passing through.

Recognizing that we don't need the outside to be quiet.

We need the inside to be quiet so that we can be aware of everything that's passing through that space of awareness.

Okay?

If you'd like,

You might also start to notice thought as it arises and passes,

Appears and disappears,

Just like sound in the mind.

Can you access that place of silence within you that's simply noticing thought as it arises and passes through the silence?

No need to push thought away,

Judge it,

Run with it,

Just notice thinking like clouds through the mind.

You might now even consider noticing any emotions that might be arising and passing,

Appearing and disappearing in the body.

Seeing if you can,

Again,

Access that deeper space of quiet and silence that's simply experiencing,

Witnessing emotion as it arises and passes,

Just like sound.

Becoming that space of silence that can simply be aware of what's here without any judgment,

Just witnessing with great kindness.

And finally with the eyes still closed,

Just listening to these words from one of my favorite poets,

Naomi Shihab Nye,

Who writes,

We forget about the spaciousness above the clouds,

But it's up there.

The sun's up there too.

When words we hear don't fit the day,

When we worry what we did or didn't do,

What if we close our eyes?

Say any word we love that makes us feel calm.

Slip it into the atmosphere and rise.

Creamy miles of quiet,

Giant swoop of blue.

Namaste and blessings.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

These talks are always offered freely so that no one is ever denied access to these teachings and your support really makes a difference.

Donna is an ancient Pali word meaning spontaneous generosity of heart.

If you feel inspired to offer Donna,

You can do so by visiting my website at www.

Mindfulvalley.

Com.

Thank you so much.

Reviews

I needed to hear this beautiful talk and thank you for taking the time to record and post this session. Silence is seriously undervalued.

I really enjoyed this talk. So simple and profound. It was exactly what I needed to hear today. I will devote more time to noble silence.
Thank you so much. I will definitely visit your website.

For a silence junkie like me, this was really uplifting ❤