Embracing Silence As A Practice

We did not evolve to live in such a noisy environment. We can, if desired, fill every waking moment with noise, music, talks, podcasts, videos and other content. But what if there is wisdom to be found in the silence? What if we instead took silence itself as a practice, or even as our teacher?

Transcript

There's something to be said about the benefits of silence. And of boredom. And if you're just allowing the mind to wander. The idea of the inbox zero meditation. Just allowing our minds to sit. In silence. For an extended period of time. Just opening up those emails. Allowing them to process. And just release. The analogy being is that every day. We accumulate. An inbox of unopened emails in the mind. Thought Threads. Conversations that happened. Memories from the past. Anxieties and thoughts and contemplations and ruminations of the future. Internal bodily sensations. Just the workings of the mind in general. All of these accumulate as unready emails, So to speak. So the practice of Inbox Zero is simple. We just allow it to process. For the duration of the session. You could see it for 10 minutes. You could set for 60 minutes. But you could also do this practice as. . . A just sort of daily ongoing thing. Rather than playing the podcast or the music. Or some sort of other distraction as driving. Or when you're washing the dishes. Or doing any of those other sort of mundane tasks. Rather than distracting yourself. Rather than putting more information in. Even educational information. Instead. You return to this practice, To the silence. To the inbox zero and just allow your mind to process and wander. For whatever reason. Our society currently. Almost demonizes. But what is boredom? It's a lack of stimulation. To lack of input. And it's a little bit confronting because it forces us. Fill that gap, Fill that silence, Fill that void with, Well, With what? Ourselves, Our unprocessed feelings and emotions. It forces us to read those emails. But there is a tremendous healing benefit. Of silence. Of allowing ourselves to be bored, Of allowing the process to happen. And what's more, It can spur creativity. As you're falling asleep or perhaps as you're having the shower, Thoughts pop up. Because in those moments. . . Are the rare moments that all of us usually allow ourselves to be in a state of relative silence. What if, What if instead of just those random rare moments, We allowed silence in. And we perhaps even looked to silence as the teacher. What then? Now don't get me wrong, There is a way. Drive to feel the need for more information. Indeed were evolutionarily primed for it. More information. Traditionally has kept us safe. If someone tells you about a dangerous plant, Or dangerous area, Or dangers in general. You are very much primed to listen. Why? Because it keeps us safe. Or rather it did, But that same drive now is being super exploited, Super focused upon. Our eyes are gravitated towards all of the events happening across the globe. Some of which may be significant, But the vast majority are not. But we can't quite tell the difference. So we maintain the viewing, We maintain the scrolling, We maintain the listening. Like it will help us. Some of it, A small percentage may. But the vast majority is just noise. The way I've learnt to filter that out. Is twofold. Number one. Am I doing this based on a choice? Or did I just sort of mindlessly fall into observing and scrolling and listening? If it's the letter, Turn it off. Number 2. Am I getting actionable information? Is this story, Podcast, Video, Talk. Or whatever, Is it giving me information that I can take action upon. Learning is the changing of behavior in response to information. To getting all of this information. Does it impact what you're doing? Or are you just listening instead of. . . Getting stressed. If it's the latter. Turn it off. There is a real, Lasting benefit. To just embracing silence. Pausing. To allowing. To listening. To being bored. So I encourage you to try. This idea of the inbox zero meditation. Or just allowing silence into your life. You could do it formally. For example, Setting a timer for 10. 60. One minute. Whatever works best for you. And just allowing. You could do that, And I strongly encourage you to do. But you could also just allow silence into your life. The moment that you find yourself filling the silence with noise. While cleaning. While traveling. Maybe instead. Just allow the silence. It will feel uncomfortable at first. Because you're not used to it. But eventually when that inbox gets close to and hits zero you will discover the present moment. The teachings that are available to you, The wisdom. My final thoughts on this are that. . . Before all of the tech. Before all of modern society. Humans evolved. We came into this world when there was relative silence. That's unnormal. And normal is relative silence. So there might be something there to return to might feel uncomfortable at the start. But what if? A lot of the hang-ups. A lot of the neuroses, The anxiety, The depression, All of it. What if all of that is compounded by noise? Or rather by a lack of silence. The silence that we evolved to expect. Give it a try. Thank you.