
Welcome to the first of probably many rambles on things I’ve learned or remembered during my 10 days silent retreat.
No too long after the start of the retreat, I started to notice how little silence there was. Or in more accurate terms, how little silence I could experience. The silence requested to a participant in one of these retreats is called Noble Silence – silence of speech, body and mind. But it seemed that most of us were only scratching the surface, managing mainly to maintain the speech silence. It turns out that people can actually be very loud even if they are not talking! There were always heavy, rushed footsteps, coughing and sneezing, and during mealtimes a symphony of plates, cutlery and chairs. The bodily element of this noble silence was mostly absent, and its intensity started to ring so loud in my head that clutched so fiercely to the one thing It knew for sure would pleasant to navigate: the silence.
From what I read and heard from other experiences of these retreats, people sometimes pick one thing that really annoys them and completely obsess over it on the days to come – perhaps giving the mind something to worry about in the absence of real problems. I did this! At some point I even started being annoyed at how loud someone’s trousers were when they walk past me! I realised pretty early into this obsession that I had reached the first hurdle, the first thing I needed to dive deeper into and bring from its core something to grow from!
In one of the long sittings of meditation (2h) the noise appeared so bad that it felt like half of the people were now affected by this constant coughing and sneezing and everyone was fidgeting, leaving or entering the room. This was all I could think of and I was digging myself deeper every time I chose to feed this hunger for silence and for pointing fingers at the absence of it. I wanted to also leave the room but just before I got up, it hit me: if I leave I will only add to the noise, I will create more of what I want to eradicate. So I sat quietly cultivating the silence within me. I kept hearing: “the silence is in you, the silence is in you…”! And though it wasn’t exactly easy and magical from this point on, It made me realise that it was my choice, my responsibility and that the finger was now pointing at me. I was the one that could do something about this!
I started to questioning constantly: am I as silent as I am asking others to be? And the answer was no! I wasn’t as silent as I wanted others to be, sometimes in auto pilot I would move faster, drop something, drag a chair. I would remind myself over and over that anything else that I am demanding of others, I need to cultivate in me first.
This could be applied to anything:
If I want more silence, I need to make less noise
If I want less traffic, I need to drive less
If I want less animosity, I need to be kinder
If I want less ignorance, I need to learn and know more
And when I find any of these (noise, traffic, animosity, ignorance) I need to tune in to the place in me that is the antidote for it. I need to ask what is my role in this? How can I cultivate within what I am asking the world outside?
In this case, it was simple: move more mindfully, slow down, be very present, and try to quieten the noise from the inside, starting with the constant chatter and narration of the present, past and the future – just be and observe. I realised this was showing me something important – my own lack of internal silence was keeping me from the treasures buried in those woods and halls, all I had to do was to REALLY see and be.
I remembered the words of Alan Watts: “you have to stop thinking to find out what life is about. And the moment you stop thinking you come into immediate contact with what Korzybski called, so delightfully, ‘the unspeakable world, The most ordinary sights and sounds and smells, the texture of shadows on on the floor in front of you. All these things, without being named, and saying ‘that’s a shadow, that’s red, that’s brown, that’s somebody’s foot.’ When you don’t name things anymore, you start seeing them.”
I started to take this silent and presence everywhere (or trying), watching every sunset and sunrise like a movie, watching light turning to darkness and darkness to light, rain turn into snow and snow into mud, and the most incredible colours and shapes that would have been forever shattered by words, sounds or screens. Those sunrises and sunsets become sometimes deeper than the hours of meditations. One day I sat watching a robin sing, I was so close that I could see his chest puffing and emptying, the vibrations moving through his body, the texture of his feathers, the depth of his eyes. I sat there crying and crying.
I cried for the beauty of that moment
I cried for all the times I didn’t allow myself to stop and watch a bird’s chest move with music
I cried because the robin and I were one, one with each other, one with the woodland, one with life itself.
I cried because life is so simple and yet we keep adding layers of complexity to it.
I have learned (or remebered) that the silence is in me! That anything I am asking of the world needs to be cutivated inwards first. But i also realised that this inwards cultivation could not be with the expectation of it being adopted by others and spread out– though that might be a pleasant side effect. This cultivation without the expectations and weight placed on others, is something of its own, something that brings the ability to tune in to the place of silence that exists regardless of the outside noise. And so it slowly becomes easier to tune in to this inner silence and be in its embrace, amidst the busy dining halls and fidgety meditations rooms of this life!
Oh, it’s a long road… luckily very little traffic 😊
Along that road, may you always find time to hear and see the birds sing!
With love,
Ri
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