We live in a very noisy world. It’s quite difficult to escape the riot of continuous sound. Even if you are alone in your home and no one is speaking to you – the beeps and clicks from electrical appliances like the refrigerator or washer and dryer and AC are there to remind you that you are surrounded with noise. Unless you turn off all your devices, the silence will still be interrupted by phone calls, texts, social media alerts, computer screens, bills or advertisements coming through the mail, packages being delivered which might involve a knock or the ring of a doorbell. In 2021 it is pretty difficult to find absolute silence.
I wrote this while working at home and even one dog licking her paw and the other one chewing a toy is enough to drive me to distraction sometimes.
Yet I…and many of you… crave…total silence. And even AS WE ARE CRAVING IT, we are answering texts, listening to music or a podcast or the news. Why do you think that is? Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen master and one of the most respected and celebrated religious leaders in the world, supposes that fear may be the culprit. Many of us are just really afraid of being alone with our own thoughts, with our feelings, so having plenty of stimuli makes it easy to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling.
We may pick up a magazine or go on the internet, “researching” this or that; or to listen to music; or go shopping on Amazon; or to watch something on Netflix or YouTube; or to find games to occupy our minds – even while we’re in the restroom! Our devices go with us everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.
Have you seen couples or even entire families, having a meal at a restaurant while still engaged on their devices? Of course you have. Little bitty children are given devices to occupy them so Mommy and Daddy can take care of business, usually on their cell phones, without the interruptions of the little ones.
And we do it mechanically, automatically – perhaps because it has become a habit or we want to kill time and fill up the discomforting sense of empty space. We do it to avoid encountering ourselves. Thich Nhat Hanh says we do it because “many of us are afraid of going home to ourselves” because we don’t know how to handle all that’s happening inside us. So we are always reaching for more and more sensory impressions to fill us up.
Not long ago I created a silent retreat for myself at home for 4 days. I turned everything off, put my turned off phone in a drawer, didn’t listen to anything or read anything. Are you asking why about the reading? Because reading occupies the mind and I was going for zero distractions. It was hard. I was living alone at the time which is basically the only way this can happen unless you are able to actually go away for a silent retreat. I pretty much didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t do real prayer and meditation because my mind was skipping stones hither and thither. It took a full 2 days to settle myself down. Like withdrawal, I guess. And then when my 4 days was over, I had a hard time coming back out of it. It’s pretty hard to describe. I was in a different place, an altered state of consciousness.
Developing a close and closer relationship to Source is the point. For me that can’t be done with the barrage of noise assaulting my senses. I NEED the quiet so I can access stillness. It truly is delicious and so very comforting to KNOW, without a shadow of doubt, that the Holy One and I are communing.
Won’t you try it with me? Perhaps begin with just an hour. Close down all your devices. Maybe take a walk device-less or sit outside and watch the birds and squirrels for an hour. If you do this regularly, you may become addicted to the silence, to the stillness, to that still, small voice bringing creative ideas into you consciousness. Let me know in the comments how that was for you. I’d love to hear.