SILENCE

Michael Hall PhD

The purpose of maintaining ‘external’ silence, meaning no talking, is to encourage the development of internal silence। It is only when the thinking mind is silent that spiritual transformation can occur. When we are quiet, and able to focus on the workings of our own minds, we will inevitably become aware of how noisy our mental activity is. Paying attention to this noise, which is the content of your thoughts, is the most direct practice for waking up. Normally, we pay attention to this mental noise, and believe that it is real and important. We then continue to elaborate it endlessly, running around in mental circles until we die. Silence, especially in the context of a spiritual retreat, creates a profound opportunity for each person to see for himself or herself how trivial and meaningless this mental busyness is.

If we will continuously pay attention to this obsessive and relentless fantasying, judging, and worrying, we will eventually become so sick and tired of it that we might just drop it। In Zen terms, this is dropping body and mind। Instead of continuing to treasure the content of our minds, we see through it, and lose interest in it. When seen clearly and accurately, the content of everyone’s mind is equally meaningless and trivial. Yet we spend our entire lives valuing that which has no value, and making ourselves miserable in the process. For what? It is simply a bad habit handed down through endless incarnations, repeatedly for no reason except the mistaken belief that it is inevitable and necessary. It is not inevitable. By careful self-observation, you can grow sufficiently repelled by the content of your own mind that you effortlessly lose interest in it. When you lose interest in our mind and its content, you become open to living freely, undisturbed. An entirely new and unfamiliar world opens in front of you. To lose interest in your mind is to surrender in the deepest sense. It is only then that not my will, but thy will be done will make sense. Our goal is nothing less than to realize our full potential as a human being by disappearing to who and what we have always thought we are.