transforming in silence

a gradual approach

Dear friend, dear one. Thank you for being here. Your presence is a gift.

This month, I’m sharing techniques to bring us into the quiet. Not just to hear its guidance, but to familiarize ourselves with its purpose, and to steady ourselves for the questions we ask of it. And the quiet response.

For most of us, silence cycles like this. Like the breath, it arises in awareness, floats for a moment, recedes with distraction, and remains distant until we focus on its presence. Regulating our breath is a helpful technique to refine awareness and a practice we’ll explore in today’s guided meditation.

For a moment, let’s consider how immune to noise we’ve become— engulfed in the hum of screens and streets—and how resistant to peace.

As I explored quiet places on earth, I found information about this place: the quietest room in the world. It’s part of Microsoft’s research into sound received and conveyed through various technology. The quiet, it turns out, isn’t inviting. Most folks are quick to leave the room after a few minutes. Only a few folks have remained in the room for more than an hour, and they report hallucinations and extreme disorientation.

For those who stay in the room for a few minutes, they suddenly realize the sounds of their own bodies moving— eyelids shutting, blood circulating, lungs expanding. Without ambient sound to anchor them, hearing people feel unsteady, as if the quiet unravels the senses they’ve woven together—sight, touch, and sound. In the Microsoft room, sensory stimulation is muted, so the experience can feel oppressively dead. The sudden deprivation of sensory stimulation causes confusion and extreme discomfort, not to mention the hyperawareness of internal, disquieting body noise.

All of which informs us on the importance of gradual and modified exposure to the unfamiliar. We do not live in a quiet world. Although not quite as disorienting as the anechoic chamber, the beginning of a meditation practice can feel just as jarring. While folks may strain to stay in the anechoic chamber for ten minutes, and we may think that’s not too long, my experience as a meditator and with beginning meditation students affirms that ten minutes of quiet can be an eternity.

nature’s sound softener

We don’t have to start with pure silence and we don’t have to stay in it forever.

We only have to start exposing ourselves. We might invite a little bit of quiet into our days by sitting still and listening to the sound of our breath for a minute or two. We might invite quiet by walking without headphones and simply listening to birds, cars, wind, and children all at play.

We expose ourselves gradually to let our awareness of focused experiences develop. Our focus shapes a channel for consciousness to move in whatever direction we choose. If we choose quiet, we’ll begin to discover the silence between activities, words, breath.

As consciousness integrates a shift in sensory input— from external to internal, noise to signal—our focus will float a bit longer before seeking distraction. As consciousness begins to appreciate the new experience in the float, it will accept our invitation to return to the signal— the quiet voice within.

In today’s meditation, we’ll return to the words of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem and explore the poet’s method of channeling our attention. Before we do, we’ll expand our practice by simply focusing our attention on a breath count. We’ll finish in quiet, discovering what transforms in our quiet… if we allow it.

Let’s see what we find.

Find the whole poem in last Sunday’s post:

a silent friend

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Thank you for listening to this second meditation of our March silence series. You’ll find a link to the earlier meditation below.

Please join me for our Spring online retreat: Questions and Answers for the Quiet.

We’ll meet via zoom on Saturday, March 29 from 10am to 11am pacific. During this time, we’ll be quiet together, listening to our bodies, our breath, our questions, and the quiet voice within.

Everyone is welcome to join; the retreat is free for paid subscribers or friends are welcome to share $25 to the cause! Thank you to those of you who have RSVP’ed. If you’d like to join, please send me a note and I’ll put you on the list.

Finally, I hope you’ll share the invitation with friends.

Thank you for being you.