three shades of silence
I II III II I
A letter about silence?
Ironically enough, there is much that can be said about silence. In this letter, in the spirit of an upcoming silent retreat, three explorations into this elusive compagnon that is with us throughout our lives.
On the 18th of December I’ll be guiding a day-long silent retreat. It will be a day of meditation, rest & relaxation, poetry, fire, food & forest and all that silence will teach us. We’ll be staying in a cosy yurt, with a warm house to relax in nearby, in a beautiful forest in the centre of the Netherlands.
‘If you want learn about a tree, go to a tree’, the Zen Buddhist says.
The same can definitely be said about silence.
I would therefore encourage every one of you to explore your own practical exploration of silence (and/or join me on the 18th, of course). Here are two more options:
For an exploration into rituals, many of which also incorporate the importance of silence, you might be interested in this here program called ‘rituelen’ (about rituals) that starts this Monday.
Every other week or so I guide an online meditation. If you would like to join these short moments of meditative silence, follow this link. Or, if you want to dive into silence right now, listen to the meditation below from a few weeks ago. It actually serves as a good introduction, a summary even, to the letter below. So, if you have time, you might want to begin this letter on silence, in silence:
All righty then.
Three Shades of Silence
(in the shape of words)
I
silence is a place
silence is not the absence of sound,
silence is a place;
it’s a hearth, a home,
which resides at the centre of our being
where we’re always welcome and welcomed;
silence is the place from which to enter the world
and the place to return to,
when all is said and done.
.
a continuous return to one’s centre
nourishes this silence,
cultivates it,
makes it grow ever more present,
fills up the well at the centre of our being;
stay connected to this well, and silence is brought into your world,
making it easier to actually see the world,
to truly listen to the words of the world,
and,
to help the world listen, and see you,
in return.
II
In this way, silence is a place and a presence - an eternal presence in your deepest centre and the centre itself, a well and the water. Weave a gossamer thread between this centre of your being and to wherever your attention is focused, keep nurturing this bond, and a radically different conversation between your inner and outer world will start to unfold.
Not conscious of this bond, your old, tired and well-worn patterns are mechanically and unconsciously acting out their never changing re-actions.
Conscious of this bond, a space opens up between the external world and your internal response to it.
a breathing spell…
a respite in the mechanical whirring…
a flicker of conscious awareness…
Now, a deeper, wiser and fresher essence unfolds and emerges from its slumber, ready to look the world in the eye, without haste, without intention, but with curiosity and playfulness. You have opened yourself up to the deeper truth of your being and are now able to speak from this truer, freer self.
What will happen next, no one knows, for you’ve just stepped out of the ritual of repetition into the actual spontaneous flow of life…
Continuously returning to our centre and the silence within is not about learning anything new. It is about re-acquainting ourselves with our most ancient part, re-acquainting ourselves with everything we’ve always known, from before we could walk, from before we could think even, for this knowing doesn’t come from anything outside of ourselves: we are this knowing.
If we express ourselves from this place, something wonderful starts to unfold: by speaking our truth, we begin living our truth. And that, truly, is the ride of a (or better yet: your) lifetime.
III
first,
around stillness;
then,
with stillness;
finally:
from stillness
-
I II III II I
-
Love
from
Louis
Part II of the meditation: story time
Usually, at the end of every meditation, I share something that I’m inspired by at that moment. This time it was a koan that Zen master and writer Henry Shukman uses in his current series ‘true person of no rank’, and some surprisingly similar sentences from The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin:
And, to finish up, the beautiful and serene silence of Japanese gardens, true centres of stillness in the external world:
…
..
.