Oakville Zen Meditation
Being mindful of “nothing”: listening to silence
It is easier than we think but it takes practice and discipline like anything else to listen to …..silence.
Silence does not mean anything. …It is an infinite soundless, and timeless space allowing sounds and noises to appear occasionally.
Silence is an intrinsic but unmanifested necessity for every sound, every musical note, every song, and every word to exist. W/o it, there will not have any identity…………..( explain)
Listening to silence is performing magic. It has divine power and immense energy, and yet, it is not as difficult as you may think.
Remember this:
The equivalent of a permanent external noisy environment is the continuous inner noise of our mind's thinking.
The equivalent of external silence is our inner quiet mind stillness, a pure meditative awakening state.
How to practice?
Whenever there is silence, learn to be mindful of it without judgmental, analytic decision-making, even for a few seconds. Starting with a few cycles of optimal breathing practice will help.
What to do if you are distracted by a sound/noise you may ask:
Dropping your inner resistance to these intermittent external noises /sounds and accepting them.
They will not last. Doing so will take you back into the realm of your inner quiet peace called stillness.
How does listening to silence work in our minds, and stimulate our practice of awareness?
When we focus on the silence around us, we freeze our thinking mind and put it on some sort of "mute mode " because it does not know what to listen to ……since there is no sound, no noise to receive and analyze. Listening to silence triggers some sort of “short” in our neural circuits allowing us to reach a mental non-thinking state also called awareness. In this case, powerful awareness of silence.
Awareness defines the main attribute of our essential bodyless nature called pure immaterial consciousness. It is a critical part, the core of our inner self, and yet, without awareness, we will have no sensorial experience, no thinking, no feelings, and no interconnection with others nor with our surrounding realities.
Listening to silence is a wonderful tool to practice, and enhance our awareness skills.
What are the beneficial impacts of being mindful of silence?
Practicing mindfulness-based awareness of silence triggers 3 important states:
1 On the mind: creating a sort of non-thinking state generating powerful inner quietness, and mental stillness.
2 On the body: stillness, and powerful relaxation.
With practice, listening to silence may generate a bodyless experience as mentioned previously.
3 Finally it brings the body and mind into the same space-time that is the present moment.
In summary:
I found that focusing on silence or soundless space to anchor my mind during meditation is the most effective way to control my noisy wandering, and restless mental jerking behavior, especially with the initial practice of optimal breathing that we talked about previously. Why it is so effective?
Focusing on silence is practicing very quickly on your genuine awareness or consciousness because it triggers, at the same time,
>>>>>>Powerful inner quietness and stillness of the mind,
>>>>>>Relaxation and stillness of the body.
It is achieving sort of thoughtless, and selflessness state,...... at least during the meditation practice.
Finally, a spiritual note:
Silence will help you to discover the spiritual emptiness of your material ego-centered self.
It is called a “bodyless experience”, and it is a wonderful one to achieve because it is also called Awakening. Arnaud Thanks
12 min. video from E Tolle about being aware of the silence.
