Silence

The sound of silence is the practice of mindfulness.  This practice quiets the noise inside of us and grounds us in the present moment.  Without mindfulness we get pulled into past regrets, future concerns, and are left groundless as we sift through thoughts and feelings that are triggered by this loss of the moment.

Silence can be frightening.  To suddenly be still and exist in the moment can feel overwhelming as thoughts and feelings present themselves.  As we experience these unbidden things, and have no place to attach them, we can grow anxious and fearful.  Our minds look for places to form attachments so that we have a frame of reference for our thoughts and feelings.  After all our minds are conditioned to have control of our lives, so to become still and present in only the moment begins to loosen the mind's grip on this control.  Fear rushes in to fill the void of stillness and to re-establish mind's illusion of order and control.  In these moments if we relax into this stillness mindfulness can manifest.

We may become distracted by the emptiness we feel inside.  In this distraction we may be waiting for something to arrive to make our lives feel more exciting, more meaningful, and more alive.  Moving through our inner distractions allows us to gently embrace the silence.

The first few months after I came home from the hospital I was placed into a physical environment that had far fewer distractions.  As physical silence enveloped me my mind quickly tried to fill the void.  My thoughts ran rampant as my mind attempted to create a framework for my thoughts to identify with. The hospital was filled with chaos, and the weeks I was there I found that my daily practice of meditation gave me a focus through this chaos.  At home the silence permeated my being and my mind sought to bring chaos into the silence as a means of distracting me.  Without the obstacle of distraction my mind attempted to create this through my thoughts and thinking. The thoughts wanted to fill my perceived emptiness and give me the illusion of feeling alive. 

This perception and fear of emptiness brought me back to my practice of mindfulness.  Just as the sounds of a chime alerts my mind to returning to mindfulness, this fear of emptiness allowed me to be aware of my inner distractions and how to use these distractions in returning to the total silence of mindfulness.

Breathe in and breathe out with total focus on the breath.  Nothing else matters, only my breath exists and my focus is completely on this breath.  As I breathe this way I enter a place of silence; this is the deepest kind of silence that I know.  In this eloquent silence my thoughts, distractions, and fears disappear.

In the hospital outer chaos allowed me to find my center of silence by moving away from it and into myself.  At home, with few distractions, I was allowing  distractions of thought to become the chaos, and so I began to still my mind in the midst of outer silence to find my inner direction.  Thich Nhat Hanh calls this noble silence.   

By emptying the noise within ourselves we experience the deepest kind of silence.  We approach the place where we can commune with our deepest state-of-being.  This silence can be healing because we have the capacity to be completely alive in the moment.  When we free ourselves from the regrets and suffering of the past, and from the fears and anxieties of the future we become free of our mental chatter.  In this silence of no mental chatter we celebrate ourselves and each other in ways that are truly healing. 

The sound of no sound thunders in our awareness.  When we have stilled all sounds within ourselves we can hear the deepest calling within our being; we hear the soft, quiet voice of our heart.  We have let go of our daily concerns, regrets, worry, fear, and we exist only in each moment.  In the moment we can hear the thundering sound of silence, and the quiet, gentle voice of our heart.  This is the practice of mindfulness.  

        

   

Compassionate Presence

The healing of our body and heart is always present in the attention of our compassionate presence.

The lotus blooms from muddy waters and so does our compassion and our acceptance. Allowing ourselves to gently look at our pain and tension and to tenderly explore our resistance to opening to this we can begin to explore and heal our hurts.

Become aware of how we resist the experience of exploring this awareness.  Notice the fear this produces; "it will never go away", "it hurts too much", I can't stand it", it takes too long", it is too much trouble", etc.  Then move your attention to the places in your body that the pain and tension are felt.  Sit quietly and tenderly with these physical and emotional discomforts and breathe into each place of pain. 

The pain and tension are the fertile ground of the muck and mire that produce the lotus blossoms. In the murkiness of our psyche are the seeds from which our compassionate presence grows.     

Being gentle with myself is how I move into compassionate presence.  When I am experiencing feelings such as sadness, despair, loneliness, or anger I breathe into the pain.  These feelings can take me by surprise or they may accumulate over time.  When I realize they are there I often find they manifest through a physical discomfort and may be accompanied by an emotionally  upsetting response.  When I experience these things I begin to slow my thoughts and focus on my breath.  

Silently counting my breaths or repeating my mantra begins to clear the murkiness from my mind.  I count each in and out breath, or I repeat my mantra to myself, which allows the mind chatter to quiet.  As this takes place I realize my physical discomfort and my emotional response begin to lessen.  I stay with my breath or my mantra until I sense a calmness within me.

As I become calm I gradually begin to explore the feelings that have me upset.  I probe with loving attention whatever I find and bring it closer in to me for examination. I want to know, understand, and offer loving support to the murkiness of my psyche.  The image of the beautiful lotus growing out of the muddy waters of the pond becomes a symbol for my own compassionate presence.  

Until I become this presence for myself I cannot truly offer compassion to others.  As a youngster I was taught that charity begins at home, as an adult I realize that compassion begins with self.  Examining the roots of my pain allows me to make peace with me and as I experience my own peaceful existence this feeling, thought, and attitude is how I relate to others in my daily practice of living. 


It is a practice that slowly permeates throughout my being.  When I become upset and begin to resist self examination I understand that my resistance causes my discomfort.  In that realization I surrender my ego of trying to control what I think I need, to my heart which truly knows what is best for me.  This shift in my perception allows me to find my compassionate presence, and from the muddy waters of ego compassion arises like the beautiful lotus blossom in a pond.

1956

The summer of 1956, the summer my dad almost died, is the time when I realized I could escape into a fantasy world when my real world was falling apart and became too painful. 

Left in my grandmother’s care

In the house that was my first home

Sleeping in the bedroom

Of early childhood

I was only nine

That summer – still a young child

I cry myself to sleep

Each night

Wondering what

The morn will bring

I wake each morning to the sound of Lady’s paws clicking on the hardwood floors that greet my bare feet as I get out of bed.  My grandma is awake, having fed and watered Lady and let her outside.  I wash my face, brush my teeth, and set forth to capture the day.  My play ranges from the front to back porch, basement, up the outside cellar stairs, and into the yard.  In nine more summers I will leave for college, but at age nine this is not a thought I can yet entertain.  So like don Quixote I set forth to tilt the windmills of my nine-year-old world.

With Lady as my faithful companion Sancho Panza we rode forth each day seeking adventure and leaving the fear of my father’s health far behind.  It only caught up with me when the adults intruded into this world I was creating; they did not know nor understand how fragile the structure of my world really was. How could they; they could not see, feel, or touch it.  It was my sanctuary and my salvation, so easily breached by their inquiries and concern, and so quickly reconstructed when they would ebb from my inner life.  

A world where I did battle with the illness that plagued my father and was a champion for my mother who accompanied him on his journey, and at night Lady and I would cuddle with each other to keep the dark fears away. These were formidable foes for a nine year old, and like don Quixote they required precise skills to do battle with them. 

In the dark of night, cuddled with Lady, they felt overwhelming. In the daylight these were things I could vanquish along with my faithful and trusted companion.  So we fought imaginary battles with imagined foes in the yards and with the trees in the neighborhood.  There were no windmills for my young don Quixote, so trees, bushes and grain elevators had to do.

In those moments with my faithful sidekick we were invincible, and it was then I realized the power of fantasy, creativity, and inner dialog.  I rode on an imaginary horse to the conquest of the images of my father’s illness and in that quest I was successful.  In truth he did survive the ordeal of his journey, and returned, but not the dad that left me weeks earlier. 

His physical return marked my emotional abandonment.  The powerful father of my early childhood returned a fragile shadow of the hero who had set out on this journey to save his life.  In Stockholm the Equestrian Games of the Olympics played out as I guided my imaginary pony on through the streets of a small town with my faithful sidekick Lady aka Sancho Panza.

 

There was safety in the world my mind constructed and it kept my frightening thoughts and images at bay.  It has taken me decades to remember the feelings of my nine-year-old self.  I have danced with these images but have left them on the dance floor as I moved on in my life.  “Too frightening”, I tell myself.  “Why disturb my memories with this long ago fear”, I respond, and so I dance away from embracing this unremembered part of me.  

This nine-year-old who tilted the windmills of my mind as each morning of my father’s hospital stay I set out with my dog to slay the dragons of the shadows of the nighttime.  She was a brave and gallant girl accompanied by her devoted dog into a world that neither understood nor trusted, but one that she had to navigate.  My learning how to navigate and survive this quest was the making of my first hero’s journey.  No longer stalked with fearful or disturbing images this is a tribute to the resilience of my being.