There are precious few moments of silence in this life. So rare are the places we can find it, that some people complain of its deafening nature when stumbled upon, that it is too quiet to tolerate. We hold silence at times in church, for a few minutes at the end of a yoga class, and in pockets of the library. If we have a meditation practice we carve time out for inner silence, a space between the thoughts. I used that expression with a neuroscientist friend a few weeks ago and he asserted there is no space between thoughts, that thought goes on all the time, even if we’re not conscious of it.
Once again, this business of discussing minds requires precise language, often necessitating defining terms we bandy about on a daily basis. In his book, The Mind’s Past, Michael Gazzaniga makes the sweeping declaration “all concur that the left brain is the site for language and thought.”1 (emphasis mine). I will take this to mean that either the right brain has no thoughts at all or he equates thought with internal verbalization. If so, I’m not sure I agree, but this definition works nicely for the purpose of an essay on the role of silence in contemplative practices. It’s like equating thought with inner speech. To avoid confusion I will abandon the expression space between the thoughts for the duration of this essay and replace it with inner silence, by which I mean the instances during which we choose not to engage our internal verbalization, judgment, narrative, planning, problem solving, dialog, and chatter. Notice I did not say that such things will not arise. They will. The practice is to meet them with silent observation. At first the dialog is continuous but without a foil (you) to engage with, there is a bit of tiring out of the chattering self. There are only so many balls you will bounce off the chest of a playmate before giving up.
It seems an unattainable goal to reach total inner silence, but, whether attainable or not, it is not a goal I’m advocating. Instead, I am suggesting that inner silence is the fruit of a regular practice which combines external silence and attentive unmediated observation. The method of practice I describe is an open, global, present-moment attentional focus in which all the inner noise makers above are simply observed along with everything else that arises in one’s experience, whether interior in origin (the pain in one’s back) or exterior (the breeze on one’s face). The practice is simply to observe experience, unmediated by judgment.
As a communal practice, the act of moving into silence is limited to the world’s spiritual and religious traditions and the kindergarten classroom. For some reason, once we get to the first grade it’s considered that we no longer require quiet time. Many who have embarked on a practice of silent sitting, whether alone or in community, discover there is anything but silence in their inner experience. Full blown narratives abound. Plans are hatched, problems solved, rationalizations spun, even when there is nothing pressing to do or solve or judge. It’s as if one’s brain (or at least one’s ego) abhors a vacuum. But what of it? Why is a periodic cultivation of inner silence a good thing? The conflation of this inner dialog with one’s sense of self provides a good argument for an engagement with silence. This is my contention, that in silence we cultivate a connection with our original selves, the one that existed before all the layers of crud weighed it down.
While there might be times when outer silence is observed or even demanded, as when expression is suppressed, inner silence can only be cultivated by personal intention. It is unenforceable by others. As a practice, this cultivation of inner silence can happen anywhere at all, even places devoid of outer silence though this seems to be orders of magnitude more difficult, especially if one is required to speak and interact. Nothing creates inner dialog faster than outer dialog, which might be a significant reason for the prevalence of silent retreats among contemplative traditions.
During silent retreats and in monastic life, there is a prolonged respite from outer dialog, a break from language. My own experience of breaking silence at the end of a ten day silent retreat was of curiosity at the apparent return of my personality, its return pointing to the departure I had not noticed. I wonder if this is not specifically due to abstinence from speech, after all, song and prayer are permitted in monastic settings. It’s only dialog that is refrained from. This brings me to my point, however late in this essay it might be, that the whole reason for choosing a silent practice is in fact to peel off the layers of you that are peelable, in affect, to get to the essential you, the you that is authentic and uniquely you.
As it turns out, the important part here is practice, not silence. Peace is a gift that arrives through countless thresholds. A practice of chanting or song holds our attention in a way that leaves a deep and embracing silence in its aftermath. A practice of effort in yoga poses or in focused breathing can do the same, as can one of fly fishing or trail running. But all of these can just as easily be plain doing, leaving us happier, calmer, or more buff but no more connected to our essential selves. There is a paradox here, that to arrive at one’s authentic self, one must move beyond the self we have created. I am not certain if silence is the path to the essential self or the gift of a practice of seeking self or if silence is, in fact Self itself. A days from now I will be engaging in the second silent retreat of my life which I hope will bring fresh insight into the benefits of silence.
