Silence and Meditation

Silence and meditation have often gone hand-in-hand. Zen monks sit silently in seiza "watching" their minds. Trappist and Cistercian monks sometimes go for weeks, or even years, in silence to seek solitude with God even when surrounded by a community. Quakers sit silently listening for the voice of God. Many ordinary people also sit in silent meditation a little bit each day as an antidote to stress and depression.

Silent Meditation

Silent meditation is often contrasted with mantra meditation. In mantra meditation, the meditator repeats a word or phrase aloud to focus the mind. Silent meditation, by contrast, is performed without a sound. The mind focuses on itself, on the sensations of the body and breath or on images contained within the mind. Silent meditation allows no music, no chimes or singing bowls, no cues from a facilitator. The mind is left alone with itself, without outside stimulation.

Outer and Inner Silence

The purpose of creating a silent environment is to still the inner environment, the clatter going on in the mind. Most people live with a steady stream of thoughts, emotional reactions, sensory impressions and judgments flowing through their mind all the time. Sit quietly and listen to your mind. You will find that it hops from thought to thought without stopping. Ken Cohen, Taoist priest and qigong master, speaks of the "fasting of the mind." By this he means letting go of those thoughts that your mind chews on all day long. When the mind fasts, it purposely glances at and then drops aside each thought as it arises. It observes but does not engage the noise of the mind. Gradually the mind stills. That is the goal of silent meditation: stillness.

Silence and Mind

Stillness can be an end in itself. It can be a much-needed vacation from the demands of our thoughts. Zen monks, however, cultivate silence in an attempt to catch a glimpse of their true self, the self that exists independently from all the transitory affairs of their lives. Christian mystics tune their minds to listen to the "still small voice" of God in the silence of their prayers and meditations. Quakers use silence to give themselves distance from their desires. The 17th century Quaker Robert Barclay spoke of "not being only silent as to words but even abstaining from all their own thoughts, imaginations and desires."

When it Isn't Silent

Silence is a rare commodity in a city. Many urban residents are surrounded by the sounds of other people 24 hours each day. City noise, surprisingly enough, does not have to keep a meditator from inner stillness. Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield suggests watching the mind engage the sounds as they pass into and out of your awareness. He says, "Feel the sound as it touches your ear... Let the sound be a wave as the breath is a wave." In other words, the mind can rest in silence, watching sounds come and go from a detached perspective.