Monday, January 23, 2012

Study Hall

"The magic of words has killed many people, and spoiled many sorts of business. Zen students, therefore, never depend on words, and warn each other to escape from the danger of this magic. Silence is their safeguard.
According to Madame Guyon, there are three kinds of silence. She said:
Silence from words is good, because inordinate speaking tends to evil. Silence or rest from desires or passions is still better, because it prompts quickness of spirit. But the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts, because that is essential to internal recollection and because it lays a foundation for a proper regulation and silence in other aspects.
Zen not only admires silence but lives in it. When one lives in silence, one does not recognize silence. Thomas Carlyle admired silence and said:
Looking around on the noisy insanity of the world - words with little meaning, actions with little worth - one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence, higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small.
A beautiful expression!  But he spoke too much, and broke the silence. I rather prefer Cicero, who said that there is not only an art, but an eloquence in silence. He must have experienced the true silence, otherwise he would not have used such a word" - commentary on case thirty-six, from Nyogen Senzaki's Eloquent Silence.

10 comments:

Bugwalk said...

"Silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts" reminds me of when I began to meditate--sitting down with teeth gritted, determined to still the flow of thoughts, most chagrined when I could not.

Lately my goal has been to "refrain from commenting," an idea shared by Spirit Rock teacher Phillip Moffitt in a daylong last year, and it has proved to be remarkably effective, maybe because it seems eminently doable.

Linda

Mike said...

Nice comment, Linda. And a nice post, Shundo, considering it is an election year. Some silence would do us all good.

Shundo said...

Hi Linda, nice to hear from you again. I am reading this as: the thoughts still come up, but you just aren't listening to them so much. As with the phrase you are working with, it is avoiding the extra layer on top that is helpful.
Mike, I was thinking that you can't really buy silence in the same way you can buy noisy TV spots...

Bugwalk said...

Thank you, Mike, and hi, Shundo. I didn't want to "blog in your comments," as they say, but I will add a bit more about how this goes in practice, which is that when I'm sitting in meditation, I'm aware of breathing in, then aware of breathing out, and then give myself a soft mental reminder to refrain from commenting, and really just see if I can make it to the start of the next in-breath without having (mentally) opined.

It's very moment by moment, which is the doable-seeming part, and at the end of the whole period, fewer thoughts seem to have arisen than with former approaches (though by no means none!).

Linda

Shundo said...

Hi Linda, As Blanche is always saying, it's okay for the thoughts to come in, just don't invite them to stay for tea.

Bugwalk said...

Yes, indeed. Thinking is what our minds naturally do; thinking is not bad. I like the way Blanche puts it, and also like to explore, when possible, the gap between the last thought and the next. In that open space, what happens to "me" and my problems, to what I think is lacking or what I wish would go away?

Linda

owazsasn said...

Here is a question. If we are going to suffer anyway, and being silent or not doesn't make a difference to that, then why is silence so important? What if we find silence boring? And when does it tip over into just checking out, withdrawing and disengaging?

Shundo said...

That's an excellent question. Keep asking yourself.
What I would say is, suffering may be inevitable, but our response to it makes all the difference. Silence can allow us to find the space in ourselves to respond from a more grounded place eventually, rather than reacting habitually. It is possible just to withdraw and disengage - though I wonder if you mean from other people or from yourself - but eventually you will start hearing things in the silence. Personally I always find that there is far too much going on in silence ever to get bored.

owazsasn said...

Shundo thanks for your response. I would say they are related no? Withdrawing from others and from yourself? One leads to the other.

Silence should come naturally no? If we are not silent maybe there is a good reason for it - something demands our attention as it should.

So then what we seek is maybe to learn how to drop the judgement about what we are thinking or feeling? There is a silence that comes with that and that seems like a helpful silence.

Then there is a silence where we are actively trying to create silence...that seems counterproductive, full or judgement, moral or otherwise and can cause us to withdraw in unhealthy ways?

Shundo said...

Personally I notice a big difference between withdrawing from others and withdrawing from myself, though they may have similar causes.
I think it is helpful to have some training and discipline around silence, as people can have deeply ingrained habits to try to fill what feels like a void, and thus never alow themselves the space to discover what comes up in silence. And from there, accepting and not judging is a healthy step.