Having just finished my long meditation silence, I have a few thoughts on the idea of silence.
... Its wonderful! :)))
I started my silence about two weeks before the normal course requirement of 40 days and so did most of the others on my course. So, I spent nearly two month of not talking. I admit that I did have a couple of days off in there: One was to talk with friends in a town across the lake about possibly buying a block of land (still in the process on that) and there was another day or so in riding my bike to the boarder for new permits on two occasions. On one of those trips, I managed to fall off again so there were a few expletives in my conversation at the time but there was no real damage other than me limping for a week or so. (I was very lucky it was not worse but have to admit that this time it was all my own fault - must pay absolute attention while riding!)
After about a week of silence, you find that you really need to talk very little to be able to get everything that you need. And you don't need to be rude about it, you can smile and nod to say hello and goodbye to passers by; and most people can figure out what you mean with a few simple gestures - It just isn't a problem.
The two things that it changes most are:
1) That you cant complain about anything.
Normally, if something annoys us, we vent the frustration verbally. This of course rarely changes the situation at all, but we seem to feel a little better by talking about it. But it seems to me this really just puts more negativity into the world and makes us all feel less happy overall. When you are silent and don't have the option to complain then you very rapidly learn to just disengage from the stress and move on to either directly doing something about the "problem", or accepting it as a fact and moving on with something else - Both these effects are far better options :)
2) That you are far less distracted by empty pulp conversations.
It amazes me how much time most people can spend in chattering about nothing! I think we do this so that we generate a sense of connectedness and belonging with the people around us. The down side is that it occupies a huge amount of our time and causes us no end of worries over social acceptance etc. For myself, I found the lack of empty chatter in my world was a great relief and made me far more peaceful. With that peace, I found I didn't need to talk to feel that connectedness, I could just look around and see it in people rather than being distracted from it and stressed by the constant annoying babble.
Ive been out of silence for a few days now and I'm still just not bothering to talk that much... I'm finding that I have little to say and am not really interested in participating in most of the conversations that are going on around me. So, I just sit and listen and smile politely. Not sure how long it will last, but it could be quite a while.
Not sure how other people are perceiving me at present but I should probably check to see if they think I am not well, or being rude..... maybe tomorrow :)
... Its wonderful! :)))
I started my silence about two weeks before the normal course requirement of 40 days and so did most of the others on my course. So, I spent nearly two month of not talking. I admit that I did have a couple of days off in there: One was to talk with friends in a town across the lake about possibly buying a block of land (still in the process on that) and there was another day or so in riding my bike to the boarder for new permits on two occasions. On one of those trips, I managed to fall off again so there were a few expletives in my conversation at the time but there was no real damage other than me limping for a week or so. (I was very lucky it was not worse but have to admit that this time it was all my own fault - must pay absolute attention while riding!)
After about a week of silence, you find that you really need to talk very little to be able to get everything that you need. And you don't need to be rude about it, you can smile and nod to say hello and goodbye to passers by; and most people can figure out what you mean with a few simple gestures - It just isn't a problem.
The two things that it changes most are:
1) That you cant complain about anything.
Normally, if something annoys us, we vent the frustration verbally. This of course rarely changes the situation at all, but we seem to feel a little better by talking about it. But it seems to me this really just puts more negativity into the world and makes us all feel less happy overall. When you are silent and don't have the option to complain then you very rapidly learn to just disengage from the stress and move on to either directly doing something about the "problem", or accepting it as a fact and moving on with something else - Both these effects are far better options :)
2) That you are far less distracted by empty pulp conversations.
It amazes me how much time most people can spend in chattering about nothing! I think we do this so that we generate a sense of connectedness and belonging with the people around us. The down side is that it occupies a huge amount of our time and causes us no end of worries over social acceptance etc. For myself, I found the lack of empty chatter in my world was a great relief and made me far more peaceful. With that peace, I found I didn't need to talk to feel that connectedness, I could just look around and see it in people rather than being distracted from it and stressed by the constant annoying babble.
Ive been out of silence for a few days now and I'm still just not bothering to talk that much... I'm finding that I have little to say and am not really interested in participating in most of the conversations that are going on around me. So, I just sit and listen and smile politely. Not sure how long it will last, but it could be quite a while.
Not sure how other people are perceiving me at present but I should probably check to see if they think I am not well, or being rude..... maybe tomorrow :)
