Tag Archives: Silence

22

Still The Mind

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Silent- Completely absent of any sound.

silentLife has become full of noise and sound. It is hard to escape it wherever you go. There is background music in restaurants, and people are always making noise, so finding a silent place is nearly impossible. More importantly, there are a few times when we experience the joy of quiet peace in our minds. Left unchecked, our minds will produce a continuous production of thoughts. I have heard this described as the monkey mind—constant chatter for no real purpose. So the challenge today is to start to become more conscious of the silent peace one can achieve in thought, word,  and action.

How to Still Your Mind

Once the word meditation is mentioned, people let their preconceived notions take over. Many picture something strange, or a process of sitting cross-legged on the floor and chanting some peculiar mantra. This stereotype allows them to dismiss the benefits without ever trying it. Meditation is simply a conscious effort to calm and control your mind rather than the other way around. Finding ways to make your thoughts silentsilent for a minute will allow you to communicate with your intuition and heart. It isn’t a complex ritual to follow, and you can do it anywhere. If the desire is to make your mind more silent and create a more peaceful existence, there is no one way to do this. Prayer is a form of this and works in my experience.

The simplest way to meditate and quiet my mind is through controlled breathing. I use a simple count of 4 to take in a breath, hold breath, and then release that breathe. That is what works for me, and it does help me relax and create a more silent mind. I heard it explained that when you give the “Monkey Mind,” a task like counting breathes, it stops making wild thoughts.   In the silence, things become more apparent, and answers to questions come more easily. This path is just one way to meditate, and there are hundreds of processes available to all people as close as youtube. Log on and look for something that will resonate with you and find a more silent mind. I use an app on my phone to help me called Insight Timer. There are many to provide guidance.

Advantages of Silence

Silent and listening have the same letters, and I don’t believe that is a coincidence. When conversing with someone else, it is a chance to learn and share. Allow another person to express themselves to the silent presence of your attention. Do not think about your response until they are silentdone. This will help you not guess or make assumptions about their point, but to hear the concern, thought, idea, or needed action someone is experiencing. It will also help you grow as a person to remain silent in thought, word, and action when you are having a conversation.

Maintain a focus on learning, not a guide to dictating an answer. This attitude can be helpful in any conversation with your loved ones of any age. Please give them the courtesy of silent listening to all of their concerns. They may not want advice or opinion, and they may wish to express what they think to someone they trust and value. This connection will become evident as you get to the end of a conversation. Being silent is the only way to listen.

Tips for Quieting the Mind

So seek moments that are silent today. Be conscious of it, and even try to silentcreate them through a meditative practice that works for you. Raising your consciousness to find and create silent moments with your thoughts, words, and actions will change your life and allow for more meaningful connections with others and yourself as well.

The silence of the Mind Quotes

“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.” ~ Chaim Potok

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” 
― Will Rogers

 

 

21

Silence and Space

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Silence and space are two of the factors that allow all things to exist, but they are there lying in the background of life largely unnoticed, unappreciated, or even unwanted. But without them, we could speak no word, or we could bring creation into existence.  I am taking a moment to appreciate both the silence and space with all of their magical capabilities today.  There is a power in the silence of a moment that many feel we need to fill with some noise to be comfortable. The same can be said for space, and we often go through our days paying no attention to space all around us. We focus on the things that exist, not seeing the opportunities all around them. Let’s focus today on the power of silence and the space in our lives.

Hear the Silence

It is normal to pay attention to the sounds we hear. For example, a voice brings us information, a song that touches our soul, the dialogue in our favorite shows,  or just the sounds all around us. But to focus on the silence all around us makes all of these sounds possible. Pay attention to the quiet and ignore the sounds for just a short time every day.  When you pay attention to the outer silence, you pay attention to the extreme silence. You create an inner silence inside of yourself.  This allows your mind to become still.

By bringing your mind to stillness, you can see and feel everything around you calmly. The outer silence creates the palate for sound to come into being. The inner silence provides a canvas for the clear internal words and noises to be spoken as well. Honest thoughts of value can come to you out of the silence of your mind. The answers to questions asked, the route to find your happiness. Stillness inside starts with paying attention to the silence without. You can’t pay attention to outer silence and not become still inside, and that contains within it the possibilities of all things.

Wide Open Spaces

For anything to come into being, there has to be a space for it to exist. The power and value of a room are not the four walls but the space inside the walls. It is the same for everything and every place else. It is the absence of things that creates the potential of our world. A blank page is an ultimate playground for great.

Do you see an empty room or a room full of potential?

art of all kinds, writing a story, a thought, or drawing a picture. The space we see is the potential for everything to exist. Space itself has no actual existence, but it allows all other things to exist.

Become acutely aware of the space all around you. If you look closely, you will become aware of the space and the feeling of no thinking, which allows all thoughts to come into your head. Look at the nothing in the room and see its potential. You might see the potential in the space inside you as well—space for creation, caring, and kindness.  There is no limit on the number of these things you can create. Like the silence, space is still and infinite in potential. Look for your creations in the space in your life. It can be shaped into what you need or desire to create.

Connections

Both space and silence allow you to calm and silence your thoughts and allow for the things inside you that are a gift to the world to rise to the top and be shared with all. The cap on the bottle can be removed by becoming still with the silence or empty like space. It allows for things to come out hidden by the sounds or lost behind the things that we already are occupied with. Change your focus from the sounds you hear or the things you see to the silence behind the sound and the space surrounding everything in the world.  This observation is a doorway to creativity and understanding yourself.

“Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence.” – Eckhart Tolle. 

“Let silence take you to the core of life.” ― Rumi

“Never say anything that doesn’t improve on silence.” ― Richard Yates

21

Silence

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There are a precious few moments that are truly silent and fewer still in life people are aware of. All of our moments seem to be spoken for with a wide variety of visual entertainment available, intensive video game experiences, and the constant attention on our phones. Few moments are free to be silent. But still, the silence is there waiting for us if we take the time and make an effort to hear it. You must do this because it will benefit you in your mental health and help you become the best at whatever you want to accomplish.  Listening to the available silence is good for your mood, too, because it is an easy way to bring you into the present moment and out of negatively charged thoughts of the past or the future.  So let’s take a moment and start finding the silence.

Listen to Silence

Even though our life experience is probably something else, silence is always available to us. Many are afraid of the quiet because there is only you when you are not distracted by something else. That can be intimidating, scary, and even seem lonely, which creates an uncomfortable feeling that people want to avoid.  It doesn’t have to be that way because once you ease into this silence and become more comfortable with yourself, you will recognize the strength in yourself.  There is always a silence existing underneath the noise and activity, and it is waiting there for you to access it and experience its power and strength.

Listening to the silence immediately creates a stillness in you. This stillness is like a pond in the early morning with no wind, and it is a soft reflective pool where the best of your possible ideas can go to develop.  The stillness in you is rare to find and has been difficult for me to maintain, but the time I do get to spend listening to the silence revitalizes thoughts and allows me to feel what it is I am seeking in my life. A chance to separate the thoughts of value from the thoughts of foolishness. It is also a chance to deal with your emotions and where they come from.

Your Reflecting Pool

You are more than the physical body you travel around in each day. You are more than the job you have or the things you own. Those are just things you have accumulated. Some people are better at accumulation than others. That doesn’t make them great people. Great people understand who they are, and that person is accessible through the silence. We are all trained from childhood to identify with the mind and treat it and the thoughts it creates as if that is us. It isn’t. When you ask a question with your mind, someone answers. Who is that? You can pull back and watch your thoughts come to you, and if you are watching the thoughts, you can’t possibly be the thoughts.

When you are identifying with your mind, you are being cut off from who you really are. If your whole sense of self is identified with thinking and you can’t access and live from the space of who you really are.  This leads to underlying feelings of unhappiness, longing for something that you can’t quite put your finger on. That is the true self, struggling to send you a message. The silence allows the message to get through. Becoming conscious of this being is done by reclaiming your consciousness from the mind, and people can do that by allowing all things to be silent and exist in the cool, calm, reflecting pool of your existence.

How to Focus on What You are doing

The focus starts when a person stops Identifying with their thoughts all the time. Our minds are great tools we should use to solve problems, help create things, and weigh our decisions’ value. It is not who we are, and neither are the thoughts we think. Drawback and look at your thoughts. Take five minutes and without a filter, write down everything you think. How many of your thoughts are repeated, or useless, or both. Notice the tenor of your thoughts. Are they kind? Helpful? Mean? Judgmental? Let your thoughts slide by you without reacting to them and their power. Choose to pay attention to the thoughts that honor you and represent what you want them to.  Once you let them go, you can find the silence.

Silence is found in between thoughts and emotions. Take time and see how you feel about things. What are you avoiding, denying, or resisting in life? When you see yourself feeling unease or nervous about something, that is something you should deal with. Search your soul, search your mind in the quiet spaces, and it is at this point your journey to self-discovery and personal growth. It all begins with the silence. Take time to find the calm and silence in your everyday life and see what secrets it holds for your life.

“Silence is a source of great strength.”- Lao Tzu.

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.”- Elbert Hubbard.

“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence.”- Paul Simon.

21

Silence

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silence
When you are still, you can hear the words the silence has to offer

Is there anything quite as unique as silence? Look at your life and honestly count and evaluate the moments that you are experiencing absolute silence. To me, this is any time that you are completely devoid of any human-created sound at all.

No words, no machines, no music, no nothing but the natural sounds of the world. How many times during any given day does this happen? I can tell you that there are few moments of complete and utter silence in my life for me. There is a value in the silence that, if you get used to, it will allow you to put your mind at rest and allow you to talk with your deeper self, which often remains hidden behind the crowd of sounds we experience daily.

Silence Can Be Better than the alternative.

Seek out your silent moments because they will provide more value to you than 95% of the noise that falls on your ears throughout the day. If you are watching television to get your news or entertainment, silencethen I think we would all have a difficulty rating the value of the product you are watching to silence. In silence, there are no lies. Nobody is pushing an agenda to vie for control of your buying power or the fear you experience.

Some people talk an awful lot and say absolutely nothing worthwhile. Isn’t a silence better than listening to words that are disingenuous, hateful, gossiping, or just plain old negative? Why break the silence to participate in making the world a less positive place? There is a place and a time for everything, and silence needs to have its location in your life.

Silence The Mind

How do you silence the mind? This is where the practice of meditation comes in. I was always intimidated by the practice of meditation, but in giving it a try, I have found it is easy. The best advice I got was that there is no way to really do it wrong. If you give it an honest effort, you will reap some benefits. The goal of meditation is to quiet the incessant and continual discourse of thought occurring in your head all of the time.

Our brains are great at producing thought, but most of its work is not productive, supportive, kind,

of silence
There is no wrong way to find yourself in the silence.

constructive or clear. Most of our thoughts trip on each other and repeat loudly points of view we are well aware of or thoughts of pure foolishness. When you slow your mind, you can monitor your thoughts and pick and choose the ones you want to pay attention to and those you would like to discard.

There are many different formats for meditation, and I am no expert. Here is a simple method that will allow you to walk down the path of meditation easily. Inhale and count to four. Hold the breath and count to four. Exhale while counting to four. Repeat continually throughout the meditation time. Notice the thoughts you have, where they come from, and most importantly, is it a thought that honors you or not? If it does, pay attention to it. If it doesn’t, then pay no more attention to it. Silence allows this to happen.

Sometimes It is The Best Gift

It is human nature to offer advice, state our opinions, and make sure that we are clear about where we stand on all our exposed issues. Sometimes, though, the best thing we can do is keep our mouths closed and silently listen.  Our presence has power, and oftentimes, just being there listening, giving a person your support is the best thing to contribute to another person.

A hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to listen with is a great gift that you can give someone. If they are sincerely working through something, they do not have to hear a judgment from you or listen to your opinion about the next action or reaction. Silence allows you to accept them as they are and be there as a friend.  Silence accepts all and allows a feeling of acceptance.

Look for moments of complete silence in your day, where all people can hear no voice, music, or machine in your life. Focus on the moment you are in and listen to what the silence sounds like. You will find some things in the silence you didn’t know you were missing.

“Never assume that loud is strong and quiet is weak.”

“Silence is the best response to a fool.”

“Some hearts understand each other, even in silence.”

“Silence isn’t empty; it’s full of answers.”

“Sometimes, it’s best to stay quiet. The silence can speak volumes without ever saying a word.”

No one dares disturb the sounds of silence……..