[PAX] silence as a way to improve your life...

randomsomeone said:
This is a definite reality for most of us who are balancing many facets of our lives. I think the primary recommendation for this is to focus on a word and return to that word as a gentle means of recentering our minds. There are several simple methods out there doing this...all of the ones I have seen are pretty straightforward.

Me? I actually don't spend large swaths of time in formal meditation (although I have had friends who did), but instead make use more of little times during the day. Aside from that I generally enjoy silence while doing simple manual tasks or walking...I can do this for hours. Over time this kind of more active silence can be just as fruitful (I think).

Turning off the ipod and just enjoying the lack of input is a good start. Then learn to center your inner self a bit (it can be hit or miss some days, but that's okay). For me it is almost a type of inner hospitality and welcoming. As was said, it's like going home.
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I like to be in silence, meaning without noice around me. I like to drive in my car alone without music, that is kind of a meditation for me. Also because I'm moving and I'm doing something, that gives my mind the freedom to reconcider my day, to discover stress factors and analyse them, to refind my center, my thoughts, my feelings and to imagine and dream.
What I find difficult is to make my mind quiet and to sit in meditation. I feel very chained doing that and I struggle very hard with my body, just breathing deeply becomes difficult. I don't know whether that means it is not a good method for me or rather that it is something I need to get through to go in a deeper meditation. I also think a monastic live is to controled for me. Whenever I feel controlled, feel that I HAVE TO do this or that, I feel blocked. And again, I don't know whether I need to go through that or it is just not ment for me.

what I really would like to do is to find my own way to find peace within me and let my feelings flow. But I'm not sure whether I can find it that way, that I'm not just fooling myself. Would it be necesairy to follow a strict path or to follow my path??

I'm going to follow tai chi lessons and I hope it will help me to find this inner peace, more than za zen meditation does. Also I would like to spend a weekend or some days in a monastery like that to feel what it is like. The author of the book also gives contemplation seminars and I'm thinking of going to one of those...
 
Morgain said:
Would it be necesairy to follow a strict path or to follow my path??
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A more structured path is not my way either...I am a lay person and not a monk. Still, I find much can be learned from mutual sharing, if not directly, perhaps indirectly (books and such). Our lives may have different levels of structure, but the prime direction is the very much the same...I have not met a monk yet who was not an advocate of this.

And yes, it is tricky with strictness and structure....those who embrace these within their lifestyle find it to be a complete source of liberation and inner freedom. Things get backwards in the inner life sometimes and rife with paradox. Strictness should not be limiting...it is ultimately all about liberating. Odd, huh?

Anyway, for the lay person living in the midst of work, family, society, yes I think one can follow one's own path, the path we seem most drawn to. Only one caution....beware the ego. We almost always have to be willing to be taught in order to learn, and this relates to all of life. A degree of openness, even of abandonment of the static self, is needed on some inner level (because we still have to stay engaged enough to pay the bills). Personally, I prefer radical (I almost said wreckless) opennness. This comes about through a sort of cosmic trust....and love I would say. Fear can certainly hold us back. In the end do really have anything to lose??? Not if we trust.

Hope that doesn't sound to ethereal...it's really pretty practical, earthy stuff. Silence is a door...we can go through it fine. How much we choose to explore the continent on the other side is another question.

btw, I think all of us would benefit from cutting out the noise and the myriad voices in our lives now and again. Silence is one of those things that helps us find a rudder by which we can purposefully steer rather than being tossed about aimlessly in the waves. But then, I personally like having something more substantial under my feet.
 
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