We all have heard medical experts and spiritual teachers talk about the benefits of finding external quiet spaces and practicing internal silence. By practicing inner silence you will have a chance to reduce tension and stress - allowing for refreshment and renewal of your mind and body. Spritual teachers tell us we have a chance to become closer to the One, God, the Dharma, Buddha, or the essence of whatever spritual belief we hold.
We carry a lot of tension in ourselves because of the scripts that run constantly in our minds. These internal dialogues are like an endless tape that is so interesting, or tenacious, that it never lets us step back and experience anything new, or really experience anything at all. In the parlance of television - it's all reruns.
Simply being in a quiet space, aware of your breath, and not attaching to thoughts that come into our minds is pretty much the essence of meditation. You can recite a word or mantra in sychronization with your breathing to help keep your internal dialogue from turning on the reruns.
One thing that occurs as you practice exterior and interior silence is you become more aware of what's happening around you. That may seem counter-intuitive. It might seem like listening to other people, the news, music, TV shows, the internet - whatever is around you, would be the way to find out what's going on, but that is not really the case.
The net result of over indulgence in anything is that we build up a tolerance. We end up with high tolerances for noise, or in other words - auditory or visual signals without intelligence. Nothing connects the things we are bombarded with in any meaningful way.
Sometimes it seems the only thing we get out of news presented on TV, radio and in newpapers, is that it appears the world is going to hell in a handbasket. There is no thoughtful discussion, only the bombardment of "exciting" almost always bad, news. Nothing new about that - there's always a fire, a wreck, someone getting killed or dying. So why keep reading or listening to that over and over?
Because we don't really want to think, or be open to anything unusual, or mysterious. It's easy to be vicariously involved in bad news that involves "others". It's hard to be quiet and think about what a mess we are.
Noise is all around us. We don't really get anything out of listening to someone's cell phone conversation other than a sense of distraction and disconnection from other people. It's all there in the background - sirens, airplanes flying overhead, traffic noise, conversations we aren't part of - all noise. Not only the auditory but the symbolic or linguistic noise we see on the internet, magazines and newspapers. What connects it all together?
Pretty much nothing. It's an invitation to cultivate short attention spans and eventually no attention spans. Why is it that people seek vacations from the hustle and bustle? To re-create, refresh, invigorate to come back ready to go. Unfortunately a 2 week annual vacation isn't going to do much - and you know this, how quickly the "vacation" fades once you return to the grind. Meditation is an opportunity to take a vacation daily.
Not all meditative practice is spiritual, and meditation can have mental and physical benefits from a secular viewpoint, however in my world view meditation is associated with listening, waiting, and being present for God. It's quite mysterious and not explainable (otherwise it wouldn't be mysterious). It's a practice of faith. Not for everyone. If you are interested in a Christian form of spiritual meditation the best source I've found are the teachings of Father Thomas Keating.
Wishing you some quiet space on this fine day in March.
