3.
CREATE SPACE FOR SILENCE
“To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practised, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making any effort. Not thinking. Simply being in mind what it is one needs to know.”
Silence may be tough in a corporate setting, but what could be a more hostile environment than a Latin-American prison? For the past two and a half years, José Keith Romero has introduced meditation practices into Mexican prisons. The purpose of his volunteer work has been to build up and strengthen the experience of internal peace, self-esteem and respect within the interned population.
Recently José and his team were in a large penitentiary in Mexico City, in the space assigned to prisoners for meditation. There were no windows, no ventilation and the place felt oppressive. They’d brought in a laptop in order to play meditative music and break through the noise of the facility. On this particular day, as they started the meditation program, in the midst of chanting, the computer stopped working. The inmates waited patiently for the team of volunteers to fix it. However, after a few desperate attempts they gave up and started chanting acappella instead.
To José’s utter surprise, the inmates responded in harmony. “It was as if they were actively requesting guidance from the power of the chant. The melody of voices danced through all corners of the room.” After 15 minutes of chanting, they entered into silence and meditation. It was a simple practice of deep breathing, posture and the silence of the mind. “We entered into this sacred space of nothingness. Deep breathing took over, no sound, no chant, just the sound of the breath, coming in and out, in total harmony.”
At the end, one of the facilitators invited everyone to open their eyes, wiggle their toes, make contact with their body, and bring their consciousness back into the room. The program came to an end, everyone shook hands goodbye and the volunteer team moved out through the winding corridors.
“As we walked out of the prison gates,” José recalls. “We contemplated what had just happened. At the core, the universe does not need laptops, tape recorders, or sound to make itself known. When you quiet the mind, surrender the soul to the wisdom of the heart, the future comes in; and peace and respect simply merge.”
There is something powerful in collective silence that connects and transports us. When the unexpected occurs, throwing us off course, or when things are not working for us, rather than scramble to “fill in the void,” to do something, we can slow down and become silent, just pausing and waiting. The few seconds may feel like an eternity but the silence can open up a space for something new to emerge. In time this can become a practice that enables us to accept what is and that reduces our instinct to take control.
Silence as discernment
The Society of Friends, better known as The Quakers, has a great tradition of using silence to centre before working together. Author, educator and activist Parker Palmer tells of one such event: “At one community meeting, we ran into a high-conflict issue. We ran out of time and agreed to postpone this issue until the following week. All week emotions ran high and opposing views intensified. We eagerly assembled at the next meeting, impatient to get this issue resolved. This was a Quaker community – each meeting began with five minutes of silence. On this day, the clerk announced that, due to the intensity of this issue, we would not begin with our usual five minutes of silence. We all breathed a sigh of relief, only to hear her announce: “Today, we’ll begin with 20 minutes of silence.”74
Bruce “Harv” Busta, a senior professor of accounting at St Cloud State University in Minnesota and a professional auditor, illustrates how silence can be used to find time to listen to oneself when facing a difficult situation.
“I am a Quaker. We believe that God can and does speak directly to us. We sit in silent contemplation and listen . . . to God, to ourselves, to each other. We listen in silence to discern the right path. Listening requires practice. We start by letting go of our knowledge, agenda and concerns to ‘centre down’ and focus on listening. We are listening for openings of our heart and mind.”
For Harv the discernment process is slow. It is not typically a flash of insight and a quick answer to a problem. Rather, it is repetitive process where the mind becomes quiet and one waits in careful expectation for clarity; as Harv puts it, less fuzziness.
One day Harv sat in his office and stared at the piles of research opportunities he had collected. As a fully tenured professor he had reached a point in his career where he had one major research effort remaining. The question was: which one? There were many interesting and worthwhile avenues to pursue, many that deeply interested him, but given the numbers of years he had left, he knew he only had time to follow one of these paths seriously. This was a perfect opportunity for Harv to use silence for discernment.
“So looking for clearness... I begin. Sitting in silence, thinking about my decision, then trying not to think about my decision... just trying to let the silence flow over me, wash me. Breathing slowly, listening. Relaxing, clearing my mind. My decision creeps back into my thinking, I gently push it away and re-centre, not thinking about it, not thinking about anything, just listening. By clearing the mind, slowly, very slowly the mind runs out of thoughts. You become open to hearing the stirrings of a message. Clarity can occur here. It is like a muddy pool, by doing nothing, by leaving it alone, the mud will settle. The same is true of our thoughts, by thinking of nothing, the confusion settles and clarity can come.Twenty minutes, 30 minutes... What happens? Lightning bolt? Clear message from God?... well, usually very little; however, the silence and letting go leaves you more comforted and calm.”
Over time, perhaps several months, slowly, Harv started getting small bits of clarity, pieces of the puzzle about which research path was best for him and those around him. “This path is the one that God wants me to follow, not necessarily the one that I expected or hoped for.” Harv explains that it is important that the process of discernment also involves people we trust and can confide in, with whom we can explore our decision. The role of others is not to give advice or guidance but rather to help us look at the issue from several viewpoints, discussing obstacles and impediments.
“Discernment is more than insight or good judgement. It is not an intellectual exercise of determining an outcome. It is a process of seeking and listening to hear an inner sacred voice. It is clearing our minds and opening ourselves to hearing the stirrings of a message.”