Silence

How to silence one's mind? In the midst of an onslaught of media chatter, how does one find complete mental silence?

That has been my goal for Holy Week... to be free of the pointless chatter of controversy engendered by media.

I'm trying to attain this silence in a number of ways. I practice my yoga routine to this YouTube video of a Gregorian chant recitation of the Rosary in Latin.

I do not attain pure silence of the mind through this exercise because I count breaths during each yoga pose. The rosary is a meditation upon the divine male and the divine female. But, the necessity of counting and meditating does drive almost all distracting thoughts from my mind.

In this age of media glut, we pride ourselves on constant conflict and on having an opinion on almost every issue in every corner of the world. I am so tired of that. I want to focus solely on that which takes place near me and is actually pertinent to my needs and self-interest.

An interesting thought from an essay on silencing the mind

A deeper introspection reveals that in ordinary life, our thoughts usually dwell in the domain of the trivial and the mundane, are nurtured by culturally ingrained stereotypes and socially compatible conventions and go on rotating in what is best described by the Aurobindonian adage “The Wheel’s circling immobility”. We go on brooding over the past, trivialise the present and indulge in anticipating or day-dreaming about the future.

Over the past six months, I've returned to playing classical music on piano and organ. That is another discipline for silencing the cacophony of daily nonsense. Focusing on accurately playing the notes, correct fingering, and attempting to stay perfectly within the beat blocks out the background noise of daily life. Whenever I am really struggling to maintain my focus, when I am really drawn to angry conflict on the internet, I play my classical repertoire.

I begin with my scale practice... yet another routine for quieting my mind. Throughout my scale and classical practice, I most often use a metronome so that my attention is riveted in the here and now. 

I crave silence now. I often sit at my house in the Catskill Mountains for days without talking or communicating with anybody. When Myrna died, I was so terrified by the loneliness of her absence. As time has passed, I've accepted that I will never against experience the one-ness with another that I experienced with her and that I must learn to find contentment being alone and silent.

I have learned to be content with being alone. But silence of the mind continues to evade me.

Comments

[Dad Bones]

Shutting down the internal dialogue is the challenge of a lifetime. Now that I'm closer to the end of the road I can see how much energy I've spent trying to maintain my meager view of the world as if the world itself would collapse if I didn't think about it constantly.

But silence of the mind continues to evade me.

I suspect you're doing better than you give yourself credit for. Any silence, if only for a minute, has value and it seems to accrue interest.

It can be done any time. I do it when working on a project at home, walking, driving and so on. Thinking isn't needed to maintain awareness of what we're doing. You probably do the same with the piano and organ.

Thanks for the chance to think about not thinking, even though it's something I can't think about!

[Howlin' Steve]

You're welcome.

I am also close to seeing the end of my journey.

I have so little time left to do what needs to be done. Not much time left for nonsense.

[Lem]

Great post. Sent a link on twitter.