In this day and age, finding silence may seem quite impossible. We are living in the noisiest time in our human history. Yet, silence can be found anywhere, you just have to know where to look! I will show you where this elusive silence is, and provide you with a guided meditation to practice finding it.
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However, before I begin, I have a little story to share with you.
I had the great fortune of experiencing pure silence in 2005. I was backpacking on my own through England and Scotland, visiting sacred sites. This trip was inspired by the tragic and sudden death of my cousin. Her death was a great shock and I realized that I, like her, had lived a very responsible life, working hard and doing all the things I ‘should’ do.
I had also been reading a book at the time called Crossing to Avalon by Jean Shinoda Bolen. It was about the authors’ spiritual journey to sacred sites in England and Scotland. I decided to take a few months off work and travel to some of these same places, and also explore the homeland of my ancestors.
During this trip, I went caving at the Cheddar Gorge, which is in the Glastonbury area. I was guided into the Cheddar cave system by an experienced guide. We were deep within these caves when he turned off the lights, and we sat in complete silence and darkness. All I could hear was the sound of my own heart beating and the movements of my own body. It was amazing!
The whole journey was awesome and I found my time in Glastonbury very enlightening. I am so grateful that I gave myself this wonderful experience. I did another caving trip to the Horn Lake Caves on Vancouver Island a few years later. There were several people in this guided tour, and the silence wasn’t as supreme as it was in the Cheddar Caves.
Since then, I have wondered if I could experience that same level of silence in a world that is just so noisy. It was the teachings of Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle, and others, that helped me find this place. You see…silence is everywhere! We just don’t pay attention to it!
You may think this silence can only be found deep in the forest or in unpopulated areas, but wherever there is sound, there is always the end of that sound. And it is in that space…that gap when the sound ends where silence lies.
Life is busy and our thoughts are on many things, but if you stop and notice…you can find silence in the pause between words. You can find it as the chime of a bell disappears into nothingness, you can find it as a car drives by and then the sound of it disappears into the distance.
You can find silence just after a leaf falls to the ground, as the wind stops blowing the leaves in the trees, or as a drop of water dances and then disappears into a pond or puddle. Silence is in between each breath, in between each thought and at the end of every noticeable sound. Wherever there is sound…there is silence.
There may be background sound, and often we can be distracted by that. But if you choose to just notice the background without judgment and then focus on a sound that comes to an end, such as the examples above, you will experience the silence that follows. Even if it is just for a split second…for a very small moment…the silence is there.
When you begin to notice this silence in-between sounds, you are practicing present moment awareness. Your mind is quiet as you focus on the silence. Now you are experiencing inner silence!
This can be a very powerful practice and it can lead to a more calm and peaceful state of mind. I have created an exercise to help you practice this way of listening to find silence.
If you like this article, you may also like The Power of Walking Meditation or Why it Can Be a Challenge to Meditate, Especially for Women.
