do we really know what quiet is?
Vic Shayne
author
The Self is a Belief: the idea that causes suffering
We have a word in every language that refers to something that’s not describable: Quiet. But do most of us really experience quiet? Have you? Not just when the noise level drops or a machine stops moving, but when the mind itself becomes quiescent. Thought must come to an end, and this is difficult for us because our internal and external mechanisms are habituated in thought. And thought is movement, so to actually know quiet means that thought must come to a halt.
What are your thoughts filled with, other than the struggles of life and your dedication to the sense of self that you believe you are? Even the most selfless person is actually self-centered as long as thoughts occupy his or her mind. We have been trained to be this way.
The self is predicated on fear — fear of annihilation, change, invasion, harm, rejection, enquiry, judgment, and so on. This fear promotes thoughts of self-protection, security, health, and longevity. We have made ourselves into an investment to be looked after and fretted over. So it goes to reason that thoughts should be so centered on this center of our world, the self.
Uncovering the quiet that is beneath all the sounds, sights, and other senses is freeing. Nothing is excluded. As long as we hold onto any thought we are bound up by it. While this may be important when doing a task such as driving, whacking a tennis ball, or engaging in conversation, thoughts focused on the self imprisons us in a psychological sense, because we are not free to see what “is.” An occupied mind cannot perceive that which is here right now as the totality of existence. And if we can be quiet enough then we can see that this “now” is what we are, as everything becomes one singular seeing.
external quiet
In the late 1990s my wife and I took our family to Sedona, Arizona. Being born and raised in the busy area of Miami, Florida, this would prove to be quite a different experience for me. Miami, like other cities of its size, is noisy, hectic, frenetic, competitive, and crowded. When sitting on a lonely precipice in Sedona, staring out over the landscape I was amazed at how devoid of noise my surroundings were. I was taken with the beauty of the area, the cool morning air, and the stillness of it all. The entire scene was one essence to behold. Right then and there I realized that I had never experienced external quiet quite like this, and it made me think about what I had been missing. I had been deprived of the life force beneath a busyness that I had known my entire life. But this was external quiet, and reflecting upon it made me consider internal quiet and whether the mind could find it even in the midst of the noise and commotion of a big city.
internal quiet
Internal quiet (the quiet of a mind without thought) had not been unfamiliar to me, but it certainly wasn’t the mainstay of my existence for the first two-thirds of my life. But there were times, beginning when I was a young man, when all sound and the noise of the mind had come to a complete halt. When thought rushed back in I reflected upon what had happened and it was a shock to my otherwise busy mind. However, I had no idea what the implications of this internal quiet was. Now it’s apparent that complete stillness is that which underlies all of life, movement, thought, action, and phenomena. Quiet stillness is fundamental; it is the natural state of the mind. Thought interferes with freedom, because it is limiting and shuts out all other possibilities.
no internal, no external
We use the words external and internal as if to say that the world “out there” is separate from the world “in here” where thoughts and feelings seem to exist. But is this really the case? When you are completely quiet and the mind is still then you come to realize that there is no inner or outer, but only one single movement that is without shape, structure, sound, light or other quality. It is without limit or description until thought jumps in and fragments it into this and that, inner and outer, you and me, and so on. There is only “what is.”
When all thought ceases and the mind is empty then it is also paradoxically full, not only of all that exists, but of all potential as well. Out of nothing, it becomes stunningly apparent that everything that seems to exists issues forth from this nothingness.
