About a month ago, I went to do a one-day Vipassana sit. Vipassana is a type of Buddhist meditation that was said to have been the meditation that led to Buddha’s enlightenment. Learning the mediation begins with a ten-day silent retreat where you sit for ten hours a day. We participate in Noble Silence and are not able to read, write, listen to music, nothing but you. The teacher, S.N. Goenka, talks during certain parts of the meditation in order to teach the students the technique.
The main focus of this type of meditation is to help us to see things are they are, no more or no less. To see things as they are through the experiences that we participate in through our minds, bodies, and souls. We begin to see that everything is always changing. We see that becoming attached to the moment that just occurred does not allow us to fully present to the moment we are in. I would recommend this meditation technique as one to help calm the mind so that you can really listen to the essence of God.
One action that really stood out to me from this sit, and became present to me again in this Advent season is the idea of ‘noble silence.’ Noble silence invites people to be present to life through an intention of being present only to the spirit within. What this means literally is that you are not speaking and not making any intentional contact with the others that are around you. Your soul focus during the time of Noble Silence is to maintain contact with your meditation, with the Spirit and pretend that others are not there.
At first I found this practice to be difficult because I am used to communicating with people through words, eye contact, and touch. However, as my mind became more calm and I learned to focus more and more on deep listening, I found that Noble Silence is an amazingly powerful form of communion that is actually a more impactful and stronger communication than direct words, touch, and eye contact.
When I was engaged in Noble Silence, my awareness of myself in the space I occupied was had much more strength than when I was talking or communicating with others in a direct way. Because I was much more aware of my space and my spirit, I became much more aware of the Spirit of those around me.
For example, during Vipassana, we shared in meals. During the meal, we continued in Noble Silence. We ate together, but did directly acknowledge each others’ presence. In this experience, I felt much more in communion with the others around me because I had to pay attention to their needs (moving out of someone’s way, or deciding who will go first in line, etc.) without directly talking or making eye contact.
I was also able to be much more present to the practice of eating. I was able to feel, taste, touch my food with much more reverence to the sacredness of the food and the miraculous experience of the body transforming the death of another living thing into energy and into life again.
During Advent Season, we have an Advent Retreat for the domestic volunteers for my work (www.capcorps.org). This year, we began the retreat in silence and we, as a community, entered into the silence of our words in order to be more fully in communion with the Spirit of the Creator within ourselves and each other. This experience drew me again into the experience of beautiful sound of silence.
As we continue to walk in to the spirit of Advent, I invite you to also enter more deeply into the communion that occurs most powerfully when we Be together in stillness. Blessings for you this Advent Season.
