Silence Is

Listen to silence.  It has so much to say. - Rumi

It was February 2020 and I was doing my first long silent meditation retreat.  I was so nervous that I arrived outrageously early.  I do that when I’m nervous.  The retreat was held a few hours North of my home at an empty lodge in Bear Lake, Utah in the dead of winter.  When I got there, I was the first participant to arrive.  The air was crisp in the empty tourist town and there was snow on the ground.  I parked my car near the back of the lot and pulled out my suitcase.  I looked around at the other empty lodges sitting on the small rolling hills against the backdrop of a giant lake and clear sky.  The lodge had a maritime motif, with bookshelves and chandeliers featuring nautical related paraphernalia like wooden ships, framed photos of sailors, and metal anchors.  There was even an unused bridal suite that could be found at the top of a circular staircase leading to a space that was made to look like the top of a light house.  My voice echoed through the empty entryway and up and down the stairways as I was led to my room I would be sharing with a few other participants.

As the evening came, members arrived, and introductions were made.  My roommates and I talked briefly about our shared space and which bed we would each take.  Instructions were given: There would be assignments for food preparation.  The retreat leader would be giving guidance throughout the days.  If there was a need for support, there were three people, one man and two women who would be available.  Otherwise, the silence would open in the morning and remain in place until the closing day of the retreat.  I had let all my family and friends know I would not be reachable for 7 days.  We headed to bed with the plan to meet for the first sit of the day before breakfast.

Through my years working as a psychologist, I have met many people who were afraid of silence.  I have heard, “When things get quiet, that’s when my mind gets loud.”  Silence is particularly difficult for those who have had experiences of trauma in their pasts – life experiences that were dangerous or out of their control.  For some, silence means betrayal, shame, peril, pain or loneliness.  I didn’t think it would be that way for me.  I had attended one day-long silent retreat in the past as part of a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course I had participated in.  It had been wonderful.  I looked forward to stillness. 

The next morning, I woke, got dressed and walked up the stairs from my room to the large space where we would meet for our opening practice.  I got out my cushion and placed myself in the circular space as other members did the same.  It didn’t take long before the silence began to envelop me.  I was in a room full of people, but I felt alone and scared.  It was like every stressor I had ever pushed through, every difficult thought or hurtful encounter all started to appear in my mind as I sat quietly.  The images and thoughts didn’t stop coming.  Before long, my mind was screaming at me.  I felt a wad in my throat and burning behind my eyes.  I felt lost and disoriented.  I couldn’t imagine seven more days of this.  The silence was deafening.

This happens sometimes.  I have learned this since then.  There are ways meditation leaders can screen for those who are at risk for these kinds of experiences, but sometimes they still just happen. 

I walked past one of the leaders of a group whom I had met the night before – a kind woman who worked in town as a Spanish teacher and had worked to build a mindfulness program in the local primary schools.  I had had a chance to chat with her for a time the night before.  She was a long-time meditator, a practicing Buddhist, a single mother who had recently been remarried.   She looked at me as I passed her but I averted my eyes. 

I sat near her in a breakfast nook with my plate on my lap as I attempted to pull myself together.  Finally, I looked up and whispered, “Can you help me?”  She sat next to me and talked to me about what was happening.  She told me I could trust my body and asked me what it was telling me I needed.  I said, “I think I need a warm shower and a rest.”  “Then it sounds like that is what you should do,” she said.  And so I did.

“Steady.”  That was the word that appeared again and again in my mind – a reminder, a gentle directive – as I moved through that day and the next days.  I tried to listen without judgment to what my body was telling me I needed.  I woke up each morning  early, stretched my body in the exercise room before heading to the made meditation space.  “Steady.”  When I sat on my cushion and the loneliness crept in, I listened with my eyes closed to the human sounds around me – other participants shifting and breathing.  “Steady.”  During walking meditations I put on my boots and a set of snowshoes and walked across the hills around the lodge.  I let myself enjoy the crunch of the snow, the texture of the tree bark, the caress of the cool breeze. When difficult thoughts showed up, I noticed them with curiosity and openness.  “Steady.”  I knew there was a “me”, separate from my thoughts, feelings, physical sensations.  An “observer me” that was just there to listen and watch.  And as I did I got to know myself in a new way.  It was like I was offering myself the gift of just being with myself without any requirements or demands.

 "Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our life as it is. A moment of Radical Acceptance is a moment of genuine freedom."  - Steven Hayes

Silence became my guide.  Not all at once, but slowly over time.  I began to see me, know me – my pain, my growth, my insecurity, my sturdiness, what I knew, what I had yet to learn.  Steadying myself, I allowed the things I’d pushed away to instead move through me.  And as I did, it was like I could see more parts of my experience.  Startling at first, then peaceful. 

Sometimes silence can feel very dangerous – it can mean betrayal, shame, peril, pain or loneliness.  But silence can also be a path to deeper understanding, a source of connection and creativity, a powerful form of communication.  As I steadied myself, I found something beyond the mere emptiness of the quiet.  The silence became something powerful and integrating, something healing and compassionate and quite difficult to explain.

Last night

I begged the Wise One to tell me

The secret of the world.

Gently, gently, he whispered,

“Be quiet,

The Secret cannot be spoken,

It is wrapped in silence.”

-          Rumi