8-Fold Path | CW Hawes

8-Fold Path: Silence, Where and When

Silence is the gateway to better health, both mentally and physically, as well as being the gateway to a richer spiritual life.

However, we are so busy and noise is everywhere. Where and when can we get in a little silence? I’ll cover this in more detail when I get into the eight steps themselves. For now, though, I’ll give you a few ideas for where and when you can practice silence.

Where

This is probably the easier of the two. Because you can practice silence anywhere. If you have in hand a good pair of earplugs, then you can have silence wherever you are and wherever you go. Just pop those little wonders into your ears and, voilà!, instant quiet and peace.

One place that’s easy to enjoy silence is in your car. Just turn off all the noisemaking gadgets while you’re driving. Aside from road noise, your car is a fairly quiet place. And if your house is too noisy, you can always go sit in your car. Tilt the seat back a little and enjoy the quiet.

There are also places in your house that are fairly quiet. Go there. If kids or spouse have a tendency to interrupt, tell them not to bother you for the next 10 or 15 minutes, or however long you need.

Noise is distracting. Even if it’s your favorite song. And even more so if you’re driving and talking on your phone, or dictating, or listening to a book or a report. And distracted driving has been known to kill people.

When

Where you can practice silence is rendered fairly easy thanks to earplugs. When is a bit more restrictive.

Obviously there are times we must be social. The dinner table, for example, or a team meeting. A business meeting or social gathering. And that’s okay. After all, we are social creatures.

There are, though, many opportunities in a day when one can practice silence.

Early morning or late at night are excellent times to do so. Or when one is alone. I find an early morning walk in the neighborhood park to be very conducive for experiencing silence. The mothers and their children have not yet descended upon the place.

I had times at work where I could spend a few minutes in an empty room to get a bit of quiet.

The 8-Fold Path

Next week I’ll begin going step-by-step through the 8-Fold Path. Each step will enhance our appreciation of silence, as well as gain us the peace and tranquility that comes with silence.

If you’ve had experiences with silence, I’d love to hear about them.

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The 8-Fold Path: What is Silence?

We know what sound is, both pleasant and unpleasant. What, though, is this silence I’ve been talking about? What do I mean by experiencing silence?

There are two aspects to silence. One is freedom from the external noise we all must contend with. The ever pervasive deluge of sound pounding on our ears and even on our bodies.

The other is inner silence. Wait! There’s sound within us? The short answer is yes. The long answer and what we can do about it I’ll come to in a moment.

Our Outer World

Noise pollution is rampant in our urban and suburban worlds. And we add to this noise voluntarily. The TV. Our phones. The chimes our computers make and the noise from many websites we may visit. The radio. People we associate with. Music.

External to us is wanted and unwanted sound.

The other side of the coin is silence. This may be absolute silence, the complete absence of sound, or it may be the silence of nature. I can hear you say, “Wait a minute! Nature is silent? There are all manner of sounds in the park and in the woods.” And you are right. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

Absolute silence is not easy to obtain in our modern world. A soundproof room is one way to go about it. And that is a very nice experience.

On my retreats, the cabins, hermitages, were soundproof. They were built so tightly, the retreat management advised that one should open the windows, at least a couple of them, an inch or two, in order to let fresh air in. This was especially needed if you burned candles, or used the gas light, or gas burner.

Yet even with a couple windows slightly open, I heard no external sound. There was freedom from noise, unless I made it.

Experiencing a soundproof room in a natural setting is something I think everyone should experience. It is totally awesome.

The other perhaps more easily obtainable way to achieve absolute silence is to use earplugs. I can hear you say, “What?” Yes, earplugs. There is a reason health officials recommend ear protection when you use loud noise producing tools or are in a noisy environment. Noise destroys your hearing.

When I want, or need, to reduce or even eliminate outside noise I pop in a pair of disposable earplugs. There are many different brands that reduce noise by varying decibel levels. I happen to use Hearos. The ones with a noise reduction rating of 33, which means the noise coming into your ear is reduced by 33 decibels.

I found NRR 33 earplugs highly effective at virtually eliminating noise in the office, at home, and on airplanes. What you get is silence. There are also noise isolating headphones, which for a higher price eliminate even more noise.

Natural Sound

Nature is replete with sound. Or at least can be. Crickets and cicadas on a summer evening. The crows or mourning doves can produce quite a racket. One I don’t find soothing.

But there are plenty of natural sounds that are very soothing. The wind stirring dried leaves in the autumn. The rain. A waterfall. There are, though, times when the natural world is silent. Winter is the best time to experience that or in a very isolated location like Chaco Canyon, for instance.

I’ve experienced rural winter silence. Absolutely no sound. It is spectacularly awesome and supremely peace inducing. A former co-worker said the same about her time at Chaco Canyon. The place is so remote there are times of absolute silence that will take your breath away.

Natural sounds are not bad. In fact, they are usually very good due to their soothing effect on us. Let’s face it. Our world has advanced. Our bodies have not. We’ve had very little physically significant change in over several hundred thousand years.

That’s why our world and it’s noise is so stressful. The primitive part of our brain, the part that runs all of our automatic systems, still thinks we are in the jungle, or the forest, or the savanna. And it reacts accordingly to all outside stimuli.

Even with a high degree of self-control, we still feel the effects of the “snake brain’s” autopilot responses to our world. One reason so many of us suffer from stress, anxiety, or those sleepless nights.

The sounds of nature can soothe away those feelings. And so can earplugs by eliminating the sounds that stress us.

Our Inner World

We have noisy minds. We are constantly thinking, complaining, getting even, planning our next meal, contemplating what to buy, and the list goes on. Every meditation technique is designed to still the mind. To get it to stop thinking. To stop planning. To stop worrying.

Our minds, the front part of our brains, are designed to solve problems. If our mind doesn’t have a problem to solve, it will create one. Our mind doesn’t want to be empty. It doesn’t want nothing to do.

In meditation, we basically redirect our mind to focus on something other than problem solving — real or imagined.

There are many ways to meditate. A walk in the woods or the park, where you focus on the natural world, is an excellent way to redirect the mind. To get it out of problem-solving mode.

Sitting and focusing on your breathing is another tried and true method.

My favorite is to sit and let thoughts just wander through my mind. I watch them enter and leave, as it were, not focusing on any particular one. If I sit long enough, the thoughts cease. It’s as if my mind has gotten tired of trying to interest me in a problem. That’s when my mind becomes truly silent.

Additional Thoughts

It does us little good to shut out the noise coming from outside of us, if our minds take up the slack and run rampant with inner noise. That inner noise can produce stress and anxiety just like outer noise.

The 8-Fold Path helps us to deal with both kinds of noise.

Next week, I’ll talk about where and when we can practice silence. I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it is.

Until then, unleash your inner quiet and enjoy the stillness.

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The 8-Fold Path: Why Silence?

Last week I touched on the benefits of silence. And that we don’t have a lot of silence in our daily lives. We are inundated with sound: some of our own choosing, most not. While I’m writing this, the “roar” of the forced air heating is quite significant. When it stops, there is a noticeable return to quiet for a few moments until a truck roars by on the busy county road I live just off of.

A quick search of the internet will give us dozens of reasons why silence is beneficial; physically, mentally, and spiritually. Let’s take a look at a few of the physical and mental benefits daily periods of silence can give us.

THE BRAIN

Daily periods of silence can improve our brains. A 2011 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that walking three times in a week for 40 minutes improved spatial memory.

If we can change our setting, we give the brain something different to focus on and correlate with known data.

Most of us live in urban or suburban settings. If possible, take a walk in a park or some other natural setting. The greater the difference between the manmade and the natural, the better for our brains. Manmade noise tends to grate on our nerves. Natural sounds are much more soothing.

Go walking — without the iPod — in a natural setting. Let the natural sounds lave you with peace and tranquility.

In addition, regular periods of silence can actually stimulate brain growth.

A 2013 study, published in Brain Structure And Function, found sitting in silence for at least two hours a day could stimulate the creation of the new brain cells related to our ability to learn, remember, and emotions.

At least two hours, you may say? Who has time for that? Indeed. We live busy lives. Although some of us may have the time and that is a wonderful thing. However if you do not, I think the 8-Fold Path can help you by giving you a lifestyle of silence.

STRESS

Almost all of us are stressed. We live in a stressful world. Noise can lead to elevated levels of stress hormones — and who wants that?

Sometimes we resort to relaxing music or white noise to try relieving the stress we feel. The problem is music, no matter how relaxing, and white noise are still noise.

Silence, on the other hand, is the anti-noise, as it were. A 2006 study, which appeared in Heart, found that just two minutes of silence can release tension buildup in the body and in the mind. That sounds like a good deal to me. After all it’s only two minutes. Surely we have that much time to give to relieving stress.

INSOMNIA

It’s the pits when you can’t get to sleep. I used to hate it when it happened to me. There was nothing left to do but get up and perhaps read for a while until I felt tired.

On the other hand, daily silence can come to the rescue.

A 2015 study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found older adults who meditated had fewer episodes of depression, fatigue, and insomnia. And meditation is done in silence.

Sitting in meditation breaks the routine of busyness and noise in our lives and can break the never ending monologue our minds at times embark on.

I know from personal experience sitting in meditation and letting my mind just drift through thoughts and feelings, not focusing on anything, eventually results in my mind stopping the thought process and that’s when the stress and anxiety falls away.

SENSITIVITY

From personal experience I can tell you silence increases one’s sensitivity to outside stimuli. After a week of silence and solitude, my whole body became more sensitive. More sensitive to sounds, touch, sights, and even thoughts, my own and others. I even think my poor hearing improved for a time. At least people could speak a bit more softly, until things went back to normal.

SUMMARY

Daily practice of silence can be very beneficial, both physically and mentally. A lifestyle of silence even more so. And that’s just on the physical and mental plane.

Whether you are a person of faith or not, I believe the practice of silence, coupled with its companion solitude, can do wonders for your soul. In a sense, silence can pull you out of yourself and take you to a place where you can, even for a moment, touch that which is beyond us.

The late Canadian psychiatrist, Dr R.M. Bucke, wrote of his experience in his book Cosmic Consciousness. Dr Bucke wrote that after a wonderful evening with friends, on the long ride home, late at night, he was “in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images, and emotions flow of themselves, as it were, through my mind.” In other words, Dr Bucke was unconsciously meditating in silence. What happened next changed his life forever. Here are his words:

All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city; the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exaltation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life.

Those of faith will see Dr Bucke’s testimony as evidence of their beliefs. Those not of faith will possibly attribute his vision to some other cause. For myself, I see a man who was not especially religious in the span of a few moments suddenly become convinced there is something beyond himself. Dr Bucke’s experience is, however, indicative of what many mystics have found to be true: silence and solitude can connect one with the beyond.

Most of us, though, are probably seeking a more day to day benefit. And silence certainly provides that. However, as with any practice, you get out of it what you put into it. If you simply want less stress and better memory, silence can help you achieve some of that. And less stress, along with better mind function, is a very good reason to start your journey into silence. And who knows where it may end.

Next time we’ll explore just exactly what is this silence I’m talking about.

Until then, take some time, each day is preferable, to just unplug and get away to a place with minimal noise. Then just let your mind drift, not focusing on anything. Let me know what you think.

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The 8-Fold Path

Noise is all around us. It is part of our daily lives. Silence is a rare commodity. Something not true up to 100 or 125 years ago.

And with all that noise pollution our bodies suffer: hearing loss, tinnitus, and sleep problems to name but three.

A few years ago I went on two silence and solitude retreats. I’m lucky to have a retreat center about an hour’s drive away. Both times I spent a week at the center. The retreat was unguided. Just me, my hermitage, and a beautiful lake, prairie, and woods.

Unfortunately, even there in that pristine environment urban noise could be heard in the muffled distance. But inside the soundproofed hermitage, there was no noise. There was silence and a beautiful view out the picture window of nature in all her glory.

For a time I owned a hobby farm in very rural northeastern Iowa. Beautiful country. Hilly, wooded, and dotted with small farms. Spring and autumn did bring with them the sounds of tractors at work. Summer, the sound of insects and cattle lowing. However, it was in winter that silence reigned. For many minutes at a time one might hear absolutely nothing. Nothing. And then a pick up truck might drive by on the road some distance away. When it was gone, the silence returned.

In those moments of absolute silence in the winter on my hobby farm or sitting inside my hermitage, looking at the trees and the lake, a peace would descend upon me and fill my soul.

I’m not one for organized religion. To tell the truth, I’m not into religion at all (although I do have an affinity for mysticism). However, in those moments of silence, it was as though I’d been transported to something beyond myself. The experience was indeed mystical. “Be still and know that I am God.” The psalmist was definitely on to something. Or Elijah, in the cave, where he heard God — not in the noise — but in the still, small voice.

Silence is golden. In the cacophony surrounding us that truth is easy to forget. In stillness, free from sound, I am free to know myself. In solitude, away from others, I must come to grips with who I am. Then and there I come to the realization if I’m truly someone whose company is desirable. For if I’m not likable to myself, how can I like others? If I do not love myself, how can I truly love others?

Not all of us, though, can take the time off to go on an extended retreat. Although I do recommend you give it a try. The experience can be life-changing. But for those who can’t afford a retreat, there is an alternative.

Over the next several weeks I want to share with you a way I found to capture the beauty of silence and to live in that silence every day. And you don’t have to become a hermit or retire to a cloister to do it. The method will work for everyone everywhere. It is independent of faith or philosophy, although either can enrich the method.

I call it The Eight Fold Path For Living Daily In The Silence.

I hope you’ll walk with me on this path and in so doing reap the benefits of silence, and its companion solitude.

Comments are always welcome. If you’ve experience the joy of silence and solitude, please share your experience. Until next time, peace!

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