Learning to Be Silent

[Jessie Fong]

Reading through this post again reminds me of a story I heard many years ago :

3 sisters went out on a group date.  Their mum warned them not to open their mouths, for their own sake.  The evening went on fine: they kept quiet, nodded or shook their heads in answers.

They went for a stroll after their lovely dinner and came across a very tall and unusual flag post.

1st sister : Wow!!! I .. have ..  never .. seen .. such .. an .. unique .. flag .. post. (stutters)
2nd sister : Mum told uth to keepth ourth mouths shut. (lisping)
3rd sister : Luckily, I did not say anything!!! (croaking)

*Faint*

You see : all of them had a "flaw" so to speak and were warned not to speak, lest their dates found out
and would not want to get serious with them.

[brian]

This is kinda funny for me. What i take from this story is to practice full awareness. The second and third speaker who spoke did not practice awareness totally and have the desire to win so much that they thought they have won. The forth speaker is the one who practiced true awareness. The first two who spoke acted too fast (due to lack of awareness and being too excited with the game. They thought they have found a loser in this game but in the end it was the forth guy who remained silent till the end and won.

For me, practicing silence is also a way to develop the awareness and it gives the person to think a little bit more by reflecting on a particular situation. It is also a good way to to bring down ones ego.

[Dondrup Shugden]

LOL what a simple funny story but knowing the error of talking while in a silent retreat or meditation shows a complete lack of awareness and mindfulness, the joke is on all of us.

It is so often that we will forget our intention and motivation when something seem goes wrong (like the light going dim) then we will grasp at something we are used to and for the other 3 students definitely their ego was in play and they were unable to stop the breaking of the intention.

[pinecone]

Despite distractions from outer side of the world, there are also distractions within us in different forms such as, negative thoughts, stress, anxiety, responsibilities , emotions that have not been dealt with, feeling haunted by past mistakes, failures, etc. and they keep you from knowing and connecting to our true self. It has never been easy to engage in a silent retreat but this is to train our mind to be more mindful and aware of our daily speech and action?

[Dondrup Shugden]

Very true, silent retreats especially in groups is not easy as we are so used to chattering.  Mindfulness and awareness will help.  The motivation of mindfulness must be kept every moment.

[cookie]

Some of us love to be heard; loves to have a say in everything; loves to have the last say. All these bad habits stem from a big ego. Hence when learning to be silent we are learning to subdue the ego. This is definitely good because most of our sufferings stem from the ego. If we can eliminate ego and practice equality and equanimity we would definitely be happier people.

[angelica]

I just want to share my experience on observing silence.

I attended a retreat and we are required to observing silence during our break. I think the silence only observed for first day, on 2nd day, we broke silence cos many of us are newbies to retreat and we have lots of thing unsure about the retreat and would like to know the answer. In the end we agreed to talk about dharma and about the retreat only. No idle chatter.

To observe silence in a group is not easy. Every member of the group have to follow strictly, if one broke the silence, others will follow.

[Klein]

This is a good story and funny as well. If it was me, I would continue to stay in silence. Let the person talk as much as he or she wants. If no one responds, he will eventually get the hint and stay quiet. Always looking for others to support us may not serve us ultimately because we are dependent on others in order to achieve our goals. This may be a backdoor for someone who usually doesn't take responsibility and looking for an excuse to fail. This is because success requires a lot of effort.

[Shugdener]

Hahaha, this was a funny story to read!

This story demonstrates that the pupils weren't being very mindful when one of them started a conversation. The pupils were mindful enough to not talk for the whole day as nothing of much discussion happened but as night fell and  the oil lamps needed to be refilled, that was when they broke their silence.

In my opinion, the reason the first pupil broke his silence in the first place was because he like all of us are used to living a pampered life with light and electricity and when we don't have access to that we tend to react in a manner like how the first pupil did.

[Andrea Keating]

A simple story in a few lines but so much for us to learn from.

Being in a silent retreat is to help us to be mindful of our thoughts and how we are being controlled by it in all that we say or do. If we do not manage our mind, we will react to whatever thoughts arised.  The story demonstrated that perfectly.

I have attended a silent retreat in a group myself.  Everyone was serious about it, so some of us basically avoided to sit with each other in the beginning. But as it went, it became very natural to feel fine not to do the usual polite gesture.  The funny thing was, it felt alright not to have to carry the social norm like initiating a conversation to be seen polite. The usual gesture of smiling and nodding when you met a person was totally unnecessary during the retreat. It made me realise how much we were conditioned to do the expected by the society... but when the rules were changed, everything changed.

[Pema8]

Our habits are very strong. Talking is something we do so much in a day that it is very difficult to stop it. In a group or when we engage with others we need to be mindful to stop to react. Yet as we are social beings, we tend even to communicate with our body, facial expression and our eyes. Silence is therefore not easy.

When we have a clear goal and know the benefit of such an exercise, it will be easier to control ourselves  and our actions. From being silent, it is also easier for us to observe our mind.