SILENCE IN THE MIDST OF THE NOISE

There is a place between voice and silence
where information flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.

—Jelalludin Rumi

 

Noise is what we know. Noise is all we think we hear. But noise arises from silence.

When we touch that silence, we come to see how life, creativity, compassion and even our words speak volumes about who we really are in a way that the din never can.

INNER STILLNESS IN THE OUTER CHAOS

At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are and
you know what you want.

–Lao Tsu

 

When we stop, when we contact the silence within.  When we get still, healing happens.

Scientists now know that the nervous system works best when the go-go-go hurry-up part of it is in a dynamic relationship with the rest-and-slow down part.

Recovery from disease or dis-ease happens in relaxation. Most of us are on overload, as if we are human doings. The practices of inner stillness help human beings find balance.

SPACE WHEN LIFE FEELS SCRUNCHED AND CRUNCHED

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

–Jelalludin Rumi

Something happens when we suspend our habitual thinking mind.

Space opens up. It’s not that the mind goes empty; it may not even be quiet. But this field beyond right doing and wrongdoing, when the mind stops bouncing between should and shouldn’t, between good and bad, gives us space. The mind can rest. The heart can open.

This compassionate space, this field, opens first in ourselves and then between one person and another. When we reach across this fertile space–call it mindfulness or heartfulness—we live life with more happiness, kindness, equanimity and balance.