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WHAT GOOD MAY COME FROM A LITTLE QUIET – Rev. Darrell Jones
OVERVIEW
Pretty much 24/7 there is noise happening. Either outside in our environment or inside our minds. This noise isn’t necessarily bad, however, it takes up alot of space and uses a lot of energy. What if we made a practice of pausing to embrace quiet everyday? What space might it free up in our minds, attention and our lives? What good may come from a little quiet? So much, but it is only realized if you actually try getting quiet.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Darrell (00:03):
Good morning everyone. Rev Darrell here in the place to be. Also, I guess now my name is the dude Don’s always giving out his nicknames. Happy Sunday, happy December. How many of you are experiencing unrest, turmoil, despair, anxiety, uncertainty, or some other unpleasant experience of living? Is anyone experiencing those things? Okay, what is it that you would like to experience instead?
(00:49):
Peace. Like the song that was just sung so beautifully, contentment, joy, happiness, security, freedom, certainty, or some other pleasant or positive experience of living. Well, you are in luck. You’re in the right place. We here at Cityside today and all month are exploring the power of silence. The text that we’ll be focusing on and drawing inspiration from every week is the book, silence, the Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise by Han just the title of that book. Every time I read it and see it, it just gives me some, I get the chills actually, so I’m going to read it again. Just take in the title of the book. You don’t even have to read it, although I highly recommend it. Silence the Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise.
(01:52):
So it inspired the question, which is my talk title Today, what Good may Come from a Little Quiet. The general idea that is presented in the book and that I’m lifting up today in our talk is that pretty much 24 7 noise is happening 24 7. Whether it’s outside in your environment, in your world or inside, this beautiful thing called your mind. There’s always some sort of noise taking place and the noise isn’t necessarily bad. However, it takes up a lot of space and it takes a lot of energy to always entertain that noise. Would you agree?
(02:49):
So what if we practice? We made a practice of pausing and embracing quiet every day. What space might be freed up in your minds, in your attention, in your energy, and in your living? What good may come from a little quiet? I believe so much good, but here’s the kicker. It’s only realized if you actually try getting quiet. Dang, you got to work for it. Y’all coming back to the reading? Hear this. Silence is essential. We need silence just as much as we need air. Just as much as plants need light, our minds are crowded with words and thoughts. There is no space for us. I really want to kind of linger for a moment on the first two sentences there. Silence is essential. We need silence just as much as we need air, just as much as plants need light. So everyone gets that. Plants don’t. If you’ve ever tried to have a plant in your home and you put it in the closet and you shut the door, it’s not going to thrive. It’s actually not going to stay alive. So what Han is positing and saying here is that we need silence like a plant needs light. It’s essential. Not only is it a nice thing to have, we need it to actually be healthy. We need silence in our life to thrive. We need silence in our life to actually stay alive.
(04:48):
But how much silence or stillness do you actually practice? Most of the time when we have an opportunity to get quiet, what do we do? Pull out this puppy right here and we start scrolling and looking and emailing and texting and putting on something, and none of those things are bad. But if silence is essential to our health, when we are presented with those opportunities of quiet sees it because there isn’t a whole lot of silence in your life. There’s always something clamoring. So again, I will ask what good may come from a little quiet? Silence is powerful. Stillness is healing space and spaciousness supports creativity and possibility.
(06:22):
See what I’m doing here? Okay, the first practice today. Now I have some quotes from the book Peppered in and some of the themes and ideas, but as you know, if you’ve followed me for a while or heard me talk, it’s always about practice, right? Because we can talk about stuff as much as we want, but most of the things that we talk about, most of the spiritual living that we desire, it’s not an intellectual exercise. It’s a living practice, right? It doesn’t just happen above the neck. It’s embodied. So the first practice today is listening with your heart as opposed to the mind. And some of you may be going, what are you talking about, Willis? My name’s not Willis. By the way, that may not land for certain generations.
(07:18):
If you don’t know what it means, just Google what you’re talking about Willis and you’ll find out, okay, oh, sorry. Hey, people online. How are you doing? This is not an opportunity for you to multitask. Stop looking at other screens. I am sorry to neglect you. That’s one of the biggest ways in our world today in the virtual world, that we do not allow silence. And silence is not about complete quiet. It’s about focus and concentration and being present. So, hi, I see you put down the other screen, turn off the tv. Let go of social media other than this video, and we’re going to listen with our hearts. What it means to listen with your heart is whatever it means to you. But I’m going to ask you a question and we’re going to go silent and see what’s there. Listen with your heart. So even maybe even bring your hand to your heart, just connect below the neckline. This is not an intellectual question. There’s no right or wrong answer. What good may come from a little quiet in your life?
(09:08):
Are you listening and focused on the personal wisdom that dwells within your heart? Or are you listening to the clamoring, the opinionated, and often fearful voice of the mind? By the way, that was only 30 seconds. Some of you be like, dang, how long is he going to wait? 30 seconds. We are not trained to be in silence. We have never ever gone. I didn’t go to school to embrace silence. Anyone else? I mean, it’s invited in a lot of our spiritual practices, it’s invited in. A lot of the conversations we have, we understand probably all of us are going, yes, it’s a noisy world. We need more stillness, but we’re going to step out of this service and chances are most of us are going to step right back into the habituation of how we show up in the world. So let’s try this again. Now that you’ve realized what’s about to happen, I want to ask that question again. Take a slow breath in, and as you exhale, if it feels good, close your eyes. For those of you online, at least drop your attention away from the screen. Take another slow breath in, and as you exhale, I ask again, what good may come in your life from a little quiet?
(11:00):
The challenge with silence is that things don’t go quiet immediately. Did anyone have a different experience of listening from the first to the second time I asked that? So here’s one of the things that you got to understand about you as a human being, is that oftentimes we think and expect something needs to be a certain way, and then when we give ourself license to actually receive something in any way, it’s very different, right? That first time when I said, put your hand at your heart, breathe in, breathe out. What is your life possibly like if you add in some silence? Then all of a sudden the intellectual mind tried to put together all this stuff, and then we circled back just in a couple of minutes and asked the question again, and there was a different preparedness, a different readiness. So you’re not perfect, nor am I. We are here to practice. Life is not a performance. So we need to come back to these exercises over and over again and give ourselves a little bit of kindness and compassion as we do these practices. So the challenge with silence is that we don’t go quiet immediately, and we may not ever go quiet at all. Even though I wasn’t talking. There’s still a little bit of a hum from the lights back here. Hear it.
(12:27):
If you listen really intently, there’s probably some sounds. If we waited long enough, one of the trains would go by. All of that is okay. It takes time for us to slow things down. It takes time, energy, and actual effort to get quiet. Many people think that silence and quietness and stillness is a passive exercise. I beg to differ. It is very, very active. It requires your attention. It requires patience with yourself. It requires compassion and surrender, kindness, love, trust, and oh, probably a little bit more patience. Silence is not something that most of us received any training in, as I mentioned. So how do you practice silence? Tek Han goes on to say that silence is ultimately something that comes from the heart, not from any set of conditions outside of us, and I’ll add no certain set of conditions within us. It’s not an intellectual exercise.
(13:44):
He further says, living from a place of silence doesn’t mean never talking, never engaging or doing things. It simply means that we are not disturbed inside. There isn’t constant internal chatter. If we’re truly silent, then no matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can enjoy the sweet spaciousness of silence. So how do we practice the sweet spaciousness of silence, especially in this noisy world, we practice mindfulness. That is the thing that thi Han has championed his entire life. Mindfulness. What is mindfulness? The general definition is paying attention to the present moment on purpose in a particular way. Does it mean that you don’t ever judge? No. That means that you don’t hold on tight to those judgments. We always have opinions. The ego’s never going to be completely quiet, but there’s a part of you that is not the ego. There’s a part of you that is not the opinion and the practice. Again, coming back to this, mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment on purpose. So with some intention to the best of your ability. So that is the way that we touch upon this sweet spaciousness of silence. That’s through mindfulness. Mindfulness is not necessarily only for the meditation cushion.
(15:39):
How present can you be to what you are doing? That is what mindfulness is. So if you’re going to get online and you’re going to scroll through social media, how present are you actually being to enjoying the experience of looking at whatever you’re looking at? Or is there a part of you that’s craving whatever you’re looking at? Is there a part of you trying to figure out how can I create that post like that? Again, it’s not bad, but you’re not actually present to what you’re doing. Does that make sense? Anyone know the practice of selective listening? I’ll say it again for those of you who are doing it just now. Anyone know the practice of selective listening? Yeah. Do you have people in your life that are selective listeners? Would anyone call you a selective listener? Hey, well, here’s the deal. You know that you can practice selective listening with yourself.
(16:47):
You can practice selective listening with yourself just like you do with others. When you don’t want to really pay attention to what they’re talking about. You’re there, you hear them, but your attention is on something else. Maybe it’s the phone that you’re looking at. Maybe it’s the food that you’re eating, but you are selectively listening. You are choosing consciously to not be fully present on some level with the relationship in our mind and mindfulness. You are being selective with your listening to your mind and the chatter. Does that make sense? You can do the exact same thing that you do to everyone else, to yourself. Mindfulness is paying attention right now. Let’s try it. Bring your attention down to your feet. Feel the sensation of your feet in your shoes. Just feel it. Notice it.
(17:49):
Just because your mind is clamoring on about something doesn’t mean you have to listen to it so you can practice mindfulness anytime of the day when you’re washing dishes, wash the dishes. When you’re eating something, actually experience eating it. I’ve noticed how much I eat on the couch and walking around my house. I’m taking a practice, especially with lunch now of sitting at the table and eating my lunch for the sake of eating my lunch. How often do we do that? That is a way of practicing silence in a noisy world, being mindful, being present to what we’re actually doing. When you talk to someone, listen to them.
(18:41):
Don’t try to come up with a response that is not active listening, that is passive listening. When we practice mindfulness in meditation, which I like to say that meditation is simply disciplined mindfulness. When I teach in the corporate setting, that’s the way I like to set it up because we have all these ideas of what meditation is supposed to be. We’re supposed to have this out of body experience. We mind’s supposed to stop. We’re supposed to be able to see forward 30,000 years and understand the cosmos. Come on. Meditation is simply the discipline practice of saying, for the next two minutes, I’m going to focus my attention on X, and for two minutes to the best of your ability. You do that, and actually the exercise is not necessarily staying in the one spot. The actual practice, the reps that you’re doing like a pushup is each and every time your mind wanders away from X and you recognize you’ve wandered. You come back over and over and over again.
(19:55):
There are moments of silence that are actually quiet and still and seemingly nothing but to practice stillness and silence in our life. It is about being mindful and present. Sometimes when we’re present, it is quiet. Sometimes when we’re present, it isn’t quiet, but it’s still the same principle that you are present to. What is. Han goes on to say that it requires diligence and as opposed to selective listening, he likes to use the word selective watering. He uses lots of analogies and images, so he talks about this idea that in our awareness and consciousness, we have all these seeds. We have seeds of hope, seeds of anger, seeds of joy, happiness, love, deception, frustration, and his question is, what are you watering?
(21:01):
And he challenges us to be selective in our watering. How much watering are you doing to frustration? How much watering are you doing to disappointment? If you watch the news, you’re watering a lot of disappointment. I’m not saying don’t watch it, but how much do you need to watch? Because what you’re actually watering is the seed of disappointment within you, the seed of frustration, anger and fear within you, but there’s other seeds there. It takes diligence to selectively water the things in our life, and when we are in stillness and silence, we reap the benefit of awareness. We can go, oh, I haven’t been watering the things that I actually want to water.
(22:02):
I haven’t been giving attention to the things I actually want to give attention to. This is the challenge with the constant noise, the constant stimulation is that there’s no space for awareness. It literally blocks our ability to choose. You need, remember, stillness and silence is what we need to live just like a plant needs light. He says, when we release our ideas, thoughts, and concepts, we make space for our true mind. Our true mind is silent of all words and notions and as much vaster than limited mental constructs. Only when the ocean is calm and quiet, can we see the moon reflected in it. Only when the ocean is calm and quiet, can we see the moon reflected in it? Again, what good may come from a little quiet in your life. Just to give you a couple of ideas before I close, I challenge you to find actual stillness. Maybe when you go home today, you sit on a chair or a couch and just set a timer for two minutes and allow yourself to be. Your eyes can be opened or closed, but here’s some other ways. Maybe when you get in the car, instead of turning on the radio, you turn it off and just drive.
(23:44):
Maybe you don’t multi-screen. You’re watching something on television, you’re watching a movie, you’re watching Netflix with your friend or your partner or family member. Then don’t look at your phone at the same time.
(24:01):
When you talked the other night, I was out to dinner with someone and it just blew my mind. Two people started talking and they would share, and then they just kept talking at the same time, and I was kind of toggling back and forth trying to take both of it in, and I kind of wanted to say, excuse me, can one of you stop so I can hear the other one speak? But I didn’t know them that well, but it was just this weird experience. But it made me realize, how often are we just talking over one another? Listen, you’ll get your word in edgewise. Just hold on a minute. This requires patience or try not talking at all. There’s another way of practicing silence. Just shut the heck up. Listen in a meeting, listen in a conversation as opposed to needing to say something. Let yourself experience whatever it is that you are experiencing. That is a way of embracing silence and presence and mindfulness. I challenge you to do that this week. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, let your attention move inward to your heart. As we close with a moment of spiritual mind treatment, I’m not coercing your mind but to do anything, but we are speaking words of specific intent right now to open up something in our minds and our hearts and our entire beings. There is a power in presence that is noble. Han says, A noble silence, a wisdom that dwells within you that is seeking your attention. All you have to do is listen.
(25:52):
So may we all listen to our hearts, to our minds, to our souls, to our spirits. May we listen to life this week in a way that we’ve never done so before. May we find silence and pause and stillness not to get away from life, but to be with the very life that we are living for within. It is everything that we need within It is everything that we need. I bless you in this week as you find silence and stillness, peace and blessings to you all.