(Half bell)
(Bell)
(French) I think that nowadays there are many people who are afraid of silence,
or do not like silence.
They turn on music or the TV during the day.
I wonder whether that means they are afraid to be with themselves?
(English) I have the impression that nowadays there are many people
who are afraid of silence.
They prefer to put on some music or television
or something to occupy the space.
She wants to know:
Is it because they are afraid to be with themselves?
There may be a feeling of emptiness,
of isolation, of sorrow of restlessness in us.
And when there is silence these things...
appear very clearly:
the vacuum, the worry,
the restlessness, the lack of love.
You feel empty.
There is no happiness. There is no feeling of fulfillment.
And many people in the world have that kind of feeling:
It is empty inside, there is no love, no happiness.
We feel we lack something.
And there is sorrow, there is fear, there is anger in us.
And when there is silence all these things appear very clearly.
They are always there!
That is why many of us...
try to consume in order to forget.
Suppose you have some worry, you have some restlessness in yourself.
And...
you are not capable of handling...
that feeling of loneliness and restlessness.
So you go and open the refrigerator and find something to eat.
But you know that you are not hungry, you do not need to eat.
You eat because you want to cover up
the feeling of loneliness, restlessness in you.
And you get fat after eating so much.
(Laughs)
Or you play music, or you turn on television,
or you pick up a newspaper.
And that is what people in the world do when they feel empty in themselves.
That is the collective disease of human beings in our civilization.
So the market place provides us with every kind of means
in order for us to try and forget the suffering inside,
the loneliness inside.
And among these items they sell for us to use in order to cover up the suffering
there are many things that have toxins and poisons.
And if we consume them, we get more loneliness,
we get more anger...
and despair.
Because many of the things we read in books and magazines,
many kinds of things we see on television or we get from the internet,
give us more despair, more anger.
So the situation becomes more and more serious every day,
because of our non-mindful consumption.
And that is why we need to practice the fifth mindfulness training,
about right consumption.
We have to learn how to generate joy and happiness
with the practice of mindfulness, mindful breathing, mindful walking.
We have to learn how to generate peace
so that we have something good inside to be with.
And in these moments silence will only help us
to taste and enjoy more the feeling of joy and happiness
that we have generated by our practice.
Suppose I sit here and I pay attention to the sunshine outside,
the beautiful trees outside,
the grass and little flowers that are springing up everywhere.
It is beautiful outside! It is summer!
And our planet is so beautiful.
And many of us do not have the capacity
to get in touch with these wonders of life in us and around us,
because we do not know the practice of mindfulness
to bring our mind home to the here and the now
and to get in touch with these nourishing and healing elements
that can bring us joy and happiness.
So we do not have these beautiful things in us.
We have only the negative things like anger, loneliness and so on.
It is possible to sit on the grass, to breathe and to be happy.
And then you can hear the sound of the birds,
and the music of the wind playing in the trees.
And these are very nourishing and healing.
And not many people know how to do that.
So the practice of mindfulness helps us to nourish us, to heal us.
And then...
When there is a painful feeling arising inside of us
and we know the practice of mindfulness,
we do not have to go out and buy something and consume in order to forget.
In fact, we know how to recognize the painful feeling, the painful emotion.
We know how to hold it tenderly, how to understand it.
And we can begin to transform it into something more positive.
We can transform the garbage into flower.
And that is why you have to practice.
So in order to deal with the collective suffering in society,
we have to learn the practice of mindfulness.
We want to take care of our body, of our feelings, of our emotions.
And the practice of mindfulness helps us to do so.
The practice of mindfulness can help bring a feeling of joy
a feeling of happiness.
The practice can help us handle a painful feeling, a painful emotion.
And we can generate love and understanding in us.
And we get the feeling of fulfillment.
And we become a source of joy and happiness for other people,
for our beloved ones,
because we have so many things to offer.
And sitting close to us they will feel peaceful and happy,
because we have the feeling of fulfillment,
compassion and happiness in us.
And...
during the practice we need silence,
because that silence helps us to come back to ourselves
and to get in touch with our breathing, with our body
with our happiness, with our suffering,
so that we can take care of ourselves, body and mind.
And when we can produce the feeling of happiness and peace,
we can help the others to do the same.
We can offer the energy of joy, mindfulness, compassion
and help him or her to suffer less,
and help him or her to...
to generate the feeling of joy and happiness in him or in her.
So that kind of silence is very fruitful, is very...
is very active, is very eloquent.
It is not the kind of silence that represses you.
It is a kind of noble silence.
In Buddhism we call this silence 'The Thundering Silence'.
It is very eloquent. It is very full of energy.
Like in the meditation hall,
if...
if 900 people know how to practice mindful breathing in and out
and how to generate the energy of mindfulness and peace,
that silence is very powerful, very healing, very nourishing.
It does not oppress you.
That is called 'Thundering Silence'.
And with that silence the children are happy, adults are happy.
If everyone is angry or anxious and they sit together,
they create a collective anxiety, a collective anger.
That silence is very negative.
We cannot bear that kind of silence.
It kills us.
But when we know how to sit together and breathe together
and generate the energy of peace, relaxation and joy,
that collective energy of silence is very healing, very nourishing.
And therefore we have to learn how to generate that kind of silence
in our family, in our classroom, in Congress, in the town hall.
If you are a schoolteacher you should know how to
generate that kind of silence in your class.
If you have a household, you should know how to
bring that kind of silence into your family
to nourish you and your children and others.
If you are the chairman of the National Assembly,
you can propose that kind of practice in order to generate that kind of silence.
When I was in India, I visited the president of the National Assembly.
I proposed him
the practice of listening to the bell, breathing and smiling, in Congress.
You start a session by mindful breathing and listening to the bell.
And every time the discussion gets hot
and people are not capable of listening to each other anymore,
then you can invite the bell.
And the whole assembly will stop talking, stop listening
and practice mindful breathing to calm themselves down.
Mister Narayanan,
who was chairperson of the Indian National Assembly
was very excited about that.
And he tried to bring that practice into Congress.
So ten days later, when I was conducting a retreat in Chennai,
someone brought me a newspaper.
There was an article saying that Mr. Narayanan had formed a committee,
taking care of that kind of practice in Congress.
And he asked the former prime minister to be chairman of that committee,
named 'Committee for Ethics in the National Assembly'.
And we don't know how far they have gone in the practice.
But very soon, he became the president of India.
So he could no longer be with the assembly in order to continue the practice.
If you are a member of a National Assembly,
you may try to (laughs)
to persuade the spokesman, the spokeswoman of the House, of the Senate to do the same.
This is the practice.
And in fact if you are a schoolteacher,
if you are a director of a business,
if you are chief of an enterprise,
if you are a head of a family, if you are...
if you are the Mayor,
you can very well create that kind of silence where you work.
And it will nourish you and your colleagues.
So it depends on the kind of silence we create.
(Half bell)
(Bell)