Noble Silence: An Introduction by Brother Minh Luong | #6

The early morning in the monastery is such a wonderful times.

It's very quiet.

It's very fresh.

Oftentimes we have morning mist.

We have dew on the leaves, the trees.

And when we're practicing noble silence, we can really be present for all of these wonderful things and enjoy them deeply.

There's always something to be experiencing.

Even if we come to a very, very quiet place,

we'll still find something to listen to.

And that something may be very beautiful.

It may be very deep and wonderful.

The practice of noble silence could be like that.

We turn off all of our devices and we think that we are going to be missing out.

But then we discover life in a deeper way.

For me, Noble's silence creates a foundation for us to practice.

When we are silent, we have a chance to be fully present for what we're doing.

We have a chance to be mindful.

Our minds have the tendency to be constantly looking outward.

And when we're speaking and communicating, we are living in that world of concepts

and language and outward looking.

But when we practice noble silence, we have a chance to look more deeply at life.

We can look at a flower, but we don't say that is  a flower.

We look at it very carefully for a long time

in that space of silence, and we know that it is much more than just a flower.

We can't explain what it is in words.

And it's thanks to the practice of noble silence that we come into contact

at least a little bit with that very deep nature

of the flower or of whatever it is that we are dealing with in that moment.

Dear respected teacher, dear community, dear friends.

Noble silence is one of the very important practices we have at the monastery.

It's also a practice you can bring home to

the place where you live, or even the place where you work or you like to spend time.

So at the monastery, we have many periods of silence.

But the biggest period is in the evening; after the evening activity

until after breakfast the following morning, we observe a deep silence.

This means we don't talk to each other.

But it's not only about outward silence.

Sometimes we can be not speaking and the people around us are also quiet.

But there's a lot of noise and talking in our mind at the same time.

So that's not yet true silence.

And that's not to beat ourselves up or feel like we're not practicing well,

but I just share that so that we know what direction we want to go in.

We want to

cultivate silence in our heart.

So that is an authentic noble silence.

The period of noble silence helps us to come back to ourselves and to practice mindfulness

in everything we do in the evening before we go to sleep.

So as we leave the evening activity, we follow our steps and take our time.

In this period of noble silence, it's easier to practice mindful walking

because we are not talking to the people around us.

And as we walk mindfully, we can enjoy the coolness and the quiet of the evening.

The period of noble silence is not to practice silence away from our activities,

but it's to bring silence into our activities.

So our brushing our teeth, our routine to get ready for bed,

all of these different things, we introduce the element of silence into these activities

so that we can be deeply present for them

and we can continue to cultivate our practice during the time of these simple, everyday tasks that we often take for granted.

We also practice noble silence during a lot of our activities during the day at the monastery,

including eating, meditation, walking, meditation, listening to the Dharma Talk, deep relaxation.

And one thing a lot of these practices have in common is

there's some kind of consumption happening.

We are consuming edible foods during eating meditation.

During the Dharma Talk, we are opening our minds to accept the rain of the Dharma.

The presence of the Sangha around us, the collective energy of the Sangha.

So there's a lot of healthy nourishment at the monastery, and by practicing noble silence,

we make it easier for all of that nourishment to come in.

And we can make good use of all of these wonderful, healthy foods that are on offer for us.

You may like also to practice noble silence when you are at home.

And I think this is a wonderful idea.

There's a lot of noise out in the world these days

between the traffic of the city, our neighbors around us.

Maybe our family environment can be noisy at times.

I enjoyed practicing noble silence when I was at home with my family about a year ago for a visit.

Every morning, we would get up in noble silence

and sit and enjoy tea together in a short sitting meditation.

After that, we would prepare a simple breakfast and eat together in silence.

I really enjoyed this practice.

I felt it created a good foundation for the rest of the day.

Perhaps you would like to practice noble silence at your workplace like an office.

There are some places where they have a prayer room or a meditation room.

At the university I attended, we had a meditation room

where I would often go during the day, usually after lunch, to practice sitting meditation.

And I found this very, very helpful.

My life was so busy.

I was living in a big city,

and I often felt anxious and overwhelmed by all the people around me.

The speed at which life was taking place.

And we don't have to just practice sitting meditation.

If we like, we can simply go for a walk in the garden or on the lawn outside of our work place and just let go of our concerns.

Whatever we're thinking about.

Connect with the silence around you or whatever sounds are coming in through your ears.

We can practice mindfulness of our hearing.

And just using that as an object of our meditation,

we help our mind to calm down,

even if our mind is very busy and very anxious and thinking about many projects.

Nowadays we have our phones, our computers,

and when we turn off all of these devices, we may feel that we're missing out.

We may feel that life as it is without these devices is a bit boring.

It's a bit drab.

But then we discover life in a deeper way.

Maybe not at first.

Maybe at first.

We are not used to connecting with the world around us through our five senses in a deep way.

But as we continue to be in that space of noble silence,

we will confront the world more and more,

and we may discover some things that we were not awared of before.

So I hope you enjoy the practice of noble silence.

Think of it as an exploration.

There are many things to learn and discover through the practice.