Noisy silence “Make an appointment to yourself.” ~Being with Dying, 23rd May, 2016~
Since the course started, we have been keeping silence all through free time include the time when we eat.
During evening session, Dr. Anthony Back and Roshi mentioned about silence.
“In the silence, your habitual stuffs are coming out.”
Dr. Anthony said.
Then Roshi announced to us that we would be able to talk each other from Wednesday. She called it “Social shift”.
After the announcement, we made small groups and talked about our feeling in the moment.
What a surprised!
The zendo (the room where we are learning) was filled up loud voices. Talk, talk and talk! It seemed like drainage of water from a dam. Haha~
Silence is very powerful because you have no choice but to talk to yourself in the silence.
During the talk, I realized how much they talked to themselves in silence. Ironically enough, it’s noisy silence in a sense…
Tiwariji always says
“Make an appointment to yourself. Control your mouth. Then you can stand on the starting point of yoga.”
“Silence is golden.”
In the dining hall at Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute, this statement is put on the wall.
Silence is the powerful tool to bring self-reflection for everybody, I feel. Self-reflection guides us to realization.
To know the truth or reality is not easy sometimes.
Even for healthy and intelligent people like attendees in this course, silence is a huge burden. Many of us have uncomfortable feelings and emotions as they confessed.
But look! How about the patients?
In a lot of medical situations, patients are forced to silence. Even if they can talk normally, sometimes (actually most of the time) they can’t communicate to medical stuffs freely. It’s “Himusa” in Sanskrit which is violence.
After the group conversation, I got Aha moment.
One of my missions is to guide patients to have self-reflection through comfortable silence with compassion.
For this, I have to be grounded nicely, and keep silence or stillness nicely in my mind.
But again, Tiwariji says,
“Don’t be serious, be sincere.”
How can I do that?
The key is “strong back and soft front” as Roshi says.
In this course, I have started to understand what I’ve learned through yoga. It’s practical understanding, not intellectually.
That’s why I’m here now. I was called….
Every day is full of gratitude.
Life is beautiful.
To know about death is to live fully!
