Methods of Inner Silence

[Jessup2]

Hello again,

 

While studying, I came across quite a few different methods of achieving inner silence, quieting the mind, a prerequisite to most all practices, whether East or West, and crossing many cultural boundaries.

 

The two basics I have reduced to pinpointing and flooding. An example of pinpointing is to focus on one mantra, a single sound, reducing everything in your concentration to a single point. An example of flooding would be the form of walking while holding a particular hand gesture that is not normal, and not focusing on anything in particular, but keeping the eyes open and using peripherial vision to let all sights and sounds around you flood your senses. 

 

As you can imagine, you can certainly come up with many variations of this same thing, and probably new ones that I have not logged.

 

What I can say about it, is that when you have silence, sound can easily let you know, because it changes radically and in my opinion, faster than any other sense factor for me.

 

What forms of silence for meditation have you used? How well do they work for you? 

 

How many use the form of rolling the eyes up in the head? Particular ways of sitting? Holding the hands in a particular fashion?

 

[wstein]

I used the watch-your-thoughts method. Basically you try to notice when a thought (includes mind chatter) arises (most commonly during meditation to start, then all the time). The more often the better. At first there is no waiting for thoughts (or chatter), in fact there are so many you can't respond to them all. No matter, just notice that a thought has occurred. Do nothing else about it, do not try to stop the thought or worry about thoughts you missed. If at the beginning you are having trouble doing nothing about noticing a thought, simply label it "thought". At some point you will notice the thought that does the labeling. Nothing more to it other than practice. At first thoughts will occur in lower density (hard to notice for a few weeks perhaps). Then eventually the thought will become sparse enough that there are gaps between them. You are pretty much there when you notice something odd only to realize its mental chatter. Yes I know this seems like it would stop all thinking, it does not. It only stops the mental chatter.

 

It took me about 2 years to reach inner silence as my default state. Now I lack mental chatter >95% of the time.

 

[advanced] once you get to inner silence as a default, you will probably notice other kinds of chatter (emotional, physical, psychological). The same method works for them. Eventually you reach inner stillness.

[Pavel Karavaev]

Hello, thank you for an interesting topic.

 

I have my own experience of achieving inner silence. I just started practicing a good qigong method. I began to feel that my thoughts were more and more calming down during the practice. After couple years, I achieve a state of inner silence quite naturally while I practicing, and later i can save it for the long time. Thoughts seem to stop and completely calm down. I really like this condition, it gives me a real rest, and after practice I always feel myself fresh and clean inside.

 

I think what regular practice of harmonious method of energy practice  should provide an opportunity to achieve inner silence.

 

[taoguy]

Instead of watching your thoughts... Try this: Listening to your thoughts. Pure listening, no commentary, no subvocalization. Hearing both external and internal sounds. Just hearing.

 

[Pavel Karavaev]

I can not say that I'm watching thoughts. I just focus my attention on practice, on the body and on the work with energy. Thoughts are most often aimed at something external, and with time comes the understanding that its only interfere with practice. Then thoughts become more internal and connected with practice. I do not know how to describe it, they are in the body, in the energy. Thoughts simply change, they become harmonious and then the inner silence comes completely naturally.

 

I think that pure mental work is more difficult to do during a long time and therefore it is difficult to achieve a result. And in working with the body and energy the consciousness automatically comes to the balance. This is magic!

[thelerner]

Counting my breaths.  Often the classic 1 through 10, repeat.  Sometimes using Doctor Morris's Mind Cleanser (also 1-10) where you have to go back to 1 if/when a thought intrudes.  Sometimes counting my breaths up to 100 or 200, and needing to concentrate on keeping the count straight, through the boredom.

 

Barry Long's work is very good on keeping a quiet mind.  He has a guided meditation as well as talks about it on Youtube.

 

With my own biocomputer I imagine there's two record players.  One playing my current emotional state album, the other sounding off surface thoughts.  Keeping that in mind I'll see what's playing and often raise the needle to quiet down the noise.  Get quiet enough and you start noticing the subliminals playing on the records. 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by thelerner

[falcon]

Samatha meditation.

 

Single pointed awareness on breath until absorption. The point being the tip of the nostrils (as in not following the breath, one point).

 

I also like switching from the object focus of breath to the object focus being my mind in between thoughts. That stillness becomes the object itself.

 

Meditate on that stillness I will.

[yugenphoenix]

On 12/20/2017 at 5:08 PM, Pavel Karavaev said:

I can not say that I'm watching thoughts. I just focus my attention on practice, on the body and on the work with energy. Thoughts are most often aimed at something external, and with time comes the understanding that its only interfere with practice. Then thoughts become more internal and connected with practice. I do not know how to describe it, they are in the body, in the energy. Thoughts simply change, they become harmonious and then the inner silence comes completely naturally.

 

I think that pure mental work is more difficult to do during a long time and therefore it is difficult to achieve a result. And in working with the body and energy the consciousness automatically comes to the balance. This is magic!

 

This is it and exactly what I found to be true. Focus on the physical and energetic feeling of your practice and all will naturally fall in place. Don’t chase the thougths or u will pursue them eternally as they are like waves of the ocean, continually rising and falling but just relax and  find the calm center. For me like above it’s pure physical and energy work, nothing mental required. The mind just gets in the way.

Edited August 4, 2018 by yugenphoenix

[CityHermit!]

Having good posture if I'm sitting up, or relaxing more when I'm laying down, helps. Also letting my sensorium shift from audiovisual more to feeling, whether on my skin or internally.

[Lost in Translation]

Inner silence is like a slippery fish. You can see it, you can touch it, your can even grab it - but it's hard to hold on to.

 

I'm working on sitting in silence. It's difficult. I have a much easier time moving in silence. In fact, the longest and most complete moments of silence come when I am driving. Just me and the road. I can't nod off like I want to do when just sitting, and I there's nothing there to distract. It's an interesting sensation to be able to read billboards and hear words on the radio while the mind itself is quiet. Perhaps I'll try to find the vocabulary to describe it.

[rideforever]

If your leg is broken and bleeding ... then staring at a candle, and counting your breaths up to 100 and starting again .... this makes it go away and you have inner silence.

[Marblehead]

5 minutes ago, rideforever said:

If your leg is broken and bleeding ... then staring at a candle, and counting your breaths up to 100 and starting again .... this makes it go away and you have inner silence.

Yep.  That would make life go away and no more pain, no more suffering, no more bleeding after a while, broken leg won't matter any more.

 

 

[Pavel Karavaev]

On 07.08.2018 at 5:58 PM, rideforever said:

If your leg is broken and bleeding ... then staring at a candle, and counting your breaths up to 100 and starting again .... this makes it go away and you have inner silence.

 

To get distracted from the pain, you really can focus on something else. But this something must really entice the mind.
 

It just reminded me of the scene from the movie.
 

I'm sorry for my humor