Can Humans Know Silence?

What is the silent mind, empty mind or no mind that is spoken of in many traditions?
A Koan is a question that makes the mind go silent so one can experience it first hand. What is experienced though is more, much more that a silent mind. When the mind shuts up what is left?
Silence.
And something that is aware of that silence and it is also silent.

My friend, if you stay silent too long, and if your even alone this applies to as well, the mind takes the last pieces of data that were recorded and combines them with some more recent ones like with in the past two days and the mind beings to fabricate information on it's own, it actually begins to create new things, as a result of this you become delusional because certain parts of the brain aren't becoming stimulated where as those parts need to be for "sanity".

You can achieve a level of "peace" and maintain it for long periods but eventually you would need stimulus, if that;'s any help?

I watched this on a documentary, I will try and find it for you!

Jamie.

Just recently, I thought everything was calm, and then calmth happened. Its difference was noticable. It's not when everything in the world is calm, that one experiences calmness. It was like my world within was turned silent. Maybe it is to take this calmth to uncalm places. Does everybody aim to this calmth? Maybe they only get to know this when it occurs, from then on treasuring it.

May this calmth and silence happen all around.

Maybe, just maybe, the mouth of the Lord hath spoken?

humans can know silence!! And it is treasured when known!

reply to post by pandapowerjamie


How would it be possible to live without stimulus? Can you turn it off? The world keeps on spinning without the need for the mind to narrate.
Life is happening and it can be viewed and apprieciated. It is not something the mind has to control or worry about.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


It's just the way things are at the moment due to us being locked in evolution, we need at for the time being. Sorry buddy! :/ The brain needs it, I guess it's what one of the "curses" of being sentient, as a result because we are always looking for stimulus we act like children and try and get what we always want. Take a long look at the world, prime example!

Jamie.

reply to post by etherical waterwave


Silence is golden. This is the natural state of being. All are looking for this peace.
They feel they are not complete, that something is lost or missing. It is this silent resting place that is calling them.

Hello Itisnowagain.

Can humans know silence? Yes we can. Through meditation I can reach the state of no mind and no self... the vast void of no thought and no perception.

To a lesser transcendental level, but a higher awareness level... a silence of self can be achieved through complete observation of existence and mindfulness of 'now.'

When the mind quiets, truth is revealed. For truth is hidden behind ego, illusion of separate self, preconceptions, misconceptions, expectations, and perceptions.

reply to post by pandapowerjamie


The silence will not be found looking at the world. Who minds how noisey it is out there? Who?
It is not that noise that keeps you awake at night or distracted when watching tv, or reading a book or talking to our friends.
The silence is feared by the mind because the mind thinks he is the boss of you. And if you find out the truth the mind will be your servant and he sure as hell does not want that. Your mind is the boss of you. But who are you?
Who's mind is it?

reply to post by Sahabi


A wordless state prior to thought.
Just 'this' appearing and disappearing.
Thoughts are not a disturbance to the silence.
All 'things', including thoughts, movements of energy(emotions), are experienced upon the silence that i am.

No 'thing' can move this.
It is constantly still with movement apparent.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by pandapowerjamie

 

The silence will not be found looking at the world. Who minds how noisey it is out there? Who?
It is not that noise that keeps you awake at night or distracted when watching tv, or reading a book or talking to our friends.
The silence is feared by the mind because the mind thinks he is the boss of you. And if you find out the truth the mind will be your servant and he sure as hell does not want that. Your mind is the boss of you. But who are you?
Who's mind is it?

Thank you, you just read back to me what I I just posted!

Jamie.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Thank you for your enlightening words. You have transcended and become the watcher, the awareness, the consciousness, the I am and this is. I am impressed.

What we think of as sound is just as much silence. Think of a wave in the ocean. A wave is made of both a peak and a trough. One cannot be without the other. Sound is a wave as well. Alternating waves of air. Peaks and troughs. What you hear in a sound is both sound and silence.

Yes you can experience silence. You do it all the time, even if you've trained your self not to hear it.

When the noise stops it is amazing to just walk outside into the garden and be instanty struck by the chirping birds or the leaves rustling. The world is just images, like scenes, or portraits, landscapes everywhere i look, rich in texture. When i talk about food or drink now it is all about the textures.
I live in a world of texture and color, there is a feeling of longing, a longing that feels like i want to plunge deeper, like when looking into a lovers eyes. To be in that much love is amazing.

I'd like to link this silence with christianity. In this silence a deeper knowledge of God is found. Alive it makes you. Isn't it for all that this silence changes yourself as a person. Isn't it it gives a deeper perspective on life?.

Being reborn in silence, once life will never be the same again. Good emenates out of this silence.

Baptised in this silence with a purpose to know.


edit: btw, you should get to know the buttery biscuit bass

reply to post by etherical waterwave


I used to think of it as a rebirth but it was more of a death. The death of the person, the separate identity, the trouble maker.
Christ can be confused with Christianity. Christ is a word with meaning and it is what Jesus spoke of. He was promoting consciousness and this word Christ was the word used back then instead of the word consciousness. Buddha was Buddha consciousness.

When the silence is recognized as your own true being it is all that is required. I have refered to the word God in the past to describe this but i find it upsets a lot of people. When known it is hard not to think this is what they have all been going on about though.

Yes, what if this 'silence' is Christ and we have found salvation through Him. Doesn't it sound a lot like that?..

Reading the bible can reflect a lot of our own experiences and true understanding can be found because of it. I often open the book to the chapter at hand and then I start reading and most of the times I find something appropriate to the situation I am in or I am taken to past events and am given insight in them. To me the bible has been of worthy. I find reading the new testament can be very enlightening.



It's a guide of life and the mystical explained.

It's good we find eachother as we are born in Christ.

Hello

reply to post by etherical waterwave


This 'Christ' thing joins us all together. Consciousness.
To me the word Christ means now and here.
There is no other time than now and every 'thing' appears now, presently.
Presence. However this 'presence' is aware.
The awareness is what I am.
And what you are.

It is not 'i was' or 'i will be'.
These are imaginations of a false self, there is no me in the past or future.
The truth is there is no past or future.
Just this eternal now.
This eternal now is you.

One of the purposes of the Universe is for the metric of omnipresence to be fulfilled as true to the definition of the term. For this to be a fact, the Presence must exist everywhere, even inside of absolute non-existence. The effort to "get there" is demonstrated by the existence of the infinite structure that is the one infinitely kinetic, infinitesimal singularity. (infinite spherical division and subtraction execution). This singularity, once then projected into infinite angular AND infinite velocity kinetics, generates the "stone so heavy, God cannot lift it" but through finite animates and inanimates, now can. Where this singularity IS, as a component of the "flight path", upholds the infinite expanse. Where this singularity IS NOT, as a component of the "flight path", upholds the GENERATED INFINITE NON-EXISTENCE that CAN be entered by finite structures and beings (the contents of the Universe). This generated non-existence is the infinite impedence, whereby when the current "material" of time spherically radiates out from the infinite expanse and floods spherically down and inward, from everywhere, toward everywhere, upon impacting the infinite impedence, the current STOPS and turn into voltage. This impact is the "explosion" that is the constant roar of time exploding into all space. Yet since the time characteristic is removed from the time material, having been converted into pure space, infinite space exists for an ifninitesimal duration and implodes back in on itself. The time current prior to impact is all the future. The constant roar of the sequential string of impacts that becomes infinite space is the present. The time current after the implosion of infinite space back into the default state of absolute kinetic, is all the past.

It is us and all animate finites that provide the vessel through which omniscience can commune through the Door and partake of non-existence, of silence, nothingness. Thus infinite, through the unlimited number of finites spread out over unlimited time, has become greater than infinite by also being finite in a set that exists as the unlimited numeration, variation and iterations of finite.

Ah, silence. The goal to be.

Silence is not the goal.
Silence is the natural state of being.
Noise can only be heard against a silent backdrop.
The silence is always present but it is missed because we are facinated by 'things'.
Noise and objects/visions are 'things' that appear and disappear within the silent space.
That still space is what I am.
I am that i am.

"A clear mind is compared to a still pond, which is able to clearly reflect the moon and trees. But just as waves in the pond will distort the picture of reality, so will the thoughts we hold onto disrupt the true perception of reality" #mushin

Originally posted by Sahabi
Hello Itisnowagain.

Can humans know silence? Yes we can. Through meditation I can reach the state of no mind and no self... the vast void of no thought and no perception.

To a lesser transcendental level, but a higher awareness level... a silence of self can be achieved through complete observation of existence and mindfulness of 'now.'

When the mind quiets, truth is revealed. For truth is hidden behind ego, illusion of separate self, preconceptions, misconceptions, expectations, and perceptions.

edit on 7/16/11 by Sahabi because: (no reason given)

I believe in mindfulness too -
"The mind is deliberately kept at the level of bare attention, a detached observation of what is happening within us and around us in the present moment. In the practice of right mindfulness the mind is trained to remain in the present, open, quiet, and alert, contemplating the present event. All judgments and interpretations have to be suspended, or if they occur, just registered and dropped." - Bhikkhu Bodhi

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
When the noise stops it is amazing to just walk outside into the garden and be instanty struck by the chirping birds or the leaves rustling. The world is just images, like scenes, or portraits, landscapes everywhere i look, rich in texture. When i talk about food or drink now it is all about the textures.
I live in a world of texture and color, there is a feeling of longing, a longing that feels like i want to plunge deeper, like when looking into a lovers eyes. To be in that much love is amazing.

Nicely said.