Recovering Silence and Getting Unbusy
October 18, 2010 One of the best benefits of retreat is that one rediscovers two things we have lost and, in general, aren’t missing nearly enough: silence and idleness.
We don’t appreciate what we have until we don’t have it anymore. In the modern world, we have certainly lost peace and quiet. We are bombarded with noise and data, coming from outside of us (the TV, radio, phone, computer, PDA, iPod, etc.) and inside of us (the incessant chatter of the busy, multi-tasking mind).
We no longer know how to really rest or be alone and quiet. We have convinced ourselves that busyness (regardless of what one is busy doing) is intrinsically meaningful and a sign of importance; that the incessant flow of information (no matter how trivial or redundant) is valuable in and of itself; that staying perpetually plugged in, preoccupied, and communicative is not only good and interesting but necessary; and that the stress, which inevitably accompanies such a lifestyle, is a kind of badge of honor or an occupational hazard in the business/busyness of modern life.
We have learned to abhor silence and be terrified of inactivity, both of which we equate with boredom. As James Thurber once said, “Nowadays most people are living lives of noisy desperation.” It is, according to one Indian text, the constant, unrelenting need to be doing something that constitutes the very definition of this suffering life: “Samsara is nothing other than having something that needs to be done.” (Ashtavakra Gita 18.57).
In retreat, we learn the value of an idleness that isn’t indolence but is the peace that comes from a lack of compulsion, anxiety, and stress. We become unoccupied with the ordinary hustle and bustle and choose to engage in our practice of meditation, study and quiet reflection. We regain control over our activity instead of being controlled by it.
We discover what we’ve lost when we unplug, disengage and retreat into the unbusyness of solitary silence. And what we’ve lost, contrary to a culture that has deified perpetual activity and besieged us with sensory stimulus, is too valuable not to try to recover it.
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