I am definitely not the strong and silent type. Not because I’m a weakling, but because I rarely shut up. It’s been a lifelong problem that’s only been brought under relative control now that I work from home, where my propensity to comment about everything and to laugh out loud at random things brands me more of an eccentric idiot than the annoying student who used to terrorize well-meaning teachers. In fifth grade, my teacher had a list of rules posted on the blackboard, and rule number one was “Please speak only when your hand has been raised and acknowledged.” Every time you broke the rule, you had to write it out 25 times on lined paper. I nearly developed carpal-tunnel syndrome from all the extraneous writing I had to do that year, all thanks to my ever-flapping gums.
One of my lifelong friends used to marvel at my inability to shut up. He’s never had a problem with remaining silent, which is probably why we’ve always gotten along so well. Right now, “as we speak,” he’s midway through a 10-day retreat at the Insight Meditation Society center in Barre, Massachusetts, where he’s taken a vow of silence and is meditating on Buddhist teachings. As the course summary describes it, “A typical daily retreat schedule starts at 5 am and ends at 10 pm. The day is spent in silent practice comprising alternate periods of sitting and walking meditation, as well as a one-hour work-as-practice period.”
Participants cannot speak to their roommate (who won’t be of the opposite sex), and they’re not allowed to watch television, go on the Internet, use their cell phones, have sex, use writing instruments or—and this would be the aspect that would break me—read any printed materials. For 10 days. All these common distractions are removed so that participants can engage silently with the tenets of Buddhism.
“This course will explore the Buddha’s teachings on liberation of mind and heart,” the IMS website says. “Through learning to connect with our mind/body process with interest and acceptance, we develop greater understanding and compassion, thereby extending our ability to meet life’s changes with graceful ease and serenity. With guidance from the teachers, participants will be encouraged to develop trust in their own practice.”
When my friend told us of his plans, another buddy quipped, “They don’t ask you to all wear sweat pants and black Nikes, do they?” in reference to the Heaven’s Gate cult members who wore matching outfits and committed suicide in 1997 in order to ascend to an alien spacecraft that was supposedly traveling in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet.
It’s understandable when people are skeptical about group activities that seem so far outside the norm of everyday experience. My friend, the Buddhist, knew our other friend was kidding about the Heaven’s Gate reference. He also knows it’s uncommon to spend your summer vacation paying to live at a retreat center while taking a vow of silence.
As a husband with a three-year-old daughter, I would find it difficult to justify spending approximately $1,000 to be away from my family on a silent retreat. But that’s not to say I don’t see the potential rewards of such a disciplined program. We can all do with less noise and distractions in our lives, and a course such as this might remind us that hammering away on a laptop all day (or occasionally talking to yourself) is probably not augmenting your long-term spiritual or emotional health.
What’s the longest period of time you’ve been silent? And what were the reasons? Were you sad? Angry? Trying to survive hell week at your fraternity? I’ve been trying to think of the longest period of time that I went silent of my own volition. Honestly, no memorable instances come to mind, which is to say that the longest stretches that I’ve spent in silence were probably when I was asleep. And those don’t really count.
And yet if you committed yourself to a vow of silence in everyday life, well, you wouldn’t have an everyday life. What possible job would allow you to disregard a boss’s queries or to not answer your work phone? Come to think of it, my friend’s decision to attend a retreat center during his vacation might be the true embodiment of a vacation—which should be a reprieve from anxieties and a chance to gain a different perspective on things. People who cram their vacations with a plethora of activities are missing the point in a very big way. Unfortunately I’m one of those people. I find it very difficult to just sit still and do “nothing.” My friend has always been pretty good at it. And while that might make him appear lazy to some, it also makes me think that he’s tapped into something that all of us could benefit from knowing.
If I could stay silent long enough, I might be able to tell you what that is.
I joked with my friend before he left, saying, “You’re going be doing a lot of talking when you get back, explaining to people about these 10 days of silence.” With each passing day, I’m more interested to hear what he has to say.
There are retreats like this that are free.
http://www.pakasa.dhamma.org/
Hah. You were right about that. I haven’t shut up since I got back telling people about it. My favorite way, so far, to answer that big expectant question: “Soooo, tell me, how was it??”
“Fine.”
I cant believe nobody passed a little gas during meditaion