March 27, 2015
The Art of Sitting in Silence
“Silence is a source of great strength” – Lao Tzu
One of the most important lessons I can teach a student is the art of sitting in silence. Silence is different in the woods. In the city, we are surrounded by sterile noise. In the wilderness, there are no social media sites, television shows, music stations, or iphones. Instead, there is a warm aliveness and calm: the calling of the birds, the sounds of the wind in the poplars and the occasional tree frog’s croak.
No student arrives at our program because they know how to deal with the tumble of the noise in their head. Most likely, they have been trying to avoid these thoughts by any number of unhealthy ways: drugs, self-harm, sex, video games or even a busy social life. This is why the first phase that every student enters at Second Nature is created to provide an environment of silence as a form of detoxing from the noise that they are coming from. The student sits just apart from the group and is given a pen, paper and a couple of assignments to guide them. That’s it. A student is given silence.
Sitting without distractions is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to listen to the turning of your heart especially when that turning carries shame. It is uncomfortable to realize that if you made different choices you wouldn’t be in the wilderness right now. It is uncomfortable when the strangers you are with will not say things to ease your discomfort. It is most uncomfortable of all when your swirling thoughts are accusing you, so that even your mind cannot sooth you.
The starkest picture to me concerning the power of silence occurred when I was sitting with a student on his first night. The silence pervaded the space between us and he began to cry. After a few minutes, he turned to me, wiping his eyes to no avail, and said, “you know, the least you could do is comfort me.” I smiled; I had a hunch that he had wanted me to pat his back, and throw in a “there, there” for good measure. Instead, I simply said “I’m not going to rescue you from this.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, thinking about my words. His sobs dissolved into a deeper meditative breathing, and his eyes stopped flowing with tears. He began to share the silence with me.
Several weeks later as he was preparing to leave the program, this same student pulled me aside. He asked, “Do you remember that time when you said that you wouldn’t rescue me?” I nodded, surprised that he remembered. “Thank you for that,” he said. In the time that he was with us he had begun to face his monsters and it had started with the discomfort of sitting in silence.
