What It's Like to Spend Five Months in Silence

I have been a law professor, magazine editor, and the director of national nonprofit organization. I went to Yale Law School, founded a successful dot-com software company, and have written three books and 200 articles. My childhood nickname was "Chatterduck." But last year, I decided to spend five months on silent meditation retreat, mostly in Nepal.

What, my friends have asked (at least the ones who didn't think I'd lost my mind), is it like to spend five months without talking, writing, or even updating my facebook status? Short answer: not what you'd expect, but more powerful.

First of all, not talking is the easy part. You don't go crazy, and you don't forget how to speak. (The silence was never absolute, either; I had a ten-minute interview with my teacher every day.) There's just not that much to say anyway, when all you're doing is sitting and walking, and noticing the moment-to-moment sensations of whatever is going on. Eventually, the silence becomes second nature -- even for someone like me.

Much harder than not talking, though, is not thinking. In the form of Buddhist meditation I practiced, vipassana, or "insight," meditation, the objective is neither to indulge thought nor to suppress it, but simply to let it be, along with everything else. Thoughts arise, thoughts pass, and the job of the meditator is just to notice them and move on. In this way, it's possible to gradually unlearn the habitual tendency to grab onto pleasant perceptions, thoughts, and feelings and push away bad ones. The Buddha, my teachers, and I have found that some measure of liberation eventually results.

Easier said than done, of course. In practice, it's just about impossible to stop thinking. This, itself, is an important lesson: that the mind is not under our control. Nor does it naturally stay on lofty topics like the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I often daydreamed of utterly meaningless drivel -- I must've rehashed the plots of the Star Wars saga a hundred times over the five months of retreat, for reasons which still escape me. (I think it had something to do with meditation training being a lot like Jedi training, but who knows.) All this without any intention from me.

It's at this point in the story that most of my friends usually roll their eyes and say that the whole thing sounds crazy. However, having emerged from five months of silence, I can safely say that it was among the sanest things I've ever done. Not the easiest, to be sure, but infinitely more balanced, awake, and instructive than the chatter-filled world I live in most of the time.

Eventually, you see, the noise really did subside, and the mind started to relax. This is the trick: that in meditation, every goal is achieved by giving up on it. The more force one applies, the more resistance arises in response. On the other hand, the more letting-go, the more letting-be -- the more peacefulness, clarity, and awareness.

Once again, this is easier said than done, because for several billion years, we've evolved the basic instinct to hold onto the pleasant and push away the unpleasant. If we didn't do this, we wouldn't eat, run away from predators, fight when necessary, or reproduce. Natural selection does not favor Buddhism. So while "letting go" may sound pleasant and relaxing, it runs against aeons of biological conditioning.

But it is possible. For example, many times on retreat I would taste a delicious food, and be able just to notice the many sensations of chewing, tasting, and swallowing; the knowledge that the taste was pleasant; and the desire to have more of the food. Or, I would experience great hunger -- in this particular Buddhist tradition, no food is eaten after noon -- and being able simply to notice, without judging or acting out, the physical sensations of hunger, the emotional effects that came with it, and the multitude of thoughts that arose as well (why am I doing this, I'd really like a granola bar, etc.).

What's the point of noting all these mundane sensations, feelings, and thoughts? Well, enlightenment, of course, which comes as a result of seeing directly and in one's own experience that perceptions arise and pass of their own accord, that none of them ever really satisfies, and that there's no self or soul separate from the sensations, feelings, and thoughts themselves. Consciousness just happens, and the interiority of our experience is an illusion. There's no there, here.

The trouble with "spiritual" truths such as these is that they are often banal when conveyed secondhand. But when seen directly, in one's own experience, even the simplest of bumper-sticker bromides has the power to change one's life. For example, just knowing that you are perfectly okay without that car, house, success, lover -- and with that backache, mortgage, conflict, and envy -- can be moving to the point of tears, even though, intellectually, it's pretty lightweight stuff. I can't really explain why this is so, but I have seen that it is so. What to a busy mind is just another spiritual throwaway may, to a quiet mind, be the gateway to liberation. Thus even extremely mundane perceptions of eating, breathing, and walking around are grist for the mill of awakening.

In other words, when it comes to insight, it's not the "what," it's the "how." There weren't many weird mystical fireworks that shot off during my months of silence -- just a lot of time to see the ordinary very, very clearly. This is true in everyday experience, too. It's not like most of us don't know what's good for us; we do. We're just too busy chasing the next pleasant experience to live up to our own ideals. Sure, what really matters is timeless and free -- but the timeless and free is also boring. So we get back on the hamster wheel and start spinning.

Five months of silence is long enough for the wheel to slow down, and real progress to be made along the path of insight. According to the tradition in which I practiced, the mind really does relearn some of those basic instincts, growing a little wiser and a little less obsessed with itself, and those new lessons don't disappear, even as noise and distraction return. Well, easier said than done.

Comments

[DrJenniferHoward]

Dear Jay,

Thank you for this blog. I love spending time in silence. 5 months…wow! That sounds great to me. I can take a deep breath just thinking about it. For those of us who can’t manage the 5 months, a regular meditation practice helps us experience the inner spaciousness that is always available. We can finally see that we are more then our thoughts and feelings. By noticing the passing of different thoughts and feelings, some more interesting to us then others, we can experience that part of us that exists beyond time and space. I so agree that spiritual truths must be experienced and owned beyond just an idea to have a powerful impact. Many of us have a brief taste of this kind of expansion. We often open to the all awe of life when we see a baby or watch a sunset or drink a great cup of tea.

May we all be open to the Real

Dr. Jennifer Howard
http://www.DrJenniferHoward.com

[superfrog]

Silence is to the mind what sleep is to the body.

[Jay Michaelson - Huffpost Blogger]

(Continuing from my previous comment... please scroll down!)

- Regarding odd experiences, I've had quite a few as well, particularly during the first two months of my retreat, in which I practiced intensive concentration meditation and entered all sorts of altered states. (See "A Jewish Perspective on the Jhanas" available at http://www.jewcy.com/post/jewish_perspective_jhanas -- the first part of the essay describes those experiences in detail). Ultimately, I believe the concentration practice was of enormous benefit in "sharpening the sword" of the mind, and enabling the relatively fast progress I made on the second retreat. The states were also quite sublime. But, exactly as commenters have said, they can be a cul-de-sac. In that way, though, they teach a valuable lesson: that everything, even the most sublime state of love and light, passes.

- And thanks to all the readers who have shared their practices in the comments too. In case I gave the wrong impression, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that my particular Buddhist meditation practice is the only, or best, game in town. It's inspiring to see the many commonalities among these different forms. As for HuffPo featuring this piece, thank my editor! In today's stressful economic & social climate, meditation is no longer a fringe pursuit. It's practical, scientifically sound (see this recent article - http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/how-to-build-a-bigger-brain-91273.aspx?id), and requires no beliefs or dogmas. No wonder it's entered the mainstream.

[iSeeDumbPeople]

Enjoy the silence.. :o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KKmz20jKiU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ewhimit%2Ecom%2Fforum%5Fread%2Ephp%3Ff%3D17%26id%3D141020&feature=player_embedded

[Jay Michaelson - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi everyone - Thanks for all the comments. Let me try to respond to a handful of them.

- A few commenters have said things like "must be nice but I can't afford it!" I didn't mention in the article, but as one commenter also noted, the retreat center where I stayed in Nepal charges absolutely nothing -- not even room and board (see www.panditarama-lumbini.info). There are many similar places in the States. The place where I sat in Massachusetts (www.dharma.org/ims) does charge for expenses, but it has generous financial aid. And this is only within one wing of the Theravadan tradition. There are other Theravadan schools (Goenka being the best known), Tibetan, Zen, and other Buddhist traditions, as well as independent ones like TM, many of which do not charge a penny. In fact, a good way to tell legit from not-so-legit is by how much money they charge. Of course, if you have a family, mortgage, or other personal/financial responsibilities, those are serious considerations. I was indeed very privileged to be able to put my life on hold for such a long period of time (I also rented out my home, so I ended up ahead). But you don't need five months; a seven or ten day retreat can give you a real taste of what I've described, and I recommend it highly.

I'll say more in the next comment since these have a strict word limit. :-)

[BronxBorn]

you are trying to hard
:

[iSeeDumbPeople]

I think any five-month long retreat would be beneficial for people, silence notwithstanding.

[pm247]

The paragraph extolling Darwinism raises a flag. Mystics recommend suspending assumptions about the nature of life, particularly assumptions merely adopted through cultural assimilation. The writer wants to reassure others that his feet are on the ground, that he is still a member of the flock. But this comes at a price: the very freedom of thought he was seeking in Nepal.

[ohbeehave]

It's nice to know there are people like you out there--the instructor in Virginia in the hunter society--the writer, other contributers. I wish we could live together in our own denizen. I feel so alone sometimes--hordes of people everywhere--just wanting to make noise! Riding on the hamster wheel.

Thankfully, I'm taking care of my grandmother with Alzeihmer's and it's so clear to me what is important and what isn't. I also just witnessed the birth of my dog's litter of 3 mini dacshund puppies. Throw out the TV! Take naps! Move somewhere quiet. Enjoy life....

[MassInsanity]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to put all responsibilities aside and check out of life for five months...must be nice.

[solitude1951]

It's true about the odd experiences. They're roadblocks to progress. When the experiences happened I had a craving to re-experience them. The memory of the experiences finally faded and I was able get back on path. I wrote a previous comment and it didn't post. Both will probably post now.

[solitude1951]

So true about the odd experiences. They're nothing but a pain. We have them and for months afterward, we keep craving to experience them or I did anyway. The memory of the experience finally faded and the craving stopped. A big bump in the road.

[edconley]

While I've been on a "spiritual path" since 1970 when I started yoga with the initiation of a master, it really hasn't been since 2005 when meditation came to me in earnest that I began to measure some sort of progress in the "non-experience" of stillness. I now teach meditation (if anyone ever shows up) in a small Virginia town where the population is just realizing that yoga is not something you eat, and I've found that what we think is a hostile environment to spiritual practice can be a really fertile soil. Being alone with your practice, getting up at 4 am, being mindful 24 hours, makes the practice strong. Practice is easy when you are with a like company, but plant yourself in a hunter society and you'll become very wary of making any noise. Silence becomes your friend. But I do find solace making noise on my blog. http://www.we-are-awakening.com/

[wm1066]

Thanks for the insiteful article.
Don't give up on the" not thinking" during meditation, it gets easier the more you do it and don't beat yourself up if thoughts emerge. Think of it more as "extending your thought silence". You'll get to the point where you look forward to the space your thought silence provides. And the thoughts that do well up might be answers to problems you didn't know you had.

[forpeace]

It's ideal!

[Alethiadoc]

I remember when I was a kid hearing the saying "Silence is golden" and having no clue what it could possibly mean. Now that I am older I do appreciate silence. However, five months of silence could be quite challenging. I guess you don't know until you try.
Meanwhile, I have been practicing Transcendental Meditation for 19 years and the TM Sidhis program for seven years. I am amazed at how I am able to sit and meditate for long periods of time....and it's easy. There is no strain involved. I never thought I would have been able to do that. For those who would like to try meditation, but aren't drawn to the the type of discipline described in the article (such as no food after noon!), I highly recommned TM. The basic TM practice is 20 mintues twice per day, so you can work it into your daily schedule.

[tinrobot]

This is a really good description of what one experiences during deep meditation. The planet would be a lot nicer place if more people took time to be quiet every day.