Silence Is Already Here

Many people are stuck trying to silence the mind, devoting time to practices intended to quieten the mind, to find that after the practice, the mind makes noise again.

Rather than getting involved with the mind and its fickle movements, notice that silence is already here.  There is a silence inside and outside that can be perceived, which surrounds and forms the basis of mental noise.  This silence is not a personal “me being silent”.  It is impersonal.  It already is.  First notice that this silence is here, and that there is nobody “keeping it” or “holding on to it”.

All thoughts arise from silence, and are surrounded by silence.  Before a thought, during a thought and after a thought, silence is the underlying source.

“So what’s with all the mental noise?  If silence is always here, why is my mind so strong and turbulent?”  Ignore the mind for a moment, and give more attention to the silence that doesn’t require a person to maintain its existence.  The silence does not require a person to hold on to it.  It is always here.

So where do “you” come in?  The idea of “you” or “me” or “I” comes later.  When believed in and identified with, this thought of “I” forms the ego or “conceptual self” which consists of a person in the head that can not help but continuously think, judge, label, commentate and analyse.  This person in the head then struggles to be silent without thought, since its very existence is dependent on thought.

So go back to that original silence, that is present even when the ego is in full-force.  The silence itself is effortless.  The person comes later.  You can let the person (the ego) rise up and speak, and in allowing it, you see that it is not you.  You can witness it, quite effortlessly.