Understanding what I mean by silence.

So as I am speaking, some of you

have heard this before but please

don’t interrupt and spoil it for other people

because as I’m speaking I’m going to

ask you also not just to listen to what I’m saying

but to listen to the reaction in your mind

what’s happening inside of you

as I’m speaking because

as I’m talking you will begin

to notice

some

pauses between

my words.

In those spaces

what was going on

in your mind?

there it was again, you were silent.

You were aware

without a thought going on in your head.

That’s why it’s a very skillful reflective trick.

Now is the first time many people have realised,

oh, I can be silent.

There it is again.

and

it’s beatiful.

It’s profound.

It’s deep.

And somehow or other

you know there is so much freedom and meaning

to be found in that silence.

So by giving you a taste of that silence

now you understand its value.

Now you have to increase

its length of time.

So you are more and more and more

silent.

It’s lovely isn’t it?

So once you start to value the silence

and take the value off the thinking

you find that there’ll be many many

more moments of silence

throughout your day.

Silence will grow on you, literally.

Until you-know, you only think when you really have to

and when you don’t, you won’t.

The related technique which helps

you remain silent

is actually doing what we call little mantras.

A mantra is a group of words you

say to yourself over and over and over.

It’s what the Buddha said in the Sabbasava Sutta [?]

of like substitution, substituting one thing for another

So the thinking goes on and on and on,

so you want to substitute a thought,

yes this is a thought, a mantra,

which you say to yourself but a very simple thought.

Instead of having the thoughts go all over the place

take one set of words, a mantra,

a thought, and keep repeating it again and again and again

because it blocks out the other thoughts.

Now many of the mantras which I heard

as a young monk, yeah they didn’t really work

and one of the reasons why they didn’t work was

because of the way it was used.

It’s not just repeating the mantra over and over and over again.

It’s important if you’re using mantras to make the mind silent,

to put spaces between the words.

Now there are many many different mantras

and I’ll just mention the one I was talking

about last time I was overseas,

the old Tibetan mantra,

the old “om mani padmi hum” mantra

which I thought was the most famous, I knew that as a kid.

So you can use that if you like.

If you’re a die-hard Theravada you can use sort-of the

“Namo Buddhaya”, that’s the Indonesian greeting.

Na-mo Budd-haya. That means homage to the Buddha.

Or, I don’t know, you can make up your own mantras

if you like, but the important thing, that’s just the Theravadan,

Namo Buddhaya say, if you’re doing

mantra remember to put spaces between the syllables.

Na

Mo

Bu

Daya

If it’s om mani padmi hum – om

mani

padmi

hum

om

because the spaces are more important than the words.

If you’re very restless, and thinking alot,

lots of things worrying about, close up those spaces,

om

mani

padmi

hum

om

mani

padmi

hum

But as you settle down, increase the spaces.

om

mani

padmi

hum

And the more you quieten down,

the more you lengthen the spaces between those words.

om

mani

padmi

hum

Until those spaces get so long

you don’t need to say the words anymore.

It’s a way of learning how to be silent inside.

How to stop this terrible thinking mind.

And if you ever get upset, angry, anxious or whatever

you’ll always find that there are so many thoughts

going on in your head and it’s great to find this

circuit-breaker, this switch, you can just switch to

try and stop all these crazy thoughts, and that’s

one thing you can do. Get your mantra, if you’re getting

really crazy – om mani padmi hum, om mani padmi hum, om mani padmi hum,

om mani padmi hum, om mani padmi hum, om mani padmi hum,

om

mani

padmi

hum.

It’s like going down the gears in a car

whose breaks have failed. It works.

So – that’s how you can learn

how to be quieter by using that little technique.

You can make up your own mantra, most important

part is putting spaces between the words.

And getting to know that silence,

getting to respect it, getting to value it,

and after you value it, it grows.

Now there’s also the problem which I mentioned last night

in brief which is an important part of meditation

it’s an important part of the spiritual path – fear.

You know it’s amazing how many people are afraid of silence.

When we first came over here to this part of the bush

we had this beautiful land opposite where our monastery now stands,

it’s very quiet.

And sometimes we had visitors coming in

and as soon as they came in they raised their voice.

They spoke louder than necessary

and I’ve seen that many times in quiet parts of the world

people actually raise their voice or are almost shouting.

And I was really wondering – what is the psychological

they don’t need to speak so loud.

And after a little consideration you realise that

the silence was so threatening to them, they needed to destroy it

with loud talking, more than is necessary.

Because silence is a bit scary if you’re not used to it.

So to understand how to overcome the

different fears which happen in meditation

I say in every level, every stage of meditation,

I describe there are three levels