Mindfulness and Silence

If there is one thing people know about the Society of Friends, it is that in many meetings people sit in silence that is occasionally interspersed with people speaking.

After a long absence, I’ve been attending a Friends’ Meeting since July 2015. Someone told that Friends are encouraged to speak only when what they would say will improve on the silence. I contemplated this recently during a Meeting.

Whether I am sitting in Buddhist meditation, a meditation of Reiki practitioners, or Friends worship, I find the energy of the group very rich and conducive to my own meditation. It would take a lot to improve on it.

As I considered that, someone got up and delivered what I judged—and I use the word deliberately—a low-quality, long, and very boring message. Frankly, I was annoyed, and I decided to look at my annoyance. What I discovered surprised me.

I realized that I am constantly giving myself long and low-quality messages thick with repetitive anxiety, that I can remind myself that I have to do something countless times, and that my ego gives me other messages that do not improve on silence.

This gave me a powerful incentive to be mindful of what I’m thinking. That doesn’t mean that I will suppress. That’s what I have been doing. Instead, I intend to simply be aware of it, to allow it but not to feed it.

That resolution gives me contentment. I thank the boring Friend. Once I mindfully contemplated my reaction to his message, it turned out to have far greater value than I had imagined.