Uncomfortable Silence

 Silence

The weather in the past week has been really crazy. There was a cyclone on the Indian ocean, south of Java, bringing in strong winds and torrential rains in the past 5 days or so. And just as the cyclone was ending, another one was forming southwest of Sumatra. So it was continuing again. Thankfully the rain has stopped since Friday. So did the strong scary winds! They were really strong and loud.

The past few days have been a pretty restless ones thanks to the crazy weather. I was thinking of the greenhouses (which some were damaged by the wind -.-), and also I was worried of landslides because non-stop rains would usually cause landslide in parts of my hometown. The winds were really strong so it was pretty noise outside with the sounds of the gushing winds.

Yesterday it didn't rain at all. Neither did the strong winds blow. Yet the silence felt both comforting and scary to me somehow. It's weird isn't it. After days of strong winds and loud noises, the idea of having a quiet day seems very un-comforting for me. When it should be the opposite.

It reminds me of our minds, in a way too. 

Just like our minds, we are too used to being bombarded with thoughts and emotions. And when everything settled, we are uncomfortable with the silence that we hunger forever. 

And the only way we can be comfortable with it is to me, through the process of meditation. I think this is from Sogyal Rinpoche's book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - he once mentioned that the reason to why we are very restless when we begin to meditate, is because we are uncomfortable with the idea of spending time alone with ourselves. Like... Who are we? 

We are uncomfortable with the idea of spending time alone with our "mind". Because we don't recognise it fully yet. Our ego, the constant flow of thoughts and emotions, and so on, they kinda block our mind. And we don't know what's inside it. So as we sit down, keep quiet and be still, we feel very uncomfortable to be with this "stranger" we've actually been living with forever!

So yeah. On one hand, we are seeking for this quiet. This silence that would bring us peace and calm. Yet at the same time, we are uncomfortable with it. I'm not sure why either. But after three years of meditation, I am learning how to bring my mind to this quiet place together.