returning to silence

Returning to silence is a relaxation

Elsewhere I've observed that the way to return to one's essence is to relax. But today it has rather happened the other way around. I have just arrived in a tiny village, a hamlet high in the hills, near the boundary between the Ardèche and Lozère, in France. And in this hamlet, time seems to stand still. Everything is old. The houses are old. The inhabitants are old. And even the surrounding countryside seems to have a timeless natural feel to it.

And arriving in this place, there is a deep silence. Of course, the birds are singing. Every now and again some other distant noise reaches my ears. But there's a silence that is far deeper than superficial noise, a silence that comes with this timelessness. And arriving here, what I noticed is that my inner silence came back, not through any doing on my part, but merely as a resonance with this profound outer silence. And as my being began to reverberate with this silence, I felt myself noticeably relaxing.

And so this link between relaxation and silence is not a one way causation. They can arise together like this, and it is beautiful. It is beautiful that it is so, and it is a beautiful state to enter into, this inner silence, where even the word inner loses its meaning: there is just silence, the inner and outer silence is one. And as ever with such silence, there also comes the tremendous spaciousness and the stillness, the stillness of being when the doing has ceased.

So I give thanks for this tiny hamlet, its timelessness, and its silence.