There are all kinds of meditation retreats, but the ones I prefer are the retreats in silence: imagine a little, a whole week without speaking; and of course without a phone or music. Nothing ! Just live and meditate, without words to pronounce or to listen. And you know what ? We realize then very quickly that this silence is not a deprivation, but a revelation.
Exactly like the night and the starry sky. In broad daylight, when the sun is shining and the sky is blue, the thought that it all disappears may seem sad. And yet, when the sun goes down, when the sky darkens, and the moon and the stars appear, we understand that we did not necessarily lose the change. Well, silence is the same, it's not just a lack of noise or speech, it's another universe that is revealed.
There are of course all the internal upheavals that bring us silence, but I will not speak about it here, I just want to tell the beauty of the inhabited silence. For absolute silence does not exist in the natural state, it would be distressing and boring; no, what we discover is what Paul Valéry is talking about in Tel Quel: “Listen to the sound you hear when nothing is heard ... Nothing. This nothing is huge to the ears. This nothing, or rather this almost nothing, is the quiet rumor of nature: the wind in the trees, the songs of birds or cries of animals ...”
This inhabited silence offers us a soothing sound bath, without intense, aggressive or continuous sounds. And there are also noises and whispers of human environments when they are discrete: it is for example the silence of the monasteries and places of meditative retreats: the echo of our steps, the sound of the objects that we use , the hissing of the words spoken in a low voice ... As another writer, Christian Bobin, says it is "the noise that the world makes when I'm not there".
Moreover, if we look good, we quickly discover that all the poets of the world have sung, this silence ... Ah, the voice of silence! We feel it, deep inside us, that it's good, that it's good for us, to listen to silence. Today, scientific research demonstrates the benefits to our brain, our health, from those times of calm offered to our ears and therefore to our whole body.
But even as we rediscover its immense virtues, silence is today in danger, more than ever. Like hordes of aphids attacking roses, technology and commercialism seem to have decided to devour and eradicate the silence of our daily lives.
In autumn, the gardeners of the public parks no longer sweep the dead leaves, they beat them down with blowers; in winter, they are chainsaws for pruning trees and bushes; in the spring, it's lawn mowers. And in the summer, we have the engine crazy, which ravage the calm of the natural places with the help of their quads (in forest), their microlights (in mountain) and their jet skis (at the sea).
And then, at any time and in any place, the dungeons to sound; it is terrible, these gear intended to produce music without fatigue and without talent: formerly, if a neighbor decided to sing loudly or to play the trumpet, we could wait because we knew that it would end by s exhaust and stop of itself; but if he decides today to listen to his music, nothing will exhaust him except his weariness, your intervention, or that of the constabulary.
As a result, the silence has become so rare, that it has also become chic and expensive: among other luxuries, it is he who makes the high-end hotels of the Relais du Silence chain pay, and the class waiting rooms. Business in major airports. It's a sad fate for a free and natural start. But I am confident, and I am sure that the right to silence, so necessary to our health and our creativity, will soon become accessible to all ...
And you, are you going to seek them where your regenerative and saving times of silence?