Days of Silence

Buddhist philosophy does not separate our being from the Being of the environment, planet, or even the universe. When we look deeply, we recognize that we began as a single cell: everything that added to the spark that is “you” came from the air, the water, the sunlight and the earth. When we listen clearly, we can hear the music of the elements as they become us. It can be a beautiful practice, listening while we eat, listening while we breathe, or listening while we listen.

Not everything we take in is healthful, of course. Thích Nhất Hạnh speaks eloquently of [The Four Nutriments](/teachings/1 beginnings/related/four-nutriments.en.md) of edibale food, sense impressions, intentions, and consciousness. We can eat foods that are healthy for our bodies and sustain our planet. We can also eat sugars and other substances that pollute our bodies and minds. Those are often harvested at great distance, in huge plantings that harm the earth, and make the human communities where they are grown poor. We can listen to words or sounds that calm our hearts and help us make healthful decisions, or choose words or music that leave us agitated or angry. Anger never leads to lasting solutions.

We can also be taken by our habit energies or by old patterns of thought that make us weaker and hurt our relationships with others or with the Earth.

Taking care today

A meditation master once spoke of the challenges that face this generation. They are human challenges, and lend themselves to human solutions that were seeded at the time of the Buddha, and revised and revisioned over many circles around the sun. There are aspects that are also unique to our time. Our minds must adapt to an overwhelming river of information from the internet and from a human community that is more global every day.

When we give careful attention to the Four Nutriments, we can see them as gates. We open our mouths to good fruits and vegetables, and try to close them to substances that take us away from the present moment and skillful action. We can leave digital screens turned off, or we can “downgrade” our telephones so that the internet is not always tempting our fingers and wasting our time. We can familiarize ourselves with our habits, and decide which actions we wish to limit or eliminate: one of the miracles of mindfulness is the ability to change a habit by simply being aware it exists. We can observe our minds, and learn that the stories we tell ourselves mostly serve our urges and avoidances. You can smile at a thought and say “Are you sure…?” and it quickly unravels itself.

This is not work. This watching and listening can be playful. The first time that an unskillful balloon of thought goes pop!, you will laugh at how unlikely it was to have ever been true.

Creating Stillness

The modern world has trouble sleeping. We turned on all these elecric lights, and now we don’t know how to turn them off!