What part of the day do you spend not talking?
I've been watching our human practice of “chit chat” these last frenzied weeks of Advent and Christmas. At the few silent retreats I've been to over the years, it was a study I experienced and left in the dining halls of Omega and Upaya. We wore name tags that said "In silence" on them so our fellow retreat-goers would kindly support our practice to be quiet. At Omega my friend and I whispered to each other in laughter on the way back to our dorm. It wasn't easy. But it did reveal something: there is noise in my life.
My same friend encouraged me to look at chit chat: what is the gain, how can small talk get smaller or bigger, or be walked away from?
I sat at a wedding recently before the ceremony began: I watched ebullient meetings of old friends happen across pews: conversational joy and laughter. I watched one friend sitting in silence reading hymns. He wasn't up for chit chat. I started to do the same. "Choose se your words wisely" I can hear my mother's voice in my head.
Today and tomorrow are part of a new practice called a "Sanctuary Sabbatical"; at Plum Village we called them "Lazy Days": Days for dreaming, for creating and for being quiet. I've turned off Netflix and written letters of appreciation to those I love. I made a list of things I am looking forward to in the coming year. I've started a Four-Quarter Plan for 2019.
I've also made a not-doing list: a wonderful practice I learned from my friends at Dorrier Underwood: if something has appeared on a to do list more than three times, move it to a not doing list. The action of declaring is empowering: to declare to not to; to declare to set aside time to not do other things and to do one thing.
I've declared these days before the New Year to be a Sanctuary Sabbatical. I am reading, working on an important work transaction and taking care of myself. I am making time for those I love and things I love. I am watching winter through the window. The light in December is always extraordinary. This place of quiet and reflection is a sanctuary: it can be an hour or a day; it is as you declare it to be. I'll see you in the dining hall with our little signs that say "In Silence". There is, as Wordsworth wrote, a bliss in solitude.
I've been watching our human practice of “chit chat” these last frenzied weeks of Advent and Christmas. At the few silent retreats I've been to over the years, it was a study I experienced and left in the dining halls of Omega and Upaya. We wore name tags that said "In silence" on them so our fellow retreat-goers would kindly support our practice to be quiet. At Omega my friend and I whispered to each other in laughter on the way back to our dorm. It wasn't easy. But it did reveal something: there is noise in my life.
My same friend encouraged me to look at chit chat: what is the gain, how can small talk get smaller or bigger, or be walked away from?
I sat at a wedding recently before the ceremony began: I watched ebullient meetings of old friends happen across pews: conversational joy and laughter. I watched one friend sitting in silence reading hymns. He wasn't up for chit chat. I started to do the same. "Choose se your words wisely" I can hear my mother's voice in my head.
Today and tomorrow are part of a new practice called a "Sanctuary Sabbatical"; at Plum Village we called them "Lazy Days": Days for dreaming, for creating and for being quiet. I've turned off Netflix and written letters of appreciation to those I love. I made a list of things I am looking forward to in the coming year. I've started a Four-Quarter Plan for 2019.
I've also made a not-doing list: a wonderful practice I learned from my friends at Dorrier Underwood: if something has appeared on a to do list more than three times, move it to a not doing list. The action of declaring is empowering: to declare to not to; to declare to set aside time to not do other things and to do one thing.
I've declared these days before the New Year to be a Sanctuary Sabbatical. I am reading, working on an important work transaction and taking care of myself. I am making time for those I love and things I love. I am watching winter through the window. The light in December is always extraordinary. This place of quiet and reflection is a sanctuary: it can be an hour or a day; it is as you declare it to be. I'll see you in the dining hall with our little signs that say "In Silence". There is, as Wordsworth wrote, a bliss in solitude.
❤️
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