Silence of Mind by David O'Dowd

[Guest guest]

Silence of Mind

By David O'Dowd

 

All but the brightest of stars are invisible from the environs of a major human

settlement such as Greater Los Angeles. Outdoors, streetlights illuminate a low,

hazy layer of cooler atmosphere, making it bright enough so that only the Moon

and Venus, Sirius and Capella, and a handful of other bright natural lights

shinethrough among the numerous airplanes and helicopters. Most of what one sees

is entirely of human design. Millions of people have become comfortable with

these manufactured circumstances, sheltered from the awesomeness and ancient

wonder of a vast black and starry sky with its distant suns and dim galaxies.

Even though our home planet is blessed with a fairly clear atmosphere through

which it is possible to view the cosmos, our sights are all too frequently

focused in upon things of our own making, matters of our immediate understanding

and concern.

 

Only by escaping the metropolis can we once again directly behold our place in a

much larger and more ancient whole: the edge of our wheeling galaxy becomes

visible from the desert, the mountains, or the open spaces. The multitude of

suns, the clouds of star-forming dust and gas, the planets -- our own star's

family -- are all there before us. Attention is drawn away from the mundane; the

heart is refreshed with awe and wonder upon confrontation with the infinite

vastness of our natural home.

 

To a large extent, all but the most routine of thoughts, the commonest or the

most provocative of emotions and desires, have become obscured by the constant

mental and emotional activities required in twentieth-century metropolitan life.

Occulted is much of the range and subtle depth of the human mind. We have become

comfortable with the familiar mental and emotional routines which shelter us

from the awesome and seemingly infinite depths of consciousness. Comfortable

with what we can understand and deal with daily, we avoid going to the " desert "

or the " mountains " of the mind where we have the blessed chance to confront

ancient depths of reality within the self.

 

Like witnessing and pondering the immensity of space and time, periods of

profound personal silence seem to satisfy a certain spiritual need. To sit in

meditation is not even as difficult as driving away from the city for a glimpse

into the night sky, though preparations must be made and a road followed. Such

meditation is a time to halt the obscuring effects of constant doing, acting,

thinking, responding. It is a time to release the tightly-focused awareness of

daily concerns and partake of a peacefulness, wherein the whole natural " galaxy "

of the higher self can be reflected.

 

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali outline one " road " of meditation suited to people

whose intellectual activity is predominant over the devotional or physical.

Patanjali lists eight steps which can lead to the " mountains " of the mind. While

the Sutras do provide a solid insight into the process, meditation is typically

transmitted as an oral tradition. The following Sanskrit words appear together

in verse 29 of Book 2, and are rendered here in free translation as it is

impossible to convey in English the seed-like conciseness of the original:

 

Yama, niyama: Leading an honest life in moderation and harmony with natural law;

Asana: Steady, comfortable posture with relaxation of effort;

Pranayama: The breath, and the flow of energy, naturally subsiding;

Pratyahara: Allowing the senses to let go of their objects;

Dharana: Gently confining mental activity;

Dhyana: Still mind;

Samadhi: Mind transcended.

 

The steps beginning with asana are generally practiced once or twice a day, for

about half an hour. With repetition, one learns to spend more time in dhyana,

where the higher self has a chance to reflect. This set of steps resembles the

traditional steps of the Noble Eightfold Path in Buddhism. According to John

Blofeld (The Zen Teachings of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind, rendered

into English by John Blofeld, Grove Press, New York, 1959, pp. 7-13), dhyana

practice was brought from northern India to a divided China in the 6th century

AD, where it is pronounced " chan. " It has since flourished in Japan as " zen, "

and as such has become familiar in North America. In fact, similar -- perhaps

identical -- steps involving dhyana have been carried around the world through

the ages, to those seeking to experience the all-pervading silence beyond the

veils of sensory perception.

 

Today profound issues face all of us, ranging from the personal to the global,

and it is certainly helpful to be able to retreat now and then to a

deeply-quenching silence of mind, out of reach of all the bustle of city living

with its attendant noise and pollution. We return refreshed and well prepared to

take on our important daily issues.

 

From Sunrise magazine, April/May 1992

Theosophical University Press