STILLNESS vs. SILENCE

Many people spend their lives searching for silence, believing it is the doorway to peace. Yet silence and stillness are not the same thing.

Silence is the absence of sound.  Stillness is the absence of inner disturbance.

A person can sit alone in a quiet room and still be filled with mental noise, worry, judgment, and endless thought. Conversely, one can stand in the midst of traffic, conversation, children laughing, dogs barking, and life unfolding all around them—and remain profoundly still.  I know as a daily meditator for 40 years I have gone through this transformation from silence into stillness.

Stillness is not found by controlling the environment. It is discovered beneath the environment. When we stop chasing silence and begin turning inward, we notice something remarkable. Beneath every thought, beneath every emotion, beneath every story we tell ourselves, there is a quiet presence that has been there all along.  That presence is awareness itself.

Stillness is the doorway through which awareness becomes aware of itself.  The noise of the world may continue. The movement of life may continue. Yet underneath it all is a depth that remains untouched.  The invitation is not to escape the noise. The invitation is to discover the stillness that exists beneath it.  And once discovered, you will find that it was never absent—only unnoticed.

"Silence is a condition of the world. Stillness is a condition of being."