Unless one has inquired into meditation with the help of those who have made it into an art and a way of living it is very common to see silence as the doorway to some ultimate state. This is the essence of seeking and seeking implies one has a goal, a direction. Adyashanti says in another, closely related passage: 'Sitting in silence is not a goal. The goal of sitting is not to attain silence. There is just sitting in silence and recognizing yourself to be the silence...But if I seek silence as an object, as a state I am trying to sustain, it means I am still seeing silence as an object, as something different from me.' J. Krishnamurti made a very similar answer to someone somewhat stuck with seeking something beyond silence. His answer was: ' Can silence listen to silence in silence? '.
Both these statements make it very clear that meditation has neither goal nor direction. When this is clear, when one is not attempting to get somewhere one can, tentatively, 'feel the quality of silence'.
On Aug 17, 2013 Tim wrote :
Unless one has inquired into meditation with the help of those who have made it into an art and a way of living it is very common to see silence as the doorway to some ultimate state. This is the essence of seeking and seeking implies one has a goal, a direction. Adyashanti says in another, closely related passage: 'Sitting in silence is not a goal. The goal of sitting is not to attain silence. There is just sitting in silence and recognizing yourself to be the silence...But if I seek silence as an object, as a state I am trying to sustain, it means I am still seeing silence as an object, as something different from me.' J. Krishnamurti made a very similar answer to someone somewhat stuck with seeking something beyond silence. His answer was: ' Can silence listen to silence in silence? '.
Both these statements make it very clear that meditation has neither goal nor direction. When this is clear, when one is not attempting to get somewhere one can, tentatively, 'feel the quality of silence'.