Today’s meditation is a solitary one. I listen to the bird songs and try to identify each. Robin. Oriole. Titmouse. Raven. I hear a splash in the distance and search for the ripples. Fish, turtle, snake? I see a shadow on the grass and look up, to see, perhaps an eagle, or a cloud.

Watching. Listening. Feeling. Sensory stimulus, and physical reaction, while I sit here in my pajamas…

Yesterday’s meditation was much more noble.

A group of friends joined me for a morning of Noble Silence. We sat, and walked, together, silently. Not moving. Not reacting. Not interacting.

When someone sneezed, no one blessed them. When the neighbor’s leaf blowers powered up, no one complained. When the woodpecker laughed loudly, no one giggled (I kinda giggled a little on the inside).

When everyone tried to the leave the house through screen door, I realized that I had forgotten to tell them that the door was broken.

I knew that it would it come off the track. It was possible that the giant screen might fall onto the deck. My immediate thought was to tell them not to use the door.

But my speaking would disrupt their noble practice. And this door dilemma WAS my practice in the moment.

So, someone knocked the door off of its track. And then someone righted it. This happened a few times over the course of the practice. I silently observed it happening. I paused. I allowed it to be happening. I stayed in my practice.

Practicing noble silence teaches us about our ability to find the action in inaction. It helps us to embrace the pause between any type of (external or internal) sensory stimulus, and our physical reaction.

We sit and calmly observe what is happening outside of us and inside of us. We allow the stillness and the silence to show us things as they really are, without the need to immediately express our preconceived ideas and feelings about them. Without the need to react immediately. Without the need to interfere with what is.

We practice the realization that we are not in control, and we are not attached to a particular outcome.

Sit. Pause. Allow things to happen.

Things go off track. Things get righted.

Just observe. Nobly.

Yesterday we sat in Noble Silence together. Today I am just a little more peaceful with what is. That’s the prize.