« The city, the art of living together »

Summary September 12, 2020

For me, urban silence means, amongst other things, personal discipline. Rather like the practice of an art, it takes effort and discipline but it might, at the end, create something beautiful and inspiring. Here we talk about the art of living together in a common space, the city.

- Charles

« Is it unresonable? »

Summary October 15, 2020

It may seem both strange and unreasonable that strong and intelligent men should simply sit still for hours on end. The western mentality feels that such things are not only unnatural but a great waste of valuable time (…) It is hard to see how the world can be improved by keeping still. Yet it should be obvious that action without wisdom (…) can never improve anything. Furthermore, as muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contribution to a world in turmoil.

The way of Zen

- Alan watts 

« How to keep sanity »

Summary October 21, 2020

After the 5 minutes of silence and some comments we went to the topic - the personal effort and discipline it takes, especially in the cities, to keep some sanity in the middle of the huge amount of external input and how to come back to something more personal. One of us said that the word « discipline » evoked a bad memory from childhood, we then talked about another model for discipline, the model of the arts where it’s demanding but… fun! Someone else commented on how comforting it was to be with other people (here on line) who also are silent and we went on reflecting on how, as human beings, we don’t feel comfortable not to fit. We are an imitating specie! And last but not least, someone suggested that when you meet a friend… why not proposing to be silent together for 5 minutes. 

« The robot who wanted to become human »

Summary November 11, 2020

Here is amongst other things, what we talked about in our meeting on the 11th of November:
After the 5 minutes of silence and some comments on what we experienced, we talked about a film: « Bicentenial Man » with Robin Williams… a story with an unexpected twist! In our time we often think that we are becoming more and more like robots, here is the story of a robot who wants to become more and more a human. It seems like a good metaphor for the awareness and effort it takes to live as well as possible with or despite the pressure from our own inner drives and the pressure of our modern challenging environments. In the 5 minutes of silence we create an environment where it’s possible to experience and reflect on the art of living with ourselves and together. 

« What is a mindblowing experience? » 
Summary December 22, 2021

What is a mind blowing experience? Literally an experience where the mind… is blown. Like a candle! Now, what is the mind? Some people say that the mind is our best friend and our worst enemy. Friend when inspired, enemy when insensible and careless. One of the participants compared the mind to a ping-pong match, our thoughts and emotions are continually tossed from one side to the other, it pings and it pongs all day and night long. Until now, when we have met in the 5 minutes of silence, we have been talking about the effort and discipline it takes to keep some sanity in the middle of the huge amount of external input and how to come back to something more personal. This time we talked about experiences that literally give us a break from our own inner drives and the pressure of our modern challenging environments… for free! 

One of the participants felt her mind blown when unexpectedly meeting seven coatís (Brazilian racoons) walking in a duck line in a forest of Brazil. Someone else stayed literally speechless for some thirty minutes after attending a theatre performance. Someone said that he got a glimpse of this by listening to the jazz musician Pat Meheny's account of his mind blowing experiences while improvising. Another participant finds it while getting insights from reading books or from nature. Another by unexpected encounters and releases of energy while interacting with clients in psychotherapy. Joyous meetings in the middle of the turmoil of our turbulent world, unexpected breathers for our busy minds.

« Silent movies, silent questions, silent answers » 
Summary January 20, 2021

What is happening inside of us is similar to what happens in a silent movie -a silent dialogue with many questions about everyday problems as well as existential issues. Strangely enough this dialogue is speaking with a silent voice. And surprisingly enough this voice is similar… to our own voice. Depending on who we are, this inner voice will give us answers and advices from philosophy or religion, art or rock’n’roll, Hollywood love stories or QAnon and other complotists, business moguls or powerful influencers, etc. 

It will leave us happy, delighted, thrilled, paralysed, frozen, terrified, confused or a nice mix of everything. Maybe a few minutes of conscious silence here and there can give us some rest from the unceasing unconscious silent movie going on inside our heads.

« Silence brings about what we have in common »

Summary February 02, 2021

Because of fear or trauma you can be silent. Or you can be silent alone in the woods with only trees to talk with. You can also show your anger or disagreement by being silent. But to agree to be silent, is a different business. Strange as it sounds, it’s a help to deal, even if it feels weird to start with, with the difficult art of communicating and feeling comfortable with each other. It does it partly by calming our parasites, our automatic unconscious responses to outer stimuli. And it seems to bring about what we have in common.

« Discreet thoughts and emotions »
Summary March 03, 2021

Inspired by a moment of silence, simple and discreet thoughts and emotions can get a voice:
A sky full of stars that makes you feel small
A newborn makes that also makes you feel small and suddenly aware of your own time passing
A surprising place with nothing in it, not even nothing, to take shelter in times of turmoil
A while in silence that makes you hear all the noise inside your head
A good wine that makes you aware of not so good wine
Watching a drop of water, a presence to nature, a natural mindfulness 
The difficulty to let go of our busy-ness
A commitment to practice silence

« Playing ragtime is like talking from the heart, it doesn’t lie »
Summary March 24, 2021

What is the relation between silence, music, talking from the heart and lying? 

It seems that we, human beings, at times, are longing for more authentic relations. It seems that, at times, we would like to relate like if we would be playing ragtime or any kind of music… or to use Satchmo’s (Louis Armstrong) words, we long for « talking from the heart ». One thing that comes back in our talks is that being authentic is not that easy and that we need safe environments and different ways of communicating to fulfil this longing. Silence seems to be one of those tools. Maybe because this silence that we agree upon helps loosening up a bit all kinds of inner and outer pressures and maybe because it helps « the one, inside of us, that doesn’t lie » to feel more secure.

Title from the film New Orleans, 1947, with Louis Armstrong and Billie Holliday.

« Radio astronomy and silence »
Summary May 05, 2021

Radio astronomers sit in front of their computers and will tell you how radioastronomy rather than telescopes has allowed them to see things in the universe they could never imagine. They will talk with the greatest enthusiasm and elation about what they see on their screen, coloured things and dots, quite beautiful at times, but for the lay man… beyond understanding.
Practising silence is quite similar to the practice of radio astronomy, a bit bizarre to start with! But little by little we discover more of the reality of who we are like the radio astronomer who discovers the reality of a universe that is quite surprising.