The Guillotine of Silence

The impressions of the mind persist for a long time. The mind is so active, full of false imaginings with which we identify. We can become lost even on our way to the kitchen to get a drink. What do we do? How do we meet our active lives, full of duties and responsibilities and challenges, without losing the clarity and peace of our meditation?

We can inquire. We can turn our attention toward the mind and question it. We can face our projections directly, with silent awareness. We can find out what thoughts are, what reactivity is. We can find out what feelings are. We can find out what experience actually is. We can see directly for ourselves what these are and where they come from and where they go to when they are no longer in our awareness. Inquiry prevents the mind from becoming lost in its own projections. Inquiry reveals the mind’s anxiety and attachments and denials. In the mirror of persistent questioning, the mind will see its own limitation.

I do not mean that we should think about thoughts or feelings or experience. This gets us nowhere. We inquire into the nature of the mind with awareness. With awareness as our light, we will see the mindÕs chronic restlessness; we will see its cravings and fear.

Inquiry, like meditation, lures the mind on to the guillotine of silence. The mind is chopped off and falls into the basket of silence, along with the tensions and anxieties of our false imaginings.