By Leo Babauta

“The quieter you turn out to be, the extra you’ll be able to hear.”

― Rumi

There’s not often a second within the day when most of us cease transferring and cease the noise. For many of us, we’re working, we’re transferring, we’re driving, we’re listening to issues on our headphones, we’re watching issues, we’re filling up the little areas by checking our telephones.

This isn’t improper — it’s a really human tendency to wish to be busy, productive, filling each house with one thing helpful or entertaining.

However what if we may let ourselves turn out to be quiet?

What occurs is one thing magical: we begin to uncover a brand new method of being alive, and a deeper expertise begins to disclose itself to us.

What does it imply to turn out to be quiet? There isn’t a easy reply to this, however listed below are a few of what I’ve been studying:

• It means slowing down for a minimum of a couple of minutes, bodily — chorus from transferring round doing plenty of issues, chorus from doing a bunch of duties in your laptop or cellphone, however as an alternative simply sit or come to some sort of stillness or slowness.
• It doesn’t imply it’s essential to meditate — although after all that’s one method to do it. As an alternative, you possibly can go for a quiet stroll in nature, or sit watching the sundown, or lie in a hammock and simply really feel the breeze.
• Transfer away from expertise, a minimum of for a couple of minutes. Disconnect. Let go of studying and listening as effectively. Simply sit nonetheless or transfer slowly, not making an attempt to get something executed or eat something.
• It means you let go of being productive or being entertained. You don’t want to realize something, show something, be excited. You let go of those sorts of compulsions, even for a couple of minutes.
• It means you don’t have to really feel a sure method, or keep away from feeling a sure method. For instance, lots of people wish to really feel productive, competent, entertained, so we do no matter we will to get these sorts of emotions. Additionally, we don’t wish to really feel bored, lonely, unhappy, helpless … so we do all the things we will as a way to keep away from these emotions. Changing into quiet means we will enable ourselves to really feel nevertheless we really feel, simply permitting it to be our expertise. This provides us a freedom for all times to be simply as it’s, and for ourselves to be simply how we’re, nevertheless we’re feeling.

Stillness and quiet aren’t the sexiest issues, the place you can also make some huge cash or get a bunch of followers or viewers. We don’t often notice we’re craving quiet. However in my expertise, that is the place the deepest expertise of life lies, within the quietude.

What would possibly you hear within the stillness and quiet? What life has to say.

“In stillness, the world is restored.” — Lao Tzu