The Cultivation of Quietness - A Substack Reading скачать в хорошем качестве

The Cultivation of Quietness - A Substack Reading

Spoken word version of my Substack piece, Jan 31st https://kavijezziehockaday.substack.com THE CULTIVATION OF QUIETNESS. “To sit with yourself without resistance, without escape, is the beginning of revolution.” - Krishnamurti We live in a time when noise is constant — not just the noise of traffic, notifications, and headlines, but the inner noise of thought, emotion, and reactivity. Even when the world around us is still, the mind can be a restless swirl of stories, judgments, worries, and plans. What would it mean to meet life from a quieter place? Not simply to have moments of stillness when everything else stops, but to carry an inner quiet into the middle of movement, responsibility, and uncertainty? I’ve grown fond of the word quietness. It feels less loaded than “silence” or “stillness,” both of which tend to carry spiritual baggage. Quietness is more ordinary, more human. It doesn’t demand perfection. It isn’t the exclusive domain of monasteries or retreats. You don’t have to have an empty mind to know quietness. Quietness, in the way I’m using it, is not the absence of life’s activity. It is the presence of a certain inner spaciousness — a way of meeting thought, emotion, and circumstance without being consumed by them. Quietness Is Not a Future State. Most of us live under a kind of unspoken contract: I can be quiet when… When the house is clean. When the inbox is empty. When the world is peaceful. When my anxiety settles down. That contract is a trap. If you wait for everything to line up before you allow yourself to be quiet, you’ll wait a long time — maybe a lifetime. Life will always present something to fix, defend, or achieve. Quietness has to be found here, now, in the middle of whatever is happening. It’s not a reward for resolving everything; it’s the ground you stand on while you live in the unresolved. Not a Hiding Place, But a Refuge. Think of quietness as an inner temple — not a place to hide from life, but a refuge within it. This temple is not built in a single act. It’s built brick by brick, in moments when you remember to step back from the noise and simply be with what is. A brick might be laid when you notice the pause between breaths. Another when you resist the urge to rush into an argument. Another when you allow a difficult feeling to be there without needing it gone. Over time, this temple becomes a place you can return to again and again, even in the middle of movement or emotion. Quietness With Pain. Early on, I thought the only way to find quiet was to escape what hurt — to fix, suppress, or outrun it. Years later, I began to see that quietness doesn’t require the absence of pain. You can be quiet with the pain. You can let it be present without fighting it or making an identity from it. Sometimes the pain lessens. Sometimes it doesn’t. But the relationship to it changes. This is not passivity. It’s not resignation. It’s the recognition that resisting reality keeps the noise alive. Meeting reality — even when it’s uncomfortable — is what allows quietness to emerge. The Mind Will Test You. In the beginning, when you start to cultivate this temple of quiet, the mind won’t necessarily cooperate. It will try to get your attention. It will throw up old habits, fears, and compulsions. That’s fine. Over time — a minute, a day, a year, or more — the mind gets the message. It learns that quietness is “the game in town.” And while it might never disappear entirely, it loses its hold. Quietness Is Always Available. One of the liberating things about quietness is that it’s not dependent on external conditions. You can find it: in the act of washing dishes, in a moment of breath between tasks, while talking to someone in difficulty, even in the middle of noise and motion. It’s not something you manufacture. It’s something you notice when you stop interfering, when you stop insisting that the moment be other than it is. Why This Matters. Quietness isn’t just about feeling good. It changes your relationship with life. It makes you less reactive, more able to listen, more able to respond from clarity instead of habit. It also has a deeply human dimension. Beyond all talk of enlightenment, there is a simple, universal yearning: the desire to be non-agitated, to meet life without being hijacked by every thought or feeling that passes through. In our modern age — with all its advantages — we’ve also become more agitated than ever. The cultivation of quietness is, in its own way, a form of healing. As Krishnamurti put it, “To sit with yourself without resistance, without escape, is the beginning of revolution.” Sessions - https://www.amodamaa.com/one-to-one-work Teaching website - https://www.amodamaa.com/about-us Twitter:   / kavijipoet   Read my Poetry - https://kavijezziehockaday.substack.com #spiritualawakening #embodiment #nonduality #poetry