{"id":181,"date":"2010-12-01T07:27:11","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T07:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html"},"modified":"2010-12-01T07:27:11","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T07:27:11","slug":"energetic-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom Wednesday :: Energetic Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/BS07001.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"BS07001.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/96\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/BS07001-thumb-350x530-16605.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"530\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div>Silence is a rare commodity in our lives. Our culture does not value silence, does not provide us with rituals to cultivate it, and we often finds ourselves in an &#8220;uncomfortable&#8221; silence. Why would that be? Silence in those moments is seen as a problem, a deficit to be avoided. It seems alien &#8212; what am I supposed to do with this? And the assumed pressure that something must be done with it because sitting in silence is not OK.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mindfulness meditation practice helps us to bring silence into our lives, to value it and to nourish it. When we sit in silence, our surroundings may be from the &#8220;noise&#8221; of conversations, reading, television, status updates, and so forth. However, our internal landscape may be anything but silent. That&#8217;s fine, of course, and what we work with in practice. Each time we retrieve attention back from the noise of the future\/past we experience a moment of silence &#8212; however fleeting.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Silence is a powerful mode of our being and one that waits for us to arrive, and, like the breath, is always available when we give ourselves permission to notice it. We can seek to become intimate with silence and to notice that it is not blank, but energetic. Energetic silence is what the Buddha would have considered the most accurate representation of our true nature. That is, who we are when all the stories stop. It&#8217;s <i>nibbana<\/i>&nbsp;(Pali) or <i>nirvana<\/i>&nbsp;(Sanskrit) &#8212; what we experience when the &nbsp;clinging and grasping stops.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>To help with the cultivation of silence, familiarize yourself with these meditation practices. I have posted CD 4 of the Exquisite Mind guided meditation series in the &#8220;Learn&#8221; section of my website <a href=\"http:\/\/exquisitemind.com\">exquisitemind.com<\/a>. These practices are called &#8220;advanced&#8221; not because they are better than the basic practices, just more challenging and probably not the first practice you&#8217;ll want to try. The &#8220;Mind Scan&#8221; looks at all objects of attention including sound, thoughts, and feelings, noticing them as they arise and change. The second practice is simply called &#8220;Emptiness&#8221; and provides approximately forty minutes of mostly silence to structure your experience of silence. <a href=\"http:\/\/exquisitemind.com\/Learn_CD_4.html\">Listen and download these mp3s by clicking here<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Silence is a rare commodity in our lives. Our culture does not value silence, does not provide us with rituals to cultivate it, and we often finds ourselves in an &#8220;uncomfortable&#8221; silence. Why would that be? Silence in those moments is seen as a problem, a deficit to be avoided. It seems alien &#8212; what&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddha-101","category-mindfulnesss"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wisdom Wednesday :: Energetic Silence - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wisdom Wednesday :: Energetic Silence - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Silence is a rare commodity in our lives. Our culture does not value silence, does not provide us with rituals to cultivate it, and we often finds ourselves in an &#8220;uncomfortable&#8221; silence. Why would that be? Silence in those moments is seen as a problem, a deficit to be avoided. It seems alien &#8212; what&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-01T07:27:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/BS07001-thumb-350x530-16605.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Arnie Kozak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wisdom Wednesday :: Energetic Silence - Mindfulness Matters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wisdom Wednesday :: Energetic Silence - Mindfulness Matters","og_description":"Silence is a rare commodity in our lives. Our culture does not value silence, does not provide us with rituals to cultivate it, and we often finds ourselves in an &#8220;uncomfortable&#8221; silence. Why would that be? Silence in those moments is seen as a problem, a deficit to be avoided. It seems alien &#8212; what&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html","og_site_name":"Mindfulness Matters","article_published_time":"2010-12-01T07:27:11+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/BS07001-thumb-350x530-16605.jpg"}],"author":"Dr. Arnie Kozak","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html","name":"Wisdom Wednesday :: Energetic Silence - Mindfulness Matters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/BS07001-thumb-350x530-16605.jpg","datePublished":"2010-12-01T07:27:11+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-01T07:27:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#\/schema\/person\/5f92cf2ae15fbe04e74ca47527ac68d8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/BS07001-thumb-350x530-16605.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/BS07001-thumb-350x530-16605.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/energetic-silence.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Wisdom Wednesday :: Energetic Silence"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/","name":"Mindfulness Matters","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Arnie Kozak","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#\/schema\/person\/5f92cf2ae15fbe04e74ca47527ac68d8","name":"Dr. Arnie Kozak","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ab\/6abd6f3205265768510a13d66ac2aff7x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ab\/6abd6f3205265768510a13d66ac2aff7x96.jpg","caption":"Dr. Arnie Kozak"},"description":"Recognized as an innovator in the field of mindfulness-based psychology, Dr. Arnie Kozak is northern New England's leading expert in the field. Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}