I am so excited to announce my upcoming Silent Retreat, February 23 – March 1, 2025, high in the mountains outside of beautiful Asheville, North Carolina.
Over the next several weeks I’ll speak to a number of questions I’ve heard from people who are intrigued by the idea of a silent retreat, but who are unsure why one would commit to a whole week of (mostly) silence. I’ll talk about whether you need meditation experience, what happens in prolonged silence, and I’ll share my own experience in silence and why I can’t wait to do it again.
The focus of today’s message is: WHY sit in silence for a week?
There is a silence at the center of everything. That silence is your very being. It’s what never changes. It’s what-you-are; the still, unending peace that everyone is looking for.
Being in silence for a prolonged period of time is not the only way – but it is an extremely powerful way – to rediscover and devote to Truth.
Silence reveals what never changes. What never changes is always here, but there is so much distraction from it in everyday life. Things like interacting with others, talking, making eye contact, following social norms, playing the character of “me” and all that that entails, are automatized, but that doesn’t mean they don’t take a lot of energy.
Removing yourself from those things for a week reveals just how much energy they take.
We move a lot – physically and mentally – as a subtle distraction from the still, peaceful silence that never changes. A week of silence offers an opportunity to watch experience come and go without distraction. When you’re not puttering around, making plans, physically and mentally moving away from what’s arising, you get to simply bear witness to what is. You see firsthand how everything comes and goes except what never comes and goes.
It’s impossible to describe how powerful this is. It clarifies what’s real and true versus what isn’t. Silence reorients you toward what never changes. Longer periods of silence makes it crystal clear.
At first, the calling of that still, deep silence is faint. The constant movement of consciousness (what we call thought) is louder and more demanding than the subtle, silent pulse of life energy.
In prolonged silence, the scales begin to tip. What begins faint and in the background becomes increasingly obvious. It moves to the foreground and eventually becomes the most obvious thing around. It becomes hard to imagine that you ever identified with thought or took it so seriously.
Watching the sense of ‘me’ form and dissolve again and again is like watching a production happen from backstage. You’re watching the set being built and the script being written in real time. It looks different afterward. Watching emotion roll in and out again and again is like watching a storm roll in and pass. The difference between what’s always changing and what’s never changing becomes palpable and clear.
You come to deeply know that you aren’t what you’ve taken yourself to be.
You come to deeply know that you can experience any thought or feeling that rolls through because you’ve watched it happening without moving away from it. You are what remains, fundamentally untouched by any experience.
These are just some of the ‘why’s’ behind going on a silent retreat. If these are aligned with your intentions, check out all the details of my upcoming retreat here: https://dramyjohnson.com/silentretreat/
This retreat will be small, with space for around 25 people. Please reach out if you have any questions.
