Ajahn Sumedho - The Sound of Silence

art Eleftheria Emmanouil

 Somebody referred to the sound of silence as a cosmic hum, a scintillating almost electric background sound. Even though it’s going on all the time we don’t generally notice it but when your mind is open and relaxed you begin to hear it. I found this a very useful reference because in order to hear it, to notice it, you have to be in a relaxed state of awareness. When I describe this people try to find it. They go on a ten-day retreat trying to find the sound of silence and then they say, ‘I can’t hear it, what’s wrong with me?’ They are trying to find this thing. But it’s not a thing you have to find—rather you just open to it: it’s the ability to listen with your mind in a receptive state, which makes it possible to hear the sound of silence. You’re not trying to solve any problems but just listening. You’re putting your mind into a state of receptive awareness. Awareness that is willing to receive whatever is and one of the things you begin to recognize in that is the sound of silence
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—Ajahn Sumedho, The Anthology, The Sound of Silence, Volume 4