As a student, like many of us, I liked reading Henry David Thoreau. Many of his one-liners moved me and were copied into my common book, but there was one sentence that I barely registered: “Every man has the task of making his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his highest beings.” . and critical hour.” When I was in my early 20s, my life revolved around action, movement and exploration: contemplation was for grown-ups in their rocking chairs.
However, after a few years, real life began to catch up with me: I had completed my first four years in an office; I had fallen in love with the woman I was going to marry; I was lucky to see much of the world, from Cuba to Tibet. More dramatically, my house had burned to the ground in a wildfire and I had lost not only all my possessions, but also the handwritten notes that were the basis of my next three books. My future, in short, as much as my past.
After weeks of sleeping on the floor of a friend's house, I went up (at another friend's suggestion) to a benedictine hermitagefour hours north along the California coast, just south of the village of Lucia. I would try to forget that 15 years of Anglican education as a child in England had left me very interested in traditions on the other side of the world. What I found at the top of the mountain, the moment I got out of my car, was a radiant view over the blue Pacific, freedom from all distractions (no television, no cell phones, no internet), and a day that seemed last months. I could read, walk, scribble letters or, best of all, do nothing at all. The roar of the road carried far below, and for most of the day, even among the singing of birds and the ringing of bells, the main sound was that of living silence.
In short, he had stumbled upon the realm of contemplation. I have never meditated and, as a local writer, I was often on the move, traveling the world every week. But now I was invited to simply sit and watch, not as I did when I wrote, but with no end in sight. And not to think, for my thoughts quieted as soon as I left the clamor behind; just to attend. Observe the world, perhaps, as if it were central writing.
The results were quite surprising. I was no longer angry with that friend I had been furious with when I arrived; He was probably also trying to find some peace in a life overloaded with stress. Memories surged forward, sometimes poignant, sometimes erotic and penetrating, and they held and possessed me like they never had when I was driving down the highway, worrying about my next date. Death itself didn't seem so terrifying in a landscape of rocks, redwoods, and uninterrupted oceans… and in a silence that seemed no less immutable. It was an instant joy, in short, the kind that lasts even when things get difficult.
They asked me to offer just $30 a night, which covered hot lunches, hot showers, books, fruit, salads and bread, and the most moving views along the famously beautiful coastline I had ever discovered.
Perhaps not surprisingly, he was soon booking a hillside caravan for two weeks, and then three. The monks were a great company and vigorously non-dogmatic; They were sure that each of us would find what we needed here, whatever name we decided to call it. You could drive to a pay phone at the roadside motel if an emergency arose, but emergencies are never as common as we imagine. Of course, it wasn't easy leaving my mother or my future wife behind, but it was worth it to be able to bring back someone fresh, attentive, and overflowing with joy, and not the distracted, overworked soul they would otherwise have. saw, grumbling, “Not now!”
At the same time, I could never ignore that phrase from Thoreau, whom I now read much more carefully in silence: How to make my life worthy of what I saw and who I was (and was not) in this space of contemplation. ? I was not a monk and I never will be. My mother asked for company after the sudden death of her husband; my loved ones in Japan needed emotional and financial support; I had to pay the bills.
Maybe I could try to rebuild my life a little in light of what I had silently seen? I surprised both my girlfriend and I by moving to Japan and a small two-bedroom apartment, filled with her, her 12-year-old son, and her 10-year-old daughter; I realized, as Thoreau reminded me, that “a man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to leave alone.” In this small space, I would have the luxury of living without a car or a large house, free from constant distractions. I began to choose some of the wise writers of the Western tradition (Meister Eckhart, Etty Hillesum) who were no longer convinced that Sufis or Buddhists possessed a monopoly on wisdom. And I resolved to try to do a three-day retreat each season, simply to clear my head, ground myself in what mattered, and remember what I loved.
Plus, of course, getting a perspective on the world and my life in it, none of which I could see amidst all the tumult. Some friends go running or swimming every day for the same reason; some cook, sew or play golf. Almost any practice that allows you to open up space in your day and in your head seems invaluable, especially when the world speeds up, but it was a particular luxury to spend three days and three nights with nothing to do. Even on vacation, I tend to remain captive to my plans.
As the years passed (there have been almost 34 and over 100 retreats now), the nature of my silent days began to mature. Silence not only brought those I cared about closer to me (and clearer) than they could be if they were in the same room; He also turned strangers on the way to the monastery into trusted friends. We were all here for a common purpose, and usually it wasn't a text or a teacher or even a doctrine; It was simply a human longing (or insinuation). I grew closer and closer to the monks, a friendly and tremendously talented group of scholars, musicians, artists and chemists; I realized that I had a connection with everyone I met in silence, even if I knew next to nothing about their jobs or backgrounds, that I rarely had with people I met on a busy sidewalk.
I came to understand what Thoreau knew, as do all contemplatives: the point of being alone is to be able to give more to others and be a more useful member of society. “Naturally, I am not a hermit,” he had written in “Walden”; “I think I love society as much as most.” I didn't tell anyone to go to my private retreat, but I sometimes reminded my friends that three days without distractions could clarify their lives. Those who had spent time in silence were not surprised when I explained that it was being alone in silence that prompted me, finally, at the not-so-tender age of 42, to get married.
I never regret my life in the world, chronicling its movements and the explosion of possibilities our grandparents could not have imagined. But I hope I never stop returning to my friends at the Hermitage; On occasion I have even stayed with the monks in their Compound, seeing there that their lives are all hard work and constant activity to ensure that their guests can enjoy absolute peace. I can't imagine a more significant investment.
One day I was cleaning my small trailer, polishing every surface and wiping the sink shiny, as I rarely do at home, when I noticed something that stuck with me (no detail seems trivial in silence). I had to squeeze just one drop of dishwashing liquid into my glass of water and everything turned blue. It doesn't take much to transform a life.
Pico Iyer is the author of “The art of stillness” and the next “On fire: learning from silence.”
