Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;and#8220;Appreciating Silence,and#8221; is a little gem of an excerpt from the talk: and#8220;No Dependence on Words and Lettersand#8221; by Sangharakshita, 1965. One of our earliest recordings in the FBA archive!
and#8220;Some things we know from experience, some things we apprehend only at second-hand. In confusing these two, we miss the essence of Zen.and#8221;
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. So one of the things we have to do is to learn to value, learn to appreciate silence, and to seek things directly, experience them directly without putting thoughts and words in between. And this of course is very difficult, very difficult indeed for most of us. Well I could talk, talk, talk most of the time. We can't bear the idea of remaining silent. This reminds me of a story which I heard some years ago from an Indian Buddhist monk, whose fortune or misfortune it was to come to the west to preach Buddhism here. He visited this country, but he spent quite a lot of time in Germany. And he told me about an experience which he had in Germany. He said one day, a lady came to see him in a German wolf, and inquired about Buddhism. So when she came, he was engaged in writing a letter to a friend in India. So he just put her in the waiting room, said, "Excuse me just a few minutes. I'll finish my letter, then I shall see you." So then he went to his own room, which was just next to the waiting room, and casually his letter. So he told me, he said, "Believe it or not, after two or three minutes," he said. The door flew open, and this woman appeared, absolutely distraught. She said, "I'm sorry, I can't stand it any longer. I was sitting in that room, sitting with no one to talk to." So this day quite a shock to the monk, and he realized what a terrible state. Some people at least are in the west, and they don't have someone to talk to. Now talking to can be of many kinds, not just talking to someone, but picking up a book, switching on the radio. For no other reason, really, than that one doesn't want to be silent. One doesn't want the mind to be an occupied. One can't, they have one can't bear to experience silence. One has to fill the mind with something, either somewhere else is chatter, or the latest thing on the radio, or a book. It's really amazing sometimes you find people, people, apparently intelligent people, who rather than allow their mind to remain unoccupied, just pick up a newspaper, or go through the advertisements again and again and again and again. That's why if you go in the tube, if you go in the tube, and you sit there, you'll see the tube's advertisements, or in advertisements. And it tells you, I don't remember the exact wording, it's much too clever for me to be able to reproduce it. It tells you that, rather it tells a prospective advertiser, that the people sitting there, let's you and me and everybody else say, can't bear to have their minds unoccupied. So in the tube, there's nothing to occupy their mind, so they look at the advertisement, they're sure to read them. There's very sound psychology, one is sure to read them. Because one just wants something to read, some thought, however idiotic, to occupy the mind, to prevent the mind from facing its own reality, that's all it amounts to. To prevent it from being sad, one might say the whole of modern civilization, so-called, is one vast conspiracy against silence. Against our experiencing of the truth of humanity of our own minds. We hope you enjoyed today's Darmabite. Please help us keep this screen. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]
