Noble Silence
Photo by Dwinanda Nurhanif Mujito
As the Ocean Mind Sangha summer sesshin comes to a close, in the midst of the vibrant quiet, Zuisei offers an apt and gentle reminder. To let go into the vast and luminous noble silence, we must return again and again to our practice—zazen. Although it is difficult to do more than point the way, the traditional teachings on zazen are a clear and bright beacon.
In this talk Zuisei shares the Buddhist teachings on the jhanas (deep states of concentration), Tilopa’s Six Points for Sustaining Meditation, and the Kolita Sutra, and the poetry of Giannina Braschi.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Good morning. We’re finishing our summer sesshin, wrapping up a weekend of intensive practice.
On Friday I was going for a walk along the bay when I saw a strange sight. A raccoon was sitting completely motionless on the wall of the Coastal Beltway, as the stretch of road that separates the city from the bay is called. He just sat, staring off into the distance in the direction of a group of high rise buildings that stand clustered on a point of the bay, as if pondering whether it’s a good idea to have so many buildings so close to the water. I wonder the same thing.
Raccoons here are like dogs. They live on the man-made retention wall of the bay, and they come out in the evening to be fed, by hand, by the many tourists and locals that don’t have the same relationship with raccoons that Americans have. These raccoons eat cat food, and sausages, bits of burger and French fries, going up to people without any fear and begging for food. That’s strange enough, but this racoon was stranger. I stopped and looked at him for a while but he still didn’t move. He sat like a mini furry gargoyle on the wall, staring at the skyline—or thinking private raccoon thoughts, who knows.
And watching him, I thought of Daido Roshi’s teaching on the still point. He insisted that all creatures on the face of the earth know how to be still. And that we have lost that ability, to our detriment. He said: “A still mind is unobstructed—always open and receptive. It doesn’t hold on or attach to anything. At any moment in time, it is free.”
Many years before, the Buddha, anticipating these teachings, said:
“I do not perceive even one thing, O friends, that leads to great harm as an undeveloped mind. I do not perceive even one thing as harmful as an untamed mind, an unguarded, unprotected, unrestrained mind. I do not perceive even a single thing that leads to such great suffering and great harm as an undeveloped and uncultivated mind.”
And then he offered the antidote: “I do not perceive even one thing, O friends, that leads to such great benefit as a developed mind, a tamed, guarded, protected, restrained mind. I do not perceive even one thing that entails such happiness.”
I think this last point bears repeating: I do not perceive even one thing that leads to such happiness as a trained mind, a protected mind. In other words, a trained mind leads to great happiness—cause and effect. So, what does it take to tame and protect the mind? What does it mean to truly guard it from harm?
There’s a sutra called the Kolita Sutra in which Maudgalayana (one of the main disciples to the Buddha) says:
“Friends, once as I was meditating, this train of thought arose in my mind, ‘The Buddha says noble silence this, noble silence that,’ but what is noble silence? Then the thought occurred to me, ‘There is the case where a student, stilling directed thought and evaluation, enters and remains in the second jhāna: rapture and pleasure born of concentration, unification of awareness free from thought, internal assurance. This is called noble silence.”
I haven’t spoken about the jhanas in quite some time, so let me do a brief recap:
Jhana means concentration, but it’s not just regular concentration. It’s concentration that unifies, concentration in which subject and object merge. If you’re following the breath, Sonkai disappears and there’s only breath. If you’re sitting shikantaza, Amanda disappears and there’s only awareness. If you’re sitting with a koan—let’s say the cypress tree in the garden—Curt disappears and becomes the cypress tree, becomes Mu, becomes the sound of one hand. But then, the question begging to be asked: what does it mean to become something you’re not? How do you even do that?
I’m Zuisei, right? I’m not a cypress tree, or a suspension bridge, or the ocean, so how can I become these things? Could it be that my idea of what I am is not complete? Could it be that I’m maybe more than meets the eye? And how does it help me, to realize I’m a cypress tree or a suspension bridge or the ocean? How does it help the world?
Let’s take one small example, one famous passage in one famous text:
Let us make man in our image, [said God] after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Man, sea; man, cattle; man, bird and according to this, they’re all here to serve me. We’re paying right now for our misinterpretation of who man is, and that unfortunate, unfortunate word, dominion. What that text should say is let them be stewards of the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, let them be caretakers, safekeepers. Because man is not separate from all these creatures and what he does to them he does to himself.
This is how the Buddha describes the first jhana: “Secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a student enters and dwells in the first jhana, which is accompanied by initial and sustained application of mind and filled with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.”
First, you must seclude yourself. You must retreat from your everyday life, as we’re doing now. You have to turn off your phone, turn off the television, turn inward, and direct your mind. Direct it where? To itself. We simply watch what’s going on in the mind, in the body. We don't fight it, we don’t resist it, we just watch and take care, lovingly, of what we see. Zazen, to me, is the best form of self care. It doesn’t deny, it doesn’t judge; it says Yes, and then, what do I do with this?
In the sutras there are five factors of absorption that accompany the jhanas: initial application of mind (putting your mind where you want it—let’s say, the breath), sustained application (keeping it there), rapture: which is defined as delight and joy in the object of concentration, happiness: the pleasant feeling that comes from becoming absorbed in our practice, and one-pointedness of mind (you disappear and there’s only breath).
Rapture and happiness are distinct—rapture is like seeing an oasis in the desert, and the anticipation that comes from that—you feel relief, you feel an end to your struggle. Happiness is arriving at the oasis, there’s a sense of satisfaction, of satiety. You’re calm and at ease. And this jhana, the Buddha said, is like someone taking a bath and making a ball with powdered soap. They wet and knead the ball of soap, letting water suffuse it. Your concentration fills body and mind, and there’s rapture and happiness, but there’s still effort—you’re kneading that ball with water.
In the second jhana, you “gain inner confidence and mental unification, free from initial and sustained application but filled with rapture and happiness born of concentration.” Here, there’s less effort, it’s like a river flowing naturally, or like a lake with no out-flow. Water wells up from below and slowly fills the lake with cool water. Here, there’s not much you need to do except let the settled mind do its thing, as it will. If we let it, it will—it will settle.
In the third jhana, rapture fades, and the student “dwells in equanimity, mindful and clearly comprehending, dwelling happily in the body,” like blue and red and white lotus flowers. Some thrive immersed in the water, some halfway up, some on the surface, but in every instance, cool water pervades their roots all the way to their tips. The lotus flowers just sit quietly, and cool water, by itself, pervades their flower bodies completely. No effort, no striving, no concentration, no meditation. With each jhana, you’re doing less and less, there’s less of you to do anything.
And the last one: here you “abandon pleasure and pain, joy and grief, and enter and dwell in a state which has neither-pleasure-nor-pain but has purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.” This is like sitting with a white cloth covering you from head to toe. Having let go of pleasure and pain, joy and grief, and everything, you let your whole body be stable, equanimous, bright. And now, you’re ready to see things as they are—which is the whole point of this whole practice. Not to be calm and rapturous—though that’s nice—but to see clearly, accurately.
So, noble silence. Remember that Maugdalayana said that noble silence is like the second jhana, “inner confidence and mental unification.” Water is filling the lake, naturally. You let the mind settle, because that’s what it will do if you stop messing with it. But wait, this is not what my meditation is like. If that’s what you’re thinking, fear not. It takes time for a lotus to bloom. Trust that your mind is capable of settling. Don’t try to silence it—that doesn’t work. Silence is its nature, and it’ll return to its nature if you give it space and time.
So, you train your mind by applying concentration, and you sustain it for a while, and things begin to happen. Tilopa, a 10th century Indian master taught the six points for sustaining meditation, also called the six points of resting. They are: do not recall, do not think, do not anticipate, do not meditate, do not analyze, do rest naturally in the bright luminous mind.
Do not recall means to not get lost in our thoughts of the past. The sutras say the past is a corpse, it’s no longer alive, and at least for the duration of our zazen, our job is to let it lie. Rest in Peace, my dear past, I don’t have to dig you up.
Do not think means to not reflect on the present as it’s happening. We don’t have to constantly talk to ourselves, keeping a running commentary of our actions, like sitting on the bleachers of a baseball game and listening to the game on the radio—why? just watch the game.
Do not anticipate means to not project into the future. The future hasn’t been born yet. Why bring it prematurely into the world? This instruction isn’t telling us not to plan. It’s saying, during the duration of your zazen, stay where you are.
Do not meditate means to simply rest in awareness, rest on the breath, rest with the koan, without fabricating anything, without adding anything extra. Despite all this hard work, we’re not doing anything special here. We’re letting the mind do what it does when we give it space and time, trusting that this moment, just as it is, is complete—we don’t have to add anything to it. Your body is complete, your mind, your awareness or scatteredness. Perfect and complete—there’s nothing you need to do, nothing you need to fix.
Do not analyze: do not judge your state of mind or the quality of your zazen. Don’t get frustrated when your mind won’t settle. Don’t get excited or restless or fearful when you start to get quiet. Don’t criticize, don’t measure, don’t compare this zazen period to that. Every moment, new. Every breath, life. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is—so is our zazen. It just is, and we do it, just because, and if we can really do it just because, there’s nothing else we need. We didn’t need anything to begin with, but now we know it.
Rest naturally with and in mind just as it is, bright, luminous—even when it seems dark. The mind is naturally bright, but it’s very difficult to see this while we’re talking to ourselves. While we’re worrying or planning or judging or remembering. So in zazen we train in the practice of being truly silent. Of listening and seeing and feeling ourselves from the inside. So we can be archives of sanity. So we can hold our center, our ground, when the ground is shifting underneath us, quickly. So we don’t get overwhelmed when things in the world get hard. So we can be a refuge to others.
This is “Behind the Word is Silence” by Giannina Braschi.
Behind the word is silence. Behind what sounds is the door. There is a back and a fold hiding in everything. And what was approaching fell and stopped far away in proximity. An expression falls asleep and rises. And what was over there returns. It’s a way to put the world back in its place.
And something comes back when it should remain remembering.
But if I ring the bell, water jumps and a river falls out of the water again. And the body rises and shakes. And the rock wakes and says I sing. And a hand turns into a kerchief. And twilight and wind are companions. And this twilight appears amid lightning. Outside there is a bird and a branch and a tree and that lightning. Above all, there is noon without form. And suddenly
everything acquires movement. Two travelers meet and their shoes dance. And breeze and morning clash. And the seagull runs and the rabbit flies. And runs and runs, and the current ran. Behind what runs is life. Behind that silence is the door.
The door to what?
Explore further
01 : Kolita Sutta translated by Thanisaro Bikkhu
02 : Samadhanga Sutta: The Factors of Concentration translated by Thanisaro Bikkhu
03 : Right Concentration with Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
04 : Online Zazen at OMS: Half-Day Sits with Zuisei Goddard