Welcome to Life,
Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.
Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Today we are talking about that.
Silence.
That was completely off the cuff.
Wasn't that amazing,
Ben?
I knew you were going to do it at some point.
I knew last Tuesday when we wrote down possible things.
I was like,
If we do an episode on silence,
I would say 15 minutes of it might be him just cutting out and going,
And there it is.
Well,
You know me better than I know myself.
I had no idea I was going to do that.
You never do.
I think I was saying the last two words as it was coming into my train of thought going,
Hey Glenn,
Don't say anything.
That's because you live in the present moment.
Yeah,
And now we'll go with that.
Whatever.
So,
Silence.
So,
Silence.
What is silence?
What is silence?
Silence is no thing.
It's not a thing.
It's a space in between words.
Eckhart Tolle talked about it one time,
Which I really liked.
He was talking about using it as a way to go into the present moment,
Which he talked about everything as a way to get into the present moment because that's where peace is.
So,
He was talking about a sound,
If you listen to,
Especially like a bell,
A bell is a good example.
If you listen to a bell,
And if you listen closely,
That bell starts from nothing,
And then it gets louder and louder and louder until it hits its peak,
And then it fades back into the nothingness.
So back into the silence.
If you follow that,
You really pay close attention to it.
It will take you right back into the present moment or the silence or the now or where peace is,
All that good stuff.
So that's kind of what we're talking about.
Even a lot of times when he does his talks,
He says,
Pay attention to the space in between my words.
So just that little space in between,
That's where peace lives.
That's where everything comes from.
There's silence,
And then the noise comes from that silence,
And then it returns to that silence.
So what do you think about that?
It's really interesting because it makes me think of meditation a lot.
That's my favorite part.
I just recently finished doing the Take 10 for the Headspace app.
My favorite part is when it just cuts out completely and you're just silent.
It really does help you connect and you're focusing on your breath.
They tell you at the beginning of it,
It's a guided meditation app if you don't know what it is,
And at the beginning it tells you to be aware of all the sounds around you.
Once you start listening to your breath and counting it,
You really forget about the sounds.
It's truly silent and you're just in your head and you're really present.
And then at the end,
They tell you to become aware of the sounds around you again.
It was probably like day nine that I heard the sounds around you again and I went,
Oh wow,
I forgot that there was an air conditioner on next to me.
That's where we put our attention.
Generally we put our attention on the things that are making noise.
If somebody's talking,
It captures our attention.
If something breaks the silence,
It captures our attention.
But this is about learning to pay attention to the silence because it's a very natural thing to do to fade into a peaceful feeling or a peaceful space if you're in the present moment.
That's what meditation tries to do and it is a form of meditation,
Just focusing on the silence.
I liken it to space because I feel that silence is kind of a hard concept to grasp.
So if we look at it from a couple of different angles,
It kind of helps.
I feel that space is the same thing as silence.
It's not a thing.
So if we look out into the night sky,
And I say this to people often,
It's cool to go outside and look at the stars because those are things and they capture our attention.
They give us something to look at.
But look in between the stars.
Look into the blackness where there's nothing.
And I often do it and I'll just look and as soon as I focus my attention on the space in between the stars,
All of a sudden I can feel this peace come over me.
People have described it in a lot of ways like,
It's so grandiose and it makes me feel small.
Some people,
It makes them feel a part of.
There are a lot of different words you can use,
But if you focus on not a thing,
You can feel a connection to it.
You can feel a connection to all that is.
And it's a very peaceful connection.
It's a calming,
Peaceful feeling.
So when you're looking at space,
And I've done it in my living room,
I just focus on a space in the middle of the room.
Sometimes having an outline helps,
Kind of like a frame helps.
So I've looked at my coffee table because it's got the top,
The bottom,
And then two legs on one side.
So I'll use that as my frame and I'll just focus on a space in between all that.
And just focus on that space and it brings me right into the present moment.
Doing it driving.
Just look out ahead because that's where I'm looking anyway when I'm driving.
And if I'm just looking out a little bit focused on a space out in front of me,
I can feel that calmness come over me.
Be careful doing that while you're driving.
I've done that and I've done it when nobody's around.
You're completely aware.
So for me,
It's not a problem.
It's not like I'm zoned out and I'm somewhere else.
I'm completely aware of what's going on around me.
I'm just very peaceful and calm in the moment.
I have heard of some people trying to meditate or relax too much while they're driving and they fall asleep or something.
All of a sudden,
They close their eyes and not even realize they're closing their eyes.
I've never had that problem.
But just to be safe,
Maybe you shouldn't do it while you're driving.
But picking a space out in front of you and just focusing on that space and then paying attention to how you feel inside.
Have you ever had those moments where you're driving and you're looking at the whole picture while you're driving?
You're not focused on the lines or whatever and your mind is going.
So you're thinking about something and you're just blankly looking at everything.
And then you realize that you drove for 20 minutes and you don't remember driving.
You lost in thought.
But you were completely concentrating.
Well,
You were aware that you were driving and you were probably doing things safely and stuff.
But yeah,
Your mind,
You're just kind of lost in your mind.
Because you have this soft focus in front of you.
You can see everything.
You know everything that's going on but you're kind of focusing on the silence.
And that's something that's very interesting that I've seen in multiple different ways too.
It's understanding what giving our attention to something is.
I think our attention is like,
It can be like a flashlight or a laser beam.
And we can give parts of our attention to different things.
I noticed that when I was in personal training.
Once people had been working with me for a little while and they kind of understood the way I talked,
Sometimes I would tell them,
Okay,
Pay attention to like 80% of your attention to the muscle that you're working.
And then just 20% of your attention to the form that you're doing.
And you can actually divide up your attention like that.
Once you find out that you can even do it,
Then you can start controlling it.
And the more focus,
If you put all of your attention on the silence,
That's when you feel the presence.
It's like that laser beam,
But most of the time we're walking around like a flashlight.
And a little piece of our attention is on to what somebody is saying.
Another piece of our attention is on the balloon in the room.
Some of our attention is on the couch.
Some of our attention is,
You know,
It's just kind of scattered.
So it's just bringing all that attention in on one thing and everything else kind of blocks out.
And when we do that with the silence,
That's where we find peace.
And we've spent a lot of time kind of talking about silence so far.
But why?
What's the point of focusing on silence or focusing on space?
What does it get us?
And that's our gateway to connecting with source.
There's more than one,
But that's a great way.
And we've said this a little bit already.
It's a way to connect with our source and feel the peace and the love that we're seeking to feel from our Creator.
And this was,
Do you have those quotes?
I do,
Yeah.
I was… So,
I looked into some quotes and it was,
You know,
Obviously there's a lot about silence,
But I kind of picked out a few from a few different people that allude to,
You know,
Basically finding God within the silence.
So this is from a blog post and an article that you wrote called Silence the Gateway to Source.
So I'm just going to plug your blog real quick on your website,
Lenamrose.
Com.
You can subscribe and you'll get an email every time there's a new blog post.
Anyway,
So you said that if we focus our attention on silence or space,
We can experience what the Buddha referred to as noble silence.
Noble silence.
Noble silence,
I'm sorry.
I said that wrong twice today.
Major religion and spiritual practice talks about silence being a gateway to source.
Here are just a few.
Be still and know that I am God,
Psalm 46.
10.
Now be silent.
Let the one who creates words speak.
He made the door.
He made the lock.
He also made the key.
Rumi.
Right.
And you can hear the footsteps of God when the silence reigns in the mind.
I'm not sure how to pronounce it,
But I looked him up and he was an impressive dude.
Rumi was a poet,
So he was a Sufi poet.
He has so many good quotes.
It's amazing.
And it's tough to beat the Bible.
It is tough to beat the Bible.
That particular Bible verse,
Though,
Is a great one.
It's an often quoted one.
Yes,
Very often quoted.
Probably like the second or third most well-known,
I would say,
Probably.
I truly believe that things that are popular,
It's because it connects with people.
Simple things that connect with people on a deep level,
They're not always understood properly by the mind,
But the heart knows it.
That's the connection that's made.
I think that is why that's one of the most quoted parts of the Bible,
Because it's very simple,
It's very basic,
And it holds a lot of truth.
Truth is very simple,
And spirituality is the deepest truth.
Spirituality is the simplest of the simple.
That's the biggest problem with us finding it,
Is because our mind thinks—basically,
Our mind is controlling our lives,
And our mind wants to think,
And our mind wants to solve problems,
And our mind wants to figure things out.
If something is so simple that it doesn't need to be figured out,
That just throws our mind off,
Because our mind doesn't have anything to do.
That's why we need to disengage our mind,
Get our thinking mind out of the way,
And just be.
Then we can be simple,
And then we can be connected to the truth.
Just sitting in silence and paying attention to that silence.
It's again what I mentioned with Tolle.
If you've never done it,
And you say,
Okay,
I'm going to pay attention to the silence,
It might be hard for you to do that.
It gets easier and easier.
I find it very easy at this point,
But in the beginning,
I remember,
Like,
How do I pay attention to the silence?
That's why I like Tolle's thing.
Listen to a bell.
I've got a Mind Bell app on my phone that just goes off randomly throughout the day,
Which is comical,
Because at this point,
I've had it on my phone for so long,
Everybody that knows me has heard it,
And they're just like,
What is that?
It's like,
Oh,
That's just my Mind Bell.
So like the soccer parents and stuff.
So what is the purpose of that app?
The purpose of it is just to bring me back into the present moment throughout the day.
So you can set it randomly for every hour,
Every few hours.
You can set it for whatever you want.
And then I think I have it set for every hour,
But random.
So it's not specifically every hour.
It's just about every hour,
And it just goes off randomly.
But it's a bell.
So what I can do is,
I mean,
A lot of times,
It's just a reminder for me.
But what I can do is when that bell goes off,
It's like,
Oh,
OK,
Grab onto the sound.
I'll put my attention onto the sound,
And then I'll follow that sound back from where it came.
And you just listen to it tail off and tail off,
And you keep listening,
Listening,
And listening.
Then when it finally,
Fully goes away,
There's silence there.
So that's a good way to initially focus on the silence.
I like the bell sound because you can hear it tapering off,
And you can kind of follow it as opposed to some other noises that are sharper.
Yeah,
I like the bell on Insight Timer.
It's very calming,
The bell.
Yeah,
It's funny.
It's been used.
Those bells have been used for thousands of years.
And there's a reason why,
Because it is calming.
Insight Timer is phenomenal.
That's my favorite.
Well,
I was going to say my favorite meditation app,
Which it is,
But it's also my favorite overall spiritual app.
I've tried a fair amount.
I don't go crazy with apps,
But I've tried a fair amount over the years.
That one impresses me the most,
Which is why I started uploading my podcast to it.
I like to put it on sometimes when I'm doing other things,
Like the Zen guitar on the not guided meditation is just the perfect calming white noise.
I'm not thinking about anything.
Yeah,
And they have a lot of good music section that's all really good background noise.
And sometimes I'll just put it on to fade off to sleep,
Just pick one.
But anyway,
Back to silence.
So yeah,
The reason that we meditate,
The reason that we try to slow our mind down,
The reason that we try to pay attention to the silence or focus on space,
It's all for the same reasons,
Because that's where the love and the peace lies that we want to experience.
So there is no time in the spiritual realm.
So oftentimes,
We hold ourselves to these high standards and people are like,
Oh,
There's no way I can meditate for an hour.
Well,
There's no way I can meditate for 30 minutes because they see these spiritual gurus doing this or something.
It's not necessary.
There's no time in the spiritual realm.
So you don't need to sit connected to source or connected to the silence,
Connected to the peace within you.
You don't need to sit there for a half an hour or an hour or two hours.
It's because there's no time in the spiritual realm.
It's just a matter of when you do it.
It's just like,
Do you connect to your source?
And the more often we do it,
Then the better we get at it.
So spiritually speaking,
There's really no difference if you connect to your source for 30 seconds or three hours,
Because there's no time in that spiritual realm.
It's just a matter of,
Do you make the effort to connect to your source?
Do you come into a place of silence?
And the more we do that,
Then the less our mind is running the show,
Because our mind is supposed to be a tool.
We're supposed to go to our mind and say,
Hey,
Solve this problem for me.
What's two plus two?
Four.
Okay,
Thank you,
And turn it off.
And we're supposed to be using our mind for the tool that it is,
But instead what we're doing is our mind is running us,
So it's just constantly going.
And if it's constantly going,
Then we don't experience that peace.
So just coming into that present moment,
Just focusing on a silence,
It can take us out of our mind.
And that's where we're supposed to be living.
We're supposed to be living in a peaceful,
Calm,
Loving existence,
And then using our mind,
Going to it whenever we want.
I think this is,
Tolle is just so amazing.
He's right on with so much stuff.
But he was saying,
I think it was in The Power of Now,
He was saying that his biggest asset,
Like if he were to go get a job,
His biggest asset would be the fact that he does not have to think.
He can turn off his thinking,
Which a lot of jobs would be like,
Why would I want that?
But that's actually his biggest asset,
Because he's in the present moment and he can do whatever he needs to do that's required in the present moment.
And most of that is organic and it's natural and it just comes to us from the other side,
From divine knowledge.
It just flows through us and we just act.
And that's when we're at our best.
But if we can turn on our mind as a tool and use it,
Our thinking is clearer also,
If it's not incessantly running all the time.
If we just go to it and say,
Can I use you for what you were meant for to solve this problem?
The mind is like,
Yeah,
It's rested,
It's clear,
It's focused on what you want from it and it does a wonderful job and then you can turn it back off.
But if it's just incessantly running,
Then you've got to try to harness it and focus it on something.
And it's not easy to do because it's used to running the show.
It's not used to you having control of it.
It's used to controlling you.
So bringing silence into our lives is really,
I mean,
It's indispensable.
It's really valuable to regain control of our lives and to function in a new,
Healthier way on a lot of different levels.
There it is.
There it is.
So I have a couple of questions.
Number one.
Yes.
What's number two?
How often do you drive silently?
No music or podcasts?
Most of the time.
Most of the time.
I would probably say 75% of the time I'm driving.
It's in silence.
And then sometimes I turn on the radio and I just like,
When I do,
I really enjoy it.
I really enjoy it.
And then oftentimes they'll get left on for like a couple of days.
And then all of a sudden I get in the car and I start driving and I'm like,
What is this radio doing?
I want it to be quiet.
I don't know if I have an incessant need for noise but Dave has always driven silently like 90% of the time,
I think.
And it used to drive me crazy.
It's like 50-50 now,
He just said.
So we would go on like half hour or more car rides and like five to 10 minutes in I'm like having an anxiety attack because of the silence.
Yeah,
It's because all your stuff is bubbling up and that's a good point because oftentimes people are going to experience that.
When you get still,
That's where all your crap bubbles up.
Because we're so used to distracting ourselves with anything,
Noise,
Action,
Anything.
So when we're just sitting there,
Sometimes I'll do it.
I've been kind of irritable before and had the radio on and after like 15 minutes,
I'm still kind of irritable and I'm like screw this.
So I'll turn off the radio to allow it to bubble up.
I'm not spending my day like this.
So if you're there,
Come up so I can feel you and deal with you and heal it.
So all of a sudden I'll get still and silent and then oh man,
A whole wave of emotion comes up and it ain't pretty.
But I would rather allow myself to feel that so it can release.
So yeah,
When you first start and it feels like your skin is crawling when you start to get silent,
That's normal.
That's just stuff you've been pushing down and distracting yourself from coming up.
Probably 12 years ago,
I was like,
Can we turn the radio on?
And he was like,
No,
What's wrong with you?
Just deal with it.
Yeah.
Well,
Once you're used to doing it,
It's awesome because you are in a contained environment.
The rest of the world is outside the glass.
You're in it.
And a lot of times,
Like if you turn off your phone,
Especially nowadays,
You turn off your phone or you say,
No,
I'm not talking or texting on my phone.
You put it aside and then all of a sudden,
There's nothing for you to do.
You can't do anything else right then.
We're used to do,
Do,
Do all the time and just going 90 miles an hour distraction.
Now you're sitting in a car.
You're just there.
You can't escape yourself.
There's nothing else you can be doing at that particular moment.
So now it's just such a peaceful time.
I use that for peace regularly.
Like I said,
Probably 75% of the time.
There have been many times where I've gone like a few days without listening to anything in the car and I'll go.
I'll catch that I have done it,
That I haven't had anything on and I'll be like,
Damn it,
Dave.
You rubbed off on me and I don't like it.
You know what's nice too is with your kids,
Like my son,
He's not looking for the silence.
We'll say that.
He's 16.
He's not really interested in what his dad does that much.
He still applies a lot of stuff in his everyday life just because he's been around me so long but he's not diving into everything that I say and do.
But what's nice is a lot of times I'll think about putting on the radio and when he's in the car and I'll be like,
No,
I'm not going to put on the radio.
And then 10 minutes later,
All of a sudden he starts talking to me.
It's like,
Hey,
Cool.
So I get a nice dialogue with my son in the car because I didn't have the radio on and there was nothing to distract either one of us,
Which is cool.
And I remember the first time I drove in silence.
I specifically remember and it was torture.
It was before I woke up.
It was like 20 years ago and I was living in Florida and I had to drive like 45 minutes without my radio because my antenna snapped or something and I had to drive to the specific place to get it fixed.
And I freaked out.
I've told this story several times before.
I got home and I thought I had experienced something insane.
I was crawling out of my skin.
I was going crazy.
I was freaking out.
When I got home,
I told my friends,
I was like,
Oh my God,
Guys,
I just drove without the radio.
Have you ever done that?
It's like pure hell on earth.
It's insane.
And I was so wound up and freaking out about this.
Of course,
They looked at me like there was something seriously wrong with me.
They're like,
What are you talking about?
But I disliked myself so much that I couldn't stand being alone and quiet with myself.
I had never felt feelings.
I had never allowed myself to feel all the stuff that was inside of me.
So I was so uncomfortable in that moment.
It was so profound.
Like I said,
20 years later,
I still remember it specifically.
It completely blew my mind.
And then about eight months after I woke up,
I flew from Florida to Rhode Island.
I had brought all the stuff that I usually brought on flights to distract me.
I didn't want to listen to any of it.
I didn't want to read any of it.
Nothing.
And I just sat there in silence.
And I was really peaceful,
Calm,
And enjoyed everything.
And when I got off the flight,
I called my friend back in Florida and I said,
Yeah,
It was really weird.
Usually I listen to all this stuff and I distract myself and I just,
None of it.
I just didn't want to do any of it.
So I just sat there,
But I was really happy.
And he goes,
Yeah,
This is the first time you ever flew with somebody you liked.
And I was like,
No,
I flew alone.
And he goes,
Yeah,
I know.
And I went,
Oh.
So I get it.
So I actually liked myself for the first time and I could sit in silence with myself and not want to crawl out of my skin.
So know that that can be a part of this.
I think that's a great place to end.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I think so.
So yeah,
The silence can be really,
Really uncomfortable in the beginning,
But that's just pent up feelings and emotions within you.
And you can allow yourself to feel them.
Your feelings are not you.
They can't hurt you.
If you react to it,
Then it can bring a little trouble into your life,
But just don't react to the feelings.
Allow yourself to feel them.
And as you feel them,
They will go and then your silence will become more peaceful.
So go out there and experience some silence and connect to your source.
And again,
I highly recommend reading the blog post that Glenn wrote about this.
So check out his blog.
As they say in New England,
It's wicked good.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yep.
I'm surprised you don't do more of New Englandisms on this show.
Yeah.
Well,
That's because most of the typical New Englandisms are kind of.
.
.
Inappropriate?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So go check out the blog.
It's glennamrose.
Com.
Glenn with two N's.
You can subscribe.
You'll get an email every time he posts a new one,
Which is once a week.
And then there's also the new podcast that's coming up starting in November,
Depending on when you're listening to this.
It starts November 2017,
Which is What's Right With The World This Week.
That's it.
Which is exciting stuff.
Yes.
We're going to focus on what's right in the world instead of what's wrong with the world.
So yeah.
We're going to be getting into that.
And we'll do a podcast to kind of introduce that too.
And those will be small,
10-minute episodes.
Bite size.
Bites size.
Released on hump day to get you through the week.
Yep.
Excellent stuff.
All right.
Thanks,
Glenn.
Thank you,
Ben.
Thanks,
Dave.
Thumbs up.
All right.
Take care,
Guys.
We'll talk to you soon.
