Posts tagged silence and noise

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength To Love, 1963

fuckyeahexistentialism

A riot is the language of the unheard.
Martin Luther King, Jr. in an address given in Birmingham, Alabama on December 31, 1963

dostthouquotethme

The universe is saying many things that we cannot yet imagine, let alone understand. ~ü

The universe is saying many things that we cannot yet imagine, let alone understand.

~ü

abstrusegoose.com

The eyes only see what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
~ Henri Bergson

mythologyofblue

…simply close your eyes and allow your ears to resonate with whatever sounds may be happening spontaneously, making no attempt to name or identify them, just as when one listens to formal music. After a while one hears the sounds emerging, without cause or origin, from the emptiness of silence, and so becomes witness to the beginning of the universe. ~ Alan Watts.  From his biography “In My Own Way” describing the relationship between the practice of meditation and John Cage’s piece 4’33”, also commonly referred to as the “silent concert.” [Image: Nevver, This is it]

…simply close your eyes and allow your ears to resonate with whatever sounds may be happening spontaneously, making no attempt to name or identify them, just as when one listens to formal music. After a while one hears the sounds emerging, without cause or origin, from the emptiness of silence, and so becomes witness to the beginning of the universe.

~ Alan Watts.  From his biography “In My Own Way” describing the relationship between the practice of meditation and John Cage’s piece 4’33”, also commonly referred to as the “silent concert.”

[Image: Nevver, This is it]

nevver

Listening

Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still?  Then you hear everything, don’t you?

You hear the far off noises as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds—which means really that you are listening to everything.

Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel.  If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you,  a change which comes without your volition, without your asking; and in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti (via crashinglybeautiful)

crashinglybeautiful

Bansky

Bansky

thinkoutloudlane

It’s as if when you were born and you heard that from now on throughout you whole life you will have to continue breathing every minute, you think ‘Why can’t I just have one big breath and be done with it?’ It is ridiculous.
Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, referring to practitioners who anticipate results or experiences à la sudden enlightenment. From “Zazen That Amounts to Nothing” in the Spring 2011 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly.

sharanam

Observe your own body. It breathes. You breathe when you are asleep, when you are no longer conscious of your own ideas of self-identity. Who, then, is breathing? The collection of information that you mistakenly think is you is not the protagonist in this drama called the breath. In fact, you are not breathing; breath is naturally happening to you. You can purposely end your own life, but you cannot purposely keep your own life going. The expression, ‘my life’ is actually an oxymoron, a result of ignorance and mistaken assumption. You don’t possess life; life expresses itself through you. Your body is a flower that life let bloom, a phenomenon created by life.
Ilchi Lee

cosive

Abraham Lincoln knew the power of silence.  Under enormous pressure, presiding over a nation in civil war, he watched as General Meade lost a golden opportunity to take advantage of a defeated but resilient Southern army commanded by Robert E. Lee - a oversight that extended the war and cost thousands of more American lives.   Lincoln was angry, distraught and forlorn.  As most people would, he planned to make sure his subordinate knew the cost to the nation.  He would chastise, criticize and possibly humiliate the general.  Lincoln set to task and penned such a letter.   He never sent it.  Humiliating Meade wouldn’t do anybody any good.  Instead he exercised restraint knowing that he would eventually, and quietly, replace Meade when another candidate was available. The letter above expresses Lincoln’s optimism before Meade’s oversight.  The excerpt below is the letter he never sent.  Lincoln knew when talking was useful.  He was brave enough to stay silent when it was not. ~ü The President feared that once Lee crossed the river Meade’s golden opportunity to strike the wounded army would be lost.  Lincoln’s fears became reality on July 14 when Lee’s army escaped Meade’s clutches and crossed the Potomac at Williamsport, Maryland, into Virginia. Upon hearing the news a dispirited Lincoln sat down and wrote: “… my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely…Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably(sic) because of it.” Lincoln did not send this message to Meade, instead the President wrote on the envelope “To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed.” And so the Civil War raged on until the spring of 1865. todaysdocument

Abraham Lincoln knew the power of silence.  Under enormous pressure, presiding over a nation in civil war, he watched as General Meade lost a golden opportunity to take advantage of a defeated but resilient Southern army commanded by Robert E. Lee - a oversight that extended the war and cost thousands of more American lives.  

Lincoln was angry, distraught and forlorn.  As most people would, he planned to make sure his subordinate knew the cost to the nation.  He would chastise, criticize and possibly humiliate the general.  Lincoln set to task and penned such a letter.  

He never sent it.  Humiliating Meade wouldn’t do anybody any good.  Instead he exercised restraint knowing that he would eventually, and quietly, replace Meade when another candidate was available.

The letter above expresses Lincoln’s optimism before Meade’s oversight.  The excerpt below is the letter he never sent.  Lincoln knew when talking was useful.  He was brave enough to stay silent when it was not.

~ü

The President feared that once Lee crossed the river Meade’s golden opportunity to strike the wounded army would be lost.  Lincoln’s fears became reality on July 14 when Lee’s army escaped Meade’s clutches and crossed the Potomac at Williamsport, Maryland, into Virginia.

Upon hearing the news a dispirited Lincoln sat down and wrote:

“… my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely…Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasureably(sic) because of it.”

Lincoln did not send this message to Meade, instead the President wrote on the envelope “To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed.” And so the Civil War raged on until the spring of 1865.

todaysdocument

archives.gov