The Sensation of Ruptured Silence
How I Sauntered into a Powerful and Delicious Awakening
This piece is Part II of a series of stories about my first time in New Orleans, Louisiana, a couple of years ago. (Read Part I.) Please stay for the pre-recorded meditation at the end.
Every city has its own energy signature, its own ripples and currents, its own purpose and intentions.
If you’re a traveler, too, you might know what I mean. A signature smell that reaches your heartbeat, subtly alters your cadence, seduces you to its rhythm. A set of sounds that trace their tones along your spinal column; that caress your pelvis; that tease your hips. And a vibration that sets itself into your nervous system, molds itself against the prints of your fingers, ready to teach you about yourself, and yourself about you.
If I may...
the City of New Orleans bids you to notice her, to fall into a deliberate intimacy with her. She’s sensual. She’s knowing. She’s unforgiving. She moves like a sea detached from itself, like a lake submerged in participles of wander. She tastes like stories eternally untold. She sounds like yearning, edging—at the roots of centenarian trees. She feels like a stutter before a breakthrough.
During my first visit with her, three days into five, two mornings after I witnessed a garbed skeleton emerge from dusted asphalt (read Part I), I had a nagging inkling—mild, but consistent, like a tickle in your throat—to visit a Buddhist meditation center.
Google directed me to a Zen center in Mid-City, just four blocks from my short-term rental. The only program available at the center, that aligned with my schedule and open to strangers, was a “half-day sit” on Sunday morning. Not knowing what a half-day or a sit meant, I shrugged my shoulders at myself and said aloud, “Okay, sure. Let’s try to that.”
I woke at 7:00 a.m., a spell after the sunrise, and walked along crooked sidewalks in pants that waved to passersby. The oaks, dandelions, and misty air all conspired to thrill me. I smiled at life and giggled, preparing to meet new faces and to pretend I knew what I was doing.
The Zen center was enclosed in a quaint red building, paneled with wood, and glowed of sun stained by colorful glass. The mood was sleepy-but-dedicated. There were around five other practitioners, some dressed in robes I didn’t yet understand. I watched them carefully to study what to do some seconds before I would attempt to do it on my own.
It turns out, we would be silent for four (4) uninterrupted hours. We would cycle between walking (kinhin) and sitting (zazen) in meditation: zazen, kinhin, zazen, kinhin, zazen, kinhin, zazen, kinhin, zazen.
The first hour was familiar. I waited at the edge of my nose with a light and warm breath; waited for my body to relax completely, release hold on things that were, and for my racing mind to follow suit, slowly but absolutely.
The second hour was strange, deeper than I had known. I lingered in a liminal space between awake and asleep. Insights swam through honied waters. Blissful. My attention oozed as if drizzling from the supple flesh of fruit. I ebbed in a space of enchanted subconscious visions. Flickers of stories rolled through me, showing me what I understood were past lives of mine and of details about the two men meditating on either side of me.
The wild visions reminded me of two nights before, when I sat at the Haitian Spiritual Botanica, of the moments where my history melted into the history of the stranger next to me, of my intuition nudging me to read into the life expanse of another.
I began to germinate, questions.
Why do I keep seeing other people’s private thoughts, and private matters, I wondered in the labyrinth of my mind. Have I been chosen by some higher power to do something special with this foresight, with these gifts? Is this what being “psychic” looks like? What is the purpose? What am I supposed to do with this information?
In the third hour, I waved into a bottomless state. I only remembered I had feet because a wooden clapper invited us to walk (kinhin) after we sat. And when I stood up, like a wrinkled bud stretching apart its sepal, the silence of the meditation room ruptured.
An understanding rippled through me, ringing within me like bell metal:
“You are able to perceive information about strangers, because you are one with every living thing.”
I felt a chorus surround me. Etch against my body. Though there was no sound; only sensation:
“You exist as vibration. Consider every living thing as a channel of information. All of your data available to any person, any living thing, at any time.”
The soundless harmony penetrated me:
“What you call privacy is an illusion. All of your thoughts. All of your actions. Every one of your behaviors. Are one. What you perceive from other people is not secret, because it could not ever truly be hidden.”
A tear trickled down my face as this knowledge continued to bloom within me, saturate me:
“How or whether you use the information about others—it is your choice. Should you choose to honor the illusion of privacy, so be it. If you choose to share the information, so be it. There is no right. There is no wrong. There is no good. There is no bad. You decide how you experience your life. The choice is always yours.”
The chorus stopped.
My cheeks bathed beneath my smiling tears. I opened my eyes. I responded, Oh.
And that was all.
I closed my eyes once more and finished the final hour of meditation in gratitude and in wonder.
I told no one.
Guided Meditation
Each story we create, share, and consume has the power to change each of us at any and all times. Allow the change, but do so responsibly. This guided meditation is designed to support you.
Prompts
How do you explain the sensation of silence? Describe the moment when you came to know this.
How do you experience silence when you are alone? When you are with others?
What existential questions are germinating within you right now?
I’m really enjoying your writing. Thank you for sharing. The idea of there being no right or wrong, good or bad, has been so freeing and an existential crisis all at the same time…..