Here is the offering for today from The Mystic Vision: Daily Encounters with the Divine, complied by Andrew Harvey and Anne Baring. Enjoy this quietude and leisure.  

Lately I became aware of the meaning of Quietude.
Day after day I stayed away from the multitude.
I cleaned my cottage and prepared if for the visit of a monk
Who came to me from the distant mountains.
He descended from the cloud-hidden peaks
To see me in my thatched house.
Sitting in the grass we shared the resin of the pine.
Burning incense we read the sutras of Tao.
When the day was over we lighted our lamp.
The temple bells announced the beginning of the evening.
Suddenly I realized that Quietude is indeed Joy,
And I felt that my life has abundant leisure.

·                                                                 Wang Wei

There’s a stillness about a humid summer day, different from the stillness of a below zero winter one. The leaves on the tree outside my open window are moving just a tad, but I don’t feel I have to flutter about as I do in the cold of winter. This isn’t just a physical phenomenon—keeping warm versus trying to stay cool. It’s also a mental reality. The colder it is, the more my mind races; the warmer it becomes, the more my mind is able to sit and be.

I don’t consider myself much of a complainer, but right now I feel the need to mention my frustration with all the noise I experienced during my walk yesterday. Oh, I’ve talked about this before, which perhaps illustrates that my intensity of feeling isn’t simply that my silence was interrupted. It has to do with all the little things right along my street that contribute to global warming, that make it harder and harder to turn things around. What is frustrating (and sad) is that I am a part of the problem—so I have to admit that this complaint is directed to me, too.

      Yesterday it was the HUGE transport and garbage trucks shuttering by: it was the leaf blowers blocking out the bird songs: it was the sidewalk sweeper making the air unfit to breathe. What to do about this? Being part of the problem, how can I help change the course? Clearly it isn't about the noise.

     My husband takes our garbage to the dump, but we have our leaves blown, enjoy the swept walkways, and purchase food transported to the supermarket. And then, on top of all that, when I fly to Italy in two weeks so I can wander about it my own silence, solitude and simplicity, I will be depending on all that jet fuel, and more, to get me there. I feel helpless. The best I can do is hang out the laundry.

It’s quiet around here, except for the tapping of computer keys. While I type away for my blog, my granddaughter does the same for her  homework. Without a computer, I doubt she could function as a high school freshman. And when I say computer, I mean word processing and the internet. Was it more simple when I was in high school? I would say yes, but maybe just different. No going back.

      Today I wrote a hand-written note to a friend who doesn’t have internet access. What a procedure: writing, sealing the envelope, finding the address and writing it, finding a stamp and licking it, and then out to the mailbox. Not simple but rather special, this personal note.

     With hand-written notes a rarity these days, communication has taken a different turn—different physical ways we go about it, different number of people with whom we’re in contact, different groups of people, different kinds of messages. If nothing else, the sheer ease with which we can let the world know what we’re thinking and doing, makes if feel simple. But we also know that with the simple click of the wrong key, to our horror, we can blurt with no recourse. Here I go.

I found another secret entry to the Boboli Gardens, this time through the Bardini Gardens. The two seemed to flows into the other, as I felt I was floating along with Langley and Siena in Dan Brown’s “Inferno”.

    I don’t mind the tourist noise in Florence, but I must say, the silence today in the gardens was serene, sprinkled here and there by a water fountain, an occasional bird call, and Giotto’s campanile in the distance.

The story of Socrates and ‘The Three Sieves’ is posted all over the internet, source unknown.

     What if everyone  performed the simple ‘Three Sieves Test’ before speaking out? Many possibilities, but for sure the world would be a more peaceful and silent place.

Once upon a time in ancient Greece, one of the acquaintances of the great philosopher Socrates came up to him and said: “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”

“Hold on a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me, I would like to perform a simple test. It is called the ‘Three Sieves Test.’ ”

“The ‘Three Sieves Test?’ ”

“Yes. Before you say a word about my student, take a moment to reflect carefully on what you wish to say by pouring your words through three special sieves.”

“The first sieve is the Sieve of Truth. Are you absolutely sure, without any doubt, that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“Well, no, I’m not. Actually I heard it recently and…”

“Alright,” interrupted Socrates. “So you don’t really know whether it is true or not. Then let us try the second sieve: the Sieve of Goodness. Are you going to tell me something good about my student?”

“Well…no,” said his acquaintance. “On the contrary…”

“So you want to tell me something bad about him,” questioned Socrates, “even though you are not certain if it is true or not?”

“Err…”

“You may still pass the test though,” said the Socrates, “because there is a third sieve: the Sieve of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”

“No. Not so much.” said the man resignedly.

Finishing the lesson, Socrates said: “Well, then, if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor useful, why bother telling me at all?”

I live in a country-like suburb about twenty-five miles from Boston: farm land during colonial times. Word has it that Sudbury encompasses the largest landmass in the Commonwealth. As I’ve shown on previous blogs, the walks I take from my house are quite idyllic, so you might conclude that they are also quiet. I don’t want to exaggerate the noise but suffice to say, I’ve given up counting the number of lawn-care and garbage (excuse me, waste-removal) trucks that chug past me. Thank goodness, at least for the safety of walkways.

     A quiet walking spot, however, is the expansive cemetery just beyond the Unitarian Church at the town center. I go there with a friend whose husband is buried close to a tree that the family planted. It is a peaceful place for both of us. While my friend sits and remembers, I walk and remember—friends, spouses of friends, a dear teaching colleague, and a second grade student. Sad for me but seemingly peaceful for those buried there. Strange how that is!

It is silent around here now that the rain, which must have pelted our sunroom roof for close to 18 hours, has stopped. This rain wasn’t silent, but neither was it noisy. This rain was energetic, not calm. I’m glad for the quiet now, and for the sun.

Yesterday morning, after posting my daily quote and checking my email, I shut down my computer and covered all the clocks. Thus began a different kind of day of silence and solitude at the cottage, deeper and more present to the moment than anything I’ve experienced here before.

     First of all, the email, or rather the lack of it. I loved it. Out of sight, out of mind, well… almost. And with that, out went some of the trivial chatter in my head as I realized that many of my little thoughts don’t really matter at all—all rather humbling. I also found that I could admit to myself that the people in my email and cyberspace world were out there leading their lives just fine without me—again, all rather humbling.

     Living without a time clock was also rewarding and immensely liberating. My own mind/body/spirit clock told me when to think, nap, pray, read, eat, walk and do my jigsaw puzzle. It was definitely operating in the present moment. Then, when I thought it was 6 PM I checked, only to find that the time was closer to 5. Amazing how in an instant, I was back in linear time.

     I’m going to live with my m/b/s clock whenever I can up here at the cottage. And, in a  month, when this rental is over, I’ll try to plan some days in that same spirit at home. It won’t be easy but the challenge will be worth it.

Here at the cottage I am fortunate enough to experience the silence, solitude and simplicity that I long for. Very grateful! But there are times when I take silence for granted and it becomes a kind of background noise that I don’t notice because it is everywhere. That is, until I hear a contrast--too much noise, or absence of it. So I decided to pay some attention to silence. Here’s today's ramble on the topic.

      Scene One: at the movie theater the other day. First, the quiet! Have you ever notice that people are extremely quiet while waiting for a film to begin? Maybe it’s the subdued lighting, or the settling in, or the anticipation. Then the noise! Blaring reminders to purchase the popcorn that you resisted earlier when you noted that it cost half the price of a ticket, deafening  advertisements for cell phones and cars, and loudest of all, energetic previews seemingly selected for their most violent and noisy segments.

    Scene Two: back at the cottage. The quiet was surreal. Inside all I heard was the furnace, accompanied by an occasional ticking from the radiator. Outside on the porch I was treated to the gentle lap of a wave on the rocks, and the occasional cry of a gull.

     Where is this going, you ask? So far I’ve reported sounds that surrounded me during two recent times and places, sounds that were just there, by default, without my conscious choice, sounds that I didn’t ask for or create. I had forgotten about the loud previews, and I was looking forward to the Les Mis music. After all, that’s what I went to hear. I wasn’t expecting the Hollywood sound effects, predominantly and exclusively, in the form of gunshots.

     Um, as I write, a terrifying thought occurs to me. Could it be true that on the ‘sound continuum’ gunfire is at the noise end, the very end? In the movie version of Les Mis, do the gunshots trump the music? Will the people who heard gunshots in Newtown ever feel or hear silence? Will they ever reach the silence end of the continuum, and if so, what will the find? God? It’s a mystery but I can’t imagine that absolute quiet is as terrifying as even one gunshot.

      Maybe we can settle for a gull or gentle wave as the best of silence. For sure, we don’t choose the noise of guns (my apologies to hunters). Gun shots invade our personal space in a way that a gull does not. When I walk on the beach looking for silence, I’m not offending anyone, and neither are the gulls or waves.