Vow of Silence, Post-script

First of all, allow me to apologize for going slack on the post. I was supposed to post this on January 31st, but I got distracted.

I learned many things during the vow of silence, like how negativity effects other people, how someone speaking negativity effects their self, how we often speak before we fully think things through, and how often we don't take the time to observe our surroundings because we are too busy coming up with verbal reactions to them. I also learned how to better control what I say and how to be able to think my opinion on things, determine if I truly believe it, and if it is worth speaking. (More often than not, what you have to say about a particular subject is not worth saying at all.) But there were also some scary things about being silent. I did feel relatively trapped in my own mind. I had no way to let out anything I wanted to say, unless I typed it on here. My "selected few" and I barely even ''spoke'' during my vow, but that is okay, it only helped me learn more. Another thing I noticed is how it feel to directly take an insult to something you feel is close to you and not be able to retort. This is a very frustrating feeling, however, there is a Zen story that helped me clear my head of the negative thoughts that came from such an "attack" and it is entitled "The Empty Boat". Allow me to share it with you.

"In the middle of a think fog, a man is out fishing in his little boat when another boat slices through the mist and crashes into his. At first the man curses and yells at the person piloting the other craft, calling him names and demanding that he back off and give him space. When he looks more closely, however, that the other boat is empty - no one is manning the rudder. Suddenly his anger disappears and he realizes the pointlessness of his rage."

What the story means is, when someone attacks you, they are merely doing it because they are empty of a separate, conscious self. Their actions are uncontrolled because they are acting automatically. Since there is no one piloting their boat, getting mad over the boat hitting yours is senseless. I learned not to be angry when something I hold close was attacked, because they were acting automatically. My reaction to the attack was to not react, but to simply channel the energy elsewhere. There is no sense in getting angry over words, for they are merely words.

You also tend to forget what your voice sounds like after not using it, so speaking with it becomes a new experience all over again. Once you CAN speak with it again, you feel more able to speak with clarity. The old saying "you never what you have until it's gone" is absolutely true. All too often we take our ability to speak for granted and use it for the most ignorant things. I wish everyone could lose their voice for one week as I have, so that they, too, can remember and realize what a joy it is to speak. I can almost guarantee that you will never take it for granted again.

It is quite difficult to not speak when you know you have the ability to do so, but what if you couldn't speak? Ever? Would you be glad you spent the time you had with your voice wasting it on harming others, on senseless talk of gossip, or on speaking of matters that mean nothing more to anyone other than to hear somebody say something? Or would you regret it and wish that you had spent more time making people feel better with your words, spreading knowledge rather than ignorance, or speaking of things that could benefit the world? You may think that one person does not make a difference, or you may think so because that is what you have been told all your life, but do not truly believe it. However, I am showing you, right now, that one person does make a difference. All you have to do is look at yourself. You are reading these words, right here, right now. Even if you read all of this and think "Psh, this kid has no idea what he's talking about", I still made you reflect on the things that YOU YOURSELF truly believe and feel is right and what you feel is the truth. And how does one achieve enlightenment? By finding the truth THAT IS FOUND WITHIN HIMSELF.

Thank you for reading.

Namaste to you all. You all have my unconditional love.

Vow of Silence, Day 7

So now it came and went. Day 7 of my vow. The final day. All that's left is to go to sleep, wake up, and wait until 2 pm and I can use my voice again.

My day went relatively well. I set my alarm last night so that I would wake up at 9 30 this morning and have enough time to eat 2 breakfasts to make the fasting easier. To admit, I was quite scared that I was going to wake up at noon and either live with not eating all day, or just bail on the fasting idea. I probably would've done the second one, but just eaten vegetables instead of meats. Anyway, I woke up EARLY this morning. Like, and hour earlier than my alarm was set for. Becky (stepmom) made me us a wonderful breakfast that I believe was called "eggs in a basket". It consisted of (obviously) scrambled eggs, bits of ham, mushrooms, and some onions. It was most delicious! For second breakfast, I only had some soybeans and an apple. That was enough to eat, considering I felt sick after I ate them, so I took an hour nap to settle my stomach and it worked. After my nap, I popped online for a bit and then went for some meditation. LET ME TELL YOU HOW AWESOME THIS MEDITATION WAS!

During my meditation, I started by counting my breaths. I counted them up to one-hundred and then began some critical thinking. I counted to one-hundred again and then had an AMAZING experience! I started having a third person realization and was able to connect to anything non-spiritual. Can you guess who I attempted contact with? Buddha. I got in contact with SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA HIMSELF! He said nothing to me, I merely spilled to him what I want to accomplish, he put his hands on my shoulders, and kissed my forehead. (Strange I know, but I wasn't gonna call him on it or anything, HE'S BUDDHA!) After I bowed to him, I counted again. This time going to two-hundred. During my count, I could see a large circle of monks around me, all meditating in "Om". This created a wonderful experience! After I reached two-hundred, I sat quietly and patiently for the Holosync to end. When I came out of the meditation, I laid down, and had very blissful tears come out of my eyes. I felt so compassionate, calm, and free. All I could do was think of the fact that I was able to see Shakyamuni Buddha in my meditation. Well, I think that is about enough of the meditation experience. Haha. I could dwell on it for days. Years even.

Okay, onto the subject of work.

Work was SLAMMED. All day. Non-stop. I had to speak a couple times, but it was ABSOLUTELY necessary, so I still feel that I was doing so under my original pretenses.

I was the late person tonight, which was nice, because the money would come in handy. Fasting at work was very difficult, because I all I could see, smell, and touch, was pizza. One of my favorite foods. I even brought some home with me so I can eat it tomorrow! Haha! I have found that fasting does cause my acid-reflux to kick in. It kinda burns, as you might already know.

Though this is the blog for Day 7, it will not be the last blog chronicling the vow. There will be one more tomorrow to recap the entire week.

Well, I have reading to do so I can hit my book goal as well. Thank you for reading and I hope your eyes will be on this page tomorrow as well.

Namaste.

Vow of Silence, Day 6

Ah, here it is. That all too familiar time when I post my daily blog.

Well readers, I haven't had too pleasant of a day. Work was filled with so much negativity, some things were going wrong, and people were getting frustrated, so a sense of frustration kinda filled the air. I took the frustration kinda hard, probably harder than I really should have, but it's difficult to not get super frustrated when you're frustrated and can't speak the words you know can fix the problem. Straight up, work sucked for me, so I don't really feel like discussing the subject any further, for dwelling only makes things worse.

Meditation today was particularly strange. I started the meditation doing the counting exercise and pushed myself all the way to 200. With the Holosync on, that is very difficult. After swimming in some realizations for a while, I went back to my count. This time, though, I had a determination to hold a STRONG concentration. I stared at one spot on the Buddha statue in front of me, did not blink, and counted about 100 breaths before actually blinking. I started the staring concentration after already counting 100, so I blinked on 200, and then proceeded to count to 300. Once the Holosync finally ended, I was so near straight exhaustion. Once the meditation ended, I laid down on my floor for a few minutes and just looked at the ceiling. It was one of the few times that my floor was actually comfortable.

So, tomorrow is the day that I fast for Gandhi. I will be taking a couple snack bars to work with me, just in case I can not continue with the fasting while there. (I.E. If I feel like I'm going to pass out, you can bet I'm putting food in my stomach.) I am doing the fast out of respect for Gandhi, but I know that if it begins to hurt me, that is not the way someone such as Gandhi would like me to be. So that being said, everyone, I am calling it a night. I will post another blog tomorrow describing how the fast went.

Thank you for reading.

Namaste.

Vow of Silence, Day 5

Though not as exciting as the other days, this day was just overall interesting for me. I woke up this morning and went to the grocery store to pick up some food, since I have been eating a bit more than usual lately, so I felt that it would be nice to sort of "reimburse" my parents for the food I have been eating. I can home and spent some time with my parents. They went off to nap since they had both been up since early in the morning, so I went a took a nice, relaxing shower. Once I got out of the shower, my sister came home and we went to Wal-Mart because I needed a trash can and a recycle bin. The trip to Wal-Mart was particularly interesting since Amanda (my sister) had no idea why we were there. I had to signal to her that I was looking for trash cans, so we aimlessly wandered around the store until we finally found them. She followed me around the store, which was funny because she has never been to Wal-Mart with me when I was looking for particular things. I swear, she must've gotten lost at least 5 different times trying to figure out where I was going. Haha, poor girl. Anyway, we get the cans and head out of the store. We spend some more time with our parents and then I go downstairs to meditate. Meditation was quite interesting.

I began meditation by doing my breath-counting exercise, which I am developing into more of a concentration exercise and it is INCREDIBLE how well it works! I wouldn't let my mind do ANYTHING else until I counted one-hundred breaths. By the time I got to one-hundred, I was in a state of mind where I could feel my conscious and my subconscious working at the same time, each of them going at it 50-50. It was the strangest feeling ever. Imagine doing nothing, because you're under a trance-like meditation, but you can watch and FEEL yourself IN that trance! I was able to think my own thoughts, but they were much deeper. I think I have found the state of mind to be in to have my realizations. While in this state, I decide to start trying to hack away at what is known as the "false-self" or the "I-concept". This is a very difficult thing to do and I was not able to break the false-self, though with time, I'm sure I can, and it will be essential to discovering enlightenment. I ran through every realizable concept I could until I started coming up on ones that I could not yet break through, which is mentally frustrating, because I was on such a roll with breaking through these concepts, I thought it was never going to end, but when I hit that wall, I hit it HARD. It broke my concentration, so then I had to go back to counting breaths and I just counted until the Holosync ended and took the meditation with it. Hopefully if I continue to meditate on the false-self, I will be able to smash it to bits and be that much closer to liberation. Also during meditation, I wrote down a few things right as I got back into my normal conscious. Here's what I wrote, word for word:

"Selflessness breaks the self.

Impermanence is impermanent because it is ever-changing. We can escape impermanence because it is insolid and unstable. Spiritual STABILITY IS KEY."

Now, I am not quite sure if "insolid" is a word, but I understand what it means, and I'm sure you do too. It was strange writing this, because once I left the meditation, I couldn't remember what I wrote down and didn't re-read it until just now. I guess I will keep that logbook next to my meditation table every time I meditate so I can write more things down.

So, as some of you may know, for the longest time, I have had a very strong fear of death and dying. It is a very common thing, which I knew, and death is inevitable, however it STILL would give me chronic anxiety attacks. There was only one thing that would stop these attacks, but that thing is no longer here. I was reading in my book and came up to the chapter that discusses death in particular and the views that the various schools of Buddhist thought had on death. Well, being a Zen Buddhist, I paid close attention to the Zen description on death and it actually made me feel much better about the subject. It says that when a Buddhist reaches that final point where his/her life is ending, it is merely the physical body that dies. Your true form does not die, for it is your spirit that technically HAS no life, so it can not live OR die, it just IS. When I die, I will either be reincarnated so that I may continue my spiritual journey toward liberation and breaking the cycle of samsara, or I will break the cycle in this life and move on to bigger and better things at the time of my departure. The more I think about these two endings, the more comfortable I feel about death. Also, this story helped me out quite a bit:

"A notoriously cruel and ferocious samurai is looting and pillaging a particular village with his band of henchmen when he sees the local Zen master sitting quietly in meditation. The samurai walks up behind the Zen master, applies the sharp blade to the master's neck, and arrogantly anounces, 'You know, I am someone who could cut off your head without batting and eye.' To this, the master replies calmly, 'And I am someone who could have his head cut off without batting an eye.' Stunned to the core by the master's response and realizing that he has met his superior, the samurai immediately bows before the master and becomes his disciple."

To those of you not involved in Buddhism, that story may not mean that much to you, but I particularly love that story. It is a short one, but I feel that it is a story of spiritual strength, focus, and fearlessness. I hope one day to be able to stare at death way and cause it to back down. No, I don't want an encounter with death, but I would like to be that unafraid of death.

Back to my day. (I got a little off track there.) At about 8 pm, I went over to Diana's house to chill out and play some Super Nintendo. It's really difficult to help the other person out on a level when you can't speak. Haha. I got hungry, so I "suggested" Taco Bell. She offered to drive me there and order since I can not speak, so I wrote down that I wanted 2 5-Layer Burritos and a medium tea. The lady had to think we were crazy when she asked if we wanted sauces. "Do you guys need sauces?" Diana looks at me. I nod. "What kind do you want? Hot?" Head shake. "Fire? Mild?" Hold up a number 2 and nod. "He wants mild." That is the first time I had that long of contact with someone who did not know about my vow. We proceeded to head back to her house, eat my burritos, play a little more Mario, then I left so she could go to bed. So it was a pretty good day.

I have also considered a new vow that I would like to put into effect sometime after I do a little more research. I would like to live like I was in a monastery for one week. (I say one week because I am not conditioned to live like that for longer than that period of time.) Obviously, like with my current vow, I will have to make some exceptions, but it will be the closest thing I can get to living in a monastery at this present point in my life. Another big thing coming up, the day of Gandhi's death. January 3oth. On this day, along with my vow of silence, I will be fasting. No food after noon. I plan on waking up at around 9:30 am to have a meal, then eat another meal at about 11:30 am, then drink nothing but water and possibly tea for the rest of that day. It's going to be challenging, but it will be worth it to pay respects to one of my favorite historical figures.

Well, I think I am done going on and on for the night, so I will post another one of these tomorrow night (Day 6, here I come!). Thank you for reading.

Namaste.

Vow of Silence, Day 4

Oh Day 4, how you came and went so quickly.

Let me go ahead and start with my meditation, because it was AWESOME! I did my Zen sitting meditation (zazen) and used Holosync as I usually do. Now, I am going to give a little information on Zen Buddhism's terms of enlightenment. Zen states that everyone possesses a "Buddha nature" within them, basically that enlightenment is already within you, you just have to uncover it. It also states that complete enlightenment can happen at any time and for any length of time, even coming out in a burst known as "kensho" or "satori". Well, during meditation, my mind began to wander and I wanted to regain control over where it was going, so I started counting my breaths to bring more awareness to it and to calm my mind when all of a sudden, EVERYTHING made sense and I had discovered a level of satori! Now, I could tell you ALL of the things that I thought about during satori, but that would make it too easy and Buddhism is truly about the experience, rather than the knowledge. I know some of you are wanting to learn from me and I am more than happy to teach, and yes, I will obviously do my best for you to have the same realizations I had so that you, too, can experience satori, because it is a feeling you'll want to share with the world.

Onto the rest of the day! Work was quite interesting, as it usually is, and of course consisted of the mocking that I have grown quite used to, but I noticed something about my own mind this time. While LB and Harley usually joke around and poke fun, I usually try to think of witty things to say as well and even in my silence, I have tried to think of such things. However, today my mind did not try as hard to come up with things to say back, as it usually does since I am so used to cracking jokes back (usually really bad ones, because I lack the expertise to make gems). Perhaps with time, my mind is becoming more evasive of such negative speak, but whatever the case may be, I'm actually quite glad I am able to just by-stand and hear the jokes, rather than make them. Work is also much more fun since the break into Zen Buddhism, since Zen teaches us to practice living in the present moment in everyday tasks, and pizza making is definitely already a relaxed thing, so getting into the present moment is not entirely difficult.

Well, I presently have nothing left to blog about, so I guess I am off to eat a small meal, clean up my room, and then begin reading my book again. Thank you for reading!

Namaste.

Vow of Silence, Day 3

Ah, time for the update on Day 3. Today was a good and relaxing day. I learned more about Buddhism since I read quite a bit and will continue to read a lot. My goal will be to have my Buddhism for Dummies book finished by the end of my vow. I am half way done with the book and near half way finished with my vow, so looks like it may be down to the wire! Haha. Anyway, Ryan came back from Florida and it was good to see him, even though I couldn't really say much to him. His story was very interesting and I wish I could've spoken to him, but a vow is a vow. I spent a good amount of time with my family today, which is nice. I guess when you can't speak you tend to spend more time around the people who see you the most. Perhaps they understand you a bit more. Also, when someone is not speaking, it is easier to get a little lonesome, so spending time with people is nice even though you can not speak to them. Meditation was very good today. I put some of the Zen Buddhism meditation practices into...well, practice and it turned out quite well. I do believe my becoming a Zen Buddhist was the appropriate decision, for it has already made me so happy. I also had the chance to observe myself quite a bit. I came to notice that when you do not have to use of your voice, you tend to be more patient because you can not simply say something, you must find another way to communicate, whether by body language or hand signals. Of course, when your family needs to have a serious conversation with you, have a computer nearby helps. Regularly, I wouldn't use the computer, but this was a very serious matter. I am also sure that some of the readers are wanting to know who the select few are that I mentioned in earlier entries, so to clear the air about it, I will not mention who they are, and I also will not tell their names after my vow is up either. I came to this decision because I felt it best to be that way. Those select few know who they are and are welcome to come forward if they want, but I will not give out their identity.

One sad thing that I have noticed is that now that I am silent, it is more difficult for me to help my friends with their problems. I have friends who will send me text messages that need advice, but I can't help them due to the vow. I don't enjoy that feeling. Well, perhaps I should discuss emotions during the vow of silence now. I am able to reflect on my emotions much deeper than before. I am able to watch my emotions and feel the ones I choose to feel. Also, I feel that I have a much wider range of emotion. Generally, when we feel something, we verbalize it so that others can sympathize, which means we have to put them into a verbal form. Without the speaking aspect, I am able to truly feel each and every emotion more deeply, because I do not vocalize a shortened version of it. When I hear or feel something that is pleasing to my ears or touch, I enjoy it more. Taking out the verbal part of my senses causes me to not think of words so much, so I do not need to describe it to myself, I merely need to just let the feeling enter.

My dad asked me another question today.

Is it becoming easier since a few days have passed? Yes, it is getting a little easier to stay silent, as I am becoming more accustomed to it, as are those around me.

One subject I would like to address is this, speaking and not speaking seems to create a different personality. It feels almost as if I am a different person, since I am not giving speech. I have been in situations where myself as a speaking person would've acted differently than myself as a silent person. Imagine it as having a coin sitting on a table. You've left the coin there for years without touching it, in fact, the coin has been there for as long as you can remember. One day, you decide to flip the coin over to see what is on the other side and it is NOTHING like the other side. Like going from silver on one side to brass on the other. Both are beautiful, have other very good qualities, attached to the same thing, yet are completely different. That is what it is like to go from vocal to silent. Though it feels like a different personality, I know that once I can speak again, I will take favor of the better personality and that will be my silent one. I am not saying I am going to be silent all the time, for I feel that I will have much to say, but I will continue to be what silence has made me. I can not put it into words, for there are not enough words for it. There are some things humans can not and should not put into word form. You merely have to experience it.

And for the record, it sometimes becomes difficult to think of things to type, so if there are any questions anyone would like answered, you can email them to me zenpigeon89@gmail.com

I am done for the night and am off to read more in my book.

Namaste.

Vow of Silence, Day 2

Today went over very well! My manager understood my position on not talking, so when I wasn't working the register or answering phones, I did not have to speak. She even said "Give me a shake if that remade pizza is in the oven!" That made me smile for a good ten minutes. I am very glad that everyone is respecting my decision. It would be nice to get the full-fledged experience by not uttering one sound for the entire week, but if you add up the time per day that I am using my voice, it would equal out to MAYBE 15 minutes. And that's ONLY when I work. When I am at home or anywhere else, my trap is shut. So obviously the observations continue on.

I have noticed that I am not the only one learning from this vow! People around me who are taking note of this (mostly the people who see me everyday) are actually seeing how much a difference it is for one person to not speak. I have also been getting a lot of respect for sticking with the vow and to those of you who have sent me messages speaking positively of my choice, thank you very much. It really means a lot to me to receive those messages. My father also asked me some questions today that I didn't realize should probably be addressed on here. Here we go!

Do I go anywhere since I do not speak? Yes. I went to the gas station and the grocery store tonight to pick up some highlighters for the book I am reading and some yummy Valentines candy.

How do I pay for things? I generally try to use self checkouts or pay for gas at the pump.

Do I get any funny looks from people? Not really. The situation has not yet arisen that I would have to tell someone I do not know that I am on a vow of silence.

How would I tell them? I would signal to them by holding up a peace sign (V), make an O and then a W with my fingers, then press my index finger to my lip. Vow of Silence. Get it? Haha.

Am I going to take any other vows? (Like celibacy, fasting, and the like) No, I do not plan on it. My only vows of celibacy and fasting are on Buddhist holy days.

Is working more difficult since I can not openly communicate with my coworkers? A little, but I can get my points across to them. One clap means no, two claps means yes, three claps means unsure, and LB jokingly said four claps means mung. I started clapping in periods of four and LB said, "He must be hungry." For those of you who don't know what mung is, don't ask. You may vomit.

Okay. On to other subjects. Meditation today was quite interesting. I got pretty deep into the meditation and was able to visit my tree in the grove again! (If you read the first couple Buddhist Blogs on my Facebook, you know the grove I am referencing.) However, I was only able to visit for a short period. I also had a great experience when I was meditating. I was aware and unified with everything. I could feel my energies surging from my body and encompassing everything. I could feel the futon's legs on the floor, I could feel the house sitting on the ground, I could feel the world floating in space encircling the sun, I could feel the universe exist. After I came back to myself after the visualization, I began having a hard time focusing again, so the rest of my meditation was spent trying to refocus my mind. Something also happened that I have noticed happens quite frequently. While I was meditating, I became so calm that I felt as though I was not breathing! I was reading the Buddhism for Dummies book that I bought to get a better understanding of my religion and was shocked to read this, "Some meditators become so calm and focused that their breathing seems to stop altogether." Upon reading this, you can bet that I felt relieved considering that I was a little worried that I actually was not breathing, but the reading had assured me that this was a normal (even an exceptional) part of intense Buddhist meditation. Upon waking from the meditation, I felt great as I normally do and went on about my day as usual. Well, as usual as one can be without speaking to anyone. Haha.

Well I believe I am done discussing the day and I think it is time for me to go read more of my book. Thank you for reading.

Namaste.