Noble silence is best: 7 days to happiness

Who can force me to talk? No one.

"Noble Silence" was taught by the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. He practiced it himself when responses to certain questions about reality would be misleading.

One such instance is when he was asked 14 unanswerable questions. In similar situations, he often responded to dichotomy-based descriptions of reality (this versus that opposites) by saying that both antithetical options presented to him were inappropriate or inapplicable.

A specific reference to noble silence in the Buddha's Teaching involved an occasion when the Buddha forbade his disciples from continuing a discussion, saying that in such congregations the discussion of the sacred Dharma is improper and it is better to practice noble silence (Hermann Beckh, 2019, [The] Buddha's Life and Teaching. Forest Row: Temple Lodge Publishing, p. 106).

What is silence? Why talk to the biased? (Quote Master)

This does not indicate misology or disdain for philosophy on the Buddha's part. Rather, it indicates that he viewed these questions as not leading to true wisdom (Gadjin M. Nagao, Madhyamika and Yogachara. Leslie S. Kawamura, translator, SUNY Press, Albany 1991, pp. 40-41).

Dependent Origination is one of the Buddha's great contributions to the path to liberation as well as philosophy. It provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence.

Instead, what is better is the direct cognition of phenomena as they present themselves to the mind. This informs and supports the Buddhist approach to liberation via ethical (virtue) and meditative training known as the Noble Eightfold Path.

• How long until silence is internalized? Seven days of external silence is sufficient. Meditation will improve, and absorption will become available. Happiness (piti and sukha, effervescent zest and calm contented abiding) will then arise effortlessly.

External vs. internal silence

Let go, and absorb. It's bliss.

While silence is generally thought to be observable outside a person, something external, it is actually internal.

Whether or not one is talking, according to the Pali canon, what is far more noble is internal silence -- a state synonymous with meditative absorption (jhana/zen).

Chief male disciple Maha Moggallana (whose name was Kolita*) once explained: "[I asked myself,] 'What is noble silence?' Then the thought occurred to me, 'A meditator, with the stilling of applied and sustained attention, enters and abides in the second meditative absorption accompanied by rapture and pleasure born of concentration (samadhi = unification of mind) free from applied and sustained attention — with internal assurance. This is called noble silence'" (Kolita Sutta: "Kolita's Discourse").

• *Kolita Sutra: Mahā Moggallāna tells the monastics at Jetavana how, when he had entered the second meditative absorption, in his effort to attain to "noble (aryan) silence," the Buddha appeared to him and exhorted him to persist in it (S.ii.273).

Of the eight meditative absorptions, the second absorption or jhana is when the inner dialogue finally goes silent during meditation.

Then external silence becomes easy and preferable to constant chatter and commentary. With noble silence, reality becomes much clearer. And awakening may dawn with sudden insight based on this temporary purification of mind. More