Stillness Isn't Found in Silence

In the community sauna, I close my eyes. Around me, voices rise and fall, bodies shift, the occasional splash of water hissing against the stones. And then, a voice—familiar, warm, full of life—pulls me from my half-dream. It’s Willie, laughing, tossing his words into the air.

Willie is an elder of the sort we don’t recognize enough these days. Not because of wisdom etched in books, but because he knows how to be. He fills a space unapologetically, his presence a kind of prayer. When he steps out for air, his voice carries down the hall—Eh-oh!—as if calling the world to attention.

He turns to me, grinning, “Not the best place to meditate, huh?”

“This is the best place to meditate,” I reply.

Because life is not meant to be lived in sterile, curated silence.

This interaction with Willie reminded me of another time. Years ago, I sat in the plush lobby of a medical spa, waiting for my turn in the infrared sauna. A woman emerged before me, shoulders tight with frustration. “I couldn’t turn the light off,” she said, her voice clipped with disappointment. “I couldn’t meditate.” The staff apologized, though the energy in the air whispered of something else. It was not the light that had unsettled her; it was the belief that meditation could only arrive in perfect conditions. If we must wait for silence to find peace, if we must wait for darkness to find stillness, we will wait forever. Life is a symphony. A chorus. The music only ends when our heart stops beating.

When I owned a yoga studio, it sat just off Main Street—literally on Main Street—where people passed by on the sidewalk, and the walls hummed with the life of neighboring businesses. In the middle of class, you might hear voices rising in conversation outside, the sudden wail of sirens cutting through the quiet, the world carrying on just beyond the door. Some students struggled with it. Some even complained.

But even then, I knew—the noise was never the problem. It was the boundaries they had built around their peace. The idea that stillness could only exist in perfect conditions. But peace is not something waiting in the absence of sound. It is something you bring with you, something that exists even as the world moves.

We often imagine Siddhārtha Gautama, the first Buddha, in serene solitude beneath the Bodhi tree—perched atop a lonely mountain, untouched by the world. The paintings and statues depict it that way, reinforcing the myth of separation. But the truth is, the tree was not alone, and neither was he. It stood among other trees, in the heart of life, and he simply sat beneath it. Enlightenment did not come from escaping the world, but from being fully within it.

In The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer tells us: “When you are aware being, you no longer become completely immersed in the events around you. Instead, you remain inwardly aware that you are the one who is experiencing both the events and the corresponding thoughts and emotions.”

There is a moment, before we are swept away, when we can choose to watch instead of react. When the world crashes around us—when the sound is too loud, the heat too sharp, the people too much—there is a choice to be made. Do we lose ourselves in it? Do we let it pull us from our center? Or do we witness?

Singer speaks of awareness as the quiet observer, the steady presence that remains untouched by the noise of the world. And it is there, always, beneath our distractions and our narratives. The one who sees the frustration but does not become it. The one who hears the noise but does not drown in it.

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, “You do not need to sit to meditate. Anytime you are looking deeply – whether you are walking, chopping vegetables, brushing your teeth, or going to the bathroom – you can be meditating.”

Meditation is not a temple. It is not a cushion. It is not the absence of noise.

It is the act of looking deeply.

Not waiting for stillness, but finding it in motion. Not demanding silence, but listening through the sound. Not setting the world aside to seek peace, but seeking peace within the world.

This is what the woman in the spa had not yet understood. She had built walls around her stillness, had set conditions for its arrival. The light was on, so she could not meditate. But meditation is not fragile. It is not delicate. It does not depend on the perfect arrangement of external things or the attainment of internal objectives.

The work is not to remove the noise. The work is to sit in the noise, breathe into it, and let it pass through.

To look deeply, no matter where you are. To find a sense of contentment no matter the external circumstances.

Because the world will keep shouting. The voices will rise and fall. And yet, beneath it all, the silence remains.

This is the great paradox. And in this noticing, the mind, like a well-trained hound, rushes forward to name, to define, to sort. This is good. That is bad. This belongs. That must go.

The moment you cease to grasp, to name, to judge, something extraordinary happens. The rigid lines you’ve drawn begin to blur. The world, once a collection of things, becomes a single, flowing event.

It does not need naming to exist. It does not seek our approval to unfold. The stars have never stopped burning because someone called the night dark. The trees do not pause their growing to ask if their branches are beautiful. Life simply is. And the deeper mystery? It is only when we cease this endless churning of thought—when we step outside of the tangle of words and judgments—that we begin to truly see.

This is where life reveals itself—not in the clamor of the mind, but in the silent, holy space where all things breathe together.

And so, the practice is not to seek stillness in a dark and quiet corner, but to soften into it where we are. To hear the noise and know the silence beneath it.

Because life is not waiting to be understood. It is not seeking our interpretation of its unfolding. It is simply waiting to be lived. It is simply waiting to be witnessed deeply. Aren’t we all.

© 2025 Tara Hansen, LLC