Summary

The article discusses the transformative impact of experiencing absolute silence in nature, particularly during mountain runs, and how it led the author to meditation and self-discovery.

Abstract

The author shares a personal journey of how encountering absolute silence during a mountain run in Gerês, Portugal, became a pivotal moment in their life. This experience of profound silence, initially frightening, prompted a quest to find and embrace such moments, leading to a practice of meditation. The article emphasizes the importance of silence for mental clarity and personal growth, suggesting that meditation can help individuals deal with the discomfort of being alone with their thoughts. The author encourages readers to seek out moments of silence, even in noisy environments, to reconnect with themselves and find inner peace.

Opinions

The author believes that absolute silence is a rare and valuable experience that can be found in nature, especially in the mountains.
Encountering silence can be initially unsettling but ultimately enlightening and liberating.
Regularly seeking silence through practices like meditation can enhance one's quality of life, concentration, and relaxation.
The author initially had misconceptions about meditation, associating it with religious practices, but later discovered its broader benefits for training consciousness and developing a healthy perspective on reality.
The article suggests that silence is not just an absence of sound but a state of being that can lead to profound self-awareness and stress relief.
The author posits that cultivating silence is a way to nurture one's uniqueness and encourage self-discovery.
The experience of silence is compared to an "endless expanse of snow," majestic yet intimidating, which resonates with the author's interpretation of a Norwegian poet's view on silence.

How Absolute Silence Has Changed Me

Why it's so important to find the sound of silence.

The ritual and the nervousness are always both the same. I check every detail before I go early to bed the night before. I wake up at 4 AM and drive 3 hours to the tallest mountain in Portugal.

I always go alone, just me and the sound of absolute silence.

When you plan to run in the mountains, there is some mandatory material that you have to read for safety. The race is an enormous stage of 54 hard kilometers to overcome the challenging mountain — it’s too easy to lose yourself there. Sometimes, you get so tired that you lose perspective of where you are and end up on a different trail by mistake.

In silence, here I go toward Serra da Estrela (The Star Mountain). In silence, with nerves on edge, I start one more journey. One more race. One more epic trip into the unknown.

Start feeling the sound of silence invading your soul.

One day, as a grown-up, some friends invited me to jog in the countryside. I immediately accepted. That was the day that changed my life forever.

In the north part of my country, there is a mountain called Gerês. It’s on the border between Portugal and Spain.

In Gerês, I’ve passed through places that seemed like Chamonix portraits.

I was running for about 5 hours. That race didn’t have many ups and downs as in ordinary races worldwide, so I was able to fully appreciate the beauty of the mountain.

After 5 hours of uninterrupted running, I came to a sudden stop.

I heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. No wind. No animals. No people. Nothing.

At first, I thought something was wrong with my hearing. I could see the typical village scenes — cows chewing on grass, birds flying in the air — but I couldn’t hear anything.

The absolute silence lasted 30 seconds.

Then a cow finally made some noise, and I realized that that silence is a normal thing in these places.

But it was enough to scare me.

The moment I understood silence.

After those 30 seconds in Gerês, I started to reflect on silence. I never had before, because when you run in nature, you hear its spirit. It is peaceful, but you hear the birds and wild animals.

You rarely hear the silence.

My life carried on, and I kept running through mountains. I kept looking for that silence again.

Before any race started, I closed my eyes and tried to visualize that place in Gerês. That little paradise where everything seemed to stop.

And I found several places in the middle of nowhere where I could see the same absolute silence.

Whenever it happened, I always stopped to contemplate that rare second of nothing. And better than that, I started to close my eyes and emerge into the silence.

I felt totally free. For those particular moments, I could feel nothing — just silent freedom.

The way you can find more places with silence.

One of my friends that runs with me in the mountains said that he started to meditate. He felt more relaxed, concentrated, and focused.

For me, meditation was the image of Budha and these monks in their sanctuaries with their skinheads and red clothes. People trying to find God through this meditation thing.

Ignorance of mine.

Some years later, I found out through a youtube video from TedX and learned meditation has nothing to do with my preconceived thoughts. Meditation is a way of training your consciousness and having a healthy conception of reality.

That was when I came across a fantastic article about meditation.

I downloaded the app, and the next day, at 7 AM, there I was. Hearing this relaxing voice talking about breathing. A female voice whispering about relaxing and focusing on the breath.

When I’m immersed in my breathing space, I can reach that special zone like I can when I run. I can hear the sound of silence.

Silence can also be painful if you don’t know how to deal with it.

I recently read a book written by a Norwegian called Erling Kagge. The book was about his adventures in Antarctica. Kagge had to deal with absolute silence for more than fifty days with minus forty degrees.

In the book, Kagge writes of what the Norwegian poet, Jon Fosse, had to say about silence:

Perhaps this is so, not only because silence accompanies admiration, but also because it has a kind of majesty, yes, like an ocean or an endless expanse of snow. (…) And anyone who is not admired by this majesty fears it. And that is, most likely, the reason why many fear silence.

Dealing with silence needs training.

Start small. Start being with yourself for just a couple of minutes and seek to find a little piece of silence. It’s ok to be afraid; that’s part of the process.

With meditation, you’ll be able to enjoy even more those moments. You’ll be more relaxed, more sensible to the simplicity and the art of being in silence with yourself.

You can find absolute silence and be empowered by it.

If you never tried to meditate, give it a try.

If you never found these seconds of nothing, start to be aware.

If you live in a boisterous environment, find a peaceful place where you can hear nothing. Just close your eyes and see what will happen.

It’s not easy to be with yourself. Just you with nothing else around. No people, no cars, no music, nothing.

But then, you can find new things inside your brain. You can start to really fill every cell of your body. You can hear your heartbeat. You can feel your muscles. You can feel the weight of your bones.

Then, something incredible starts to happen. You start to really relax. You start feeling those parts of your body that have been tense for years.

With silence, you can start to feel your breath.

With silence, you will concentrate every part of your body on this single and simple thing.

Breathing.

You’ll feel all of the stress disappear. Everything else, outside of yourself, doesn’t matter anymore. For years, you were absorbing all the things that came from the outside.

But now, with meditation, you can find your own silence and use it to help find yourself again.

Cultivate your uniqueness with the simplicity of silence.

There is only one version of you.

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