In our journey into silence we are not left on our own. What we are invited to do is to find a quiet place and set aside some time.

To find a quiet place where we can rest and allow the Lord to gather us into his peace we do not have to look far. That place is in ourselves, but we have never been shown how to find it.

‘Leave behind all noise and confusion,’ Augustine counsels. ‘Look within yourself and see whether there be some sweet hidden place within where you can be free from noise and argument, where you need not be carrying on your disputes, and planning to have your own stubborn way. Hear the word in quietness that you may understand it.’

To reach the quiet oasis of solitude within we first have to try to bring our body, mind and spirit into a state of quietness. But the more we try to bring our mind to inner quiet, the more it seems to rebel. In a little poem of four lines, ‘The Balloon of the Mind’, W. B. Yeats likens the mind to a balloon that is tossed around by the wind, and imagines his hands bringing it under control:

Hands, do what you’re bid! 

Bring the balloon of the mind

That bellies and drags in the wind 

Into its narrow shed.

Fortunately there are techniques that will help us bring the mind into its narrow shed. Attending to posture and to our breathing will help us find the still centre of our being. The general advice can be summed up in a few words: be attentive and open; sit still; sit straight; breathe slowly, deeply and naturally.

So, if our back and our body allow it, we learn to sit on an upright chair with spine straight, head erect and chin tucked in. Our hands are on our lap; our feet firmly planted on the ground.

We need to sit alert, relaxed and receptive. We close our eyes or lower them to the ground. Or we might prefer to fix our gaze on one thing – an icon, a light, a flower. We begin by taking a few deep breaths as we start to relax. Then we observe our breathing. We do not force it. We do not do anything except watch our breathing for as long as we can.

We choose our phrase or our word and abandon all effort except to repeat that little word or phrase. We come back to our word, without annoyance or upset, whenever we find we have wandered. Gently, come back to the centre, to where Christ is, in the centre of our heart.

And we keep doing this no matter how many times the mind bobs about in any wind that blows. No matter how often we have to drag the mind back to its narrow shed, we do not get bothered or give up. We rest and leave everything in God’s hands.

An extract from Finding Your Hidden Treasure

© 2010 Benignus O’Rourke OSA

Published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

© Photo: Ian Wilson OSA

Get the book: www.theaugustinians.org