Introduction
Sometimes silence seems rare — something we must seek in retreats or by the sea. But true silence is right here, in this very moment.
This piece explores how we can come home to that simplicity, not by fighting our thoughts, but by seeing through them.
Now
There is a quiet place accessible to everyone, no matter what you are doing or how busy your life is.
It’s not found on a mountaintop, not in a monastery, not even in a retreat center. It is found in this moment — right here, right now.
The art is to keep returning to it: again and again, landing in the present. To make it a habit, a way of living — not just a trick or technique.
When we let our attention rest in the now, the quality of our experience changes. Time slows down, perception becomes clearer, the mind settles, and the body naturally exhales more deeply.
Silence beyond past and future
When we are truly present, both past and future grow quiet — not because they cease to exist, but because they play no role in this one moment of direct experience.
It is only when the mind engages with the past or the future that the familiar streams of thought begin to flow: memories, expectations, plans, judgments.
That is precisely the terrain where feelings like fear, regret, and worry take root. In the now, these emotions are not permanently present; they appear as movements of the mind, not as solid realities.
Thoughts can still arise, of course — that’s what the mind does. But in the now, thoughts become transparent: they come and go because they no longer hold us captive.
The silence that becomes audible then is not the absence of thinking, but the space where thoughts no longer find an owner.
Silence is not the absence of sound,
but no longer being distracted by it.
Ronald de Caluwé
Not an escape, but a homecoming
That silence is not an escape from the world.
It is, in fact, a return to it — a letting go of an artificial, confused way of perceiving: the habit of taking thoughts as facts, as truths about ourselves or others.
In that sense, mindfulness is not about escaping reality, but about returning to it — about restoring contact with the intelligence of the body.
Not the analytical kind, but the embodied, feeling intelligence that experiences the world directly.
The real world — the one we withdrew from when we mistook our thoughts for solid and substantial things.
It is that very misunderstanding that creates inner restlessness.
The moment we confuse our mental stories with reality, we get entangled in them.
We start chasing the fleeting shadows of our own ideas and lose touch with what is actually happening in the simplicity of the here and now.
The world of “us versus them”
One of the clearest expressions of this confusion can be seen in the widespread us versus them mentality.
We divide the world into groups and camps, as if those boundaries were real.
But “us versus them” is, in the end, nothing more than a string of words — a concept, an idea.
There is nothing tangible about it.
Yet people act on such thoughts as if they were laws of nature, and by doing so, those ideas start to seem dangerously real.
The aggression that follows does not arise from reality itself, but from our illusion of what reality is.
In the silence of the moment, that division falls away.
We begin to see that the separation between “us” and “them” is not rooted in reality, but in language.
The world turns out to be more open, less hostile, and — above all — much simpler.
The simplicity of breath and presence
Returning to the now is like coming home after a long journey.
In the present, there is nothing you need to achieve, fix, or explain.
Only to be.
The breath is a faithful ally in this.
It always happens in the present — never yesterday, never tomorrow.
And it is always with you.
A perfect anchor for awareness.
When we consciously follow the breath, it reminds us that we are part of something larger — of a rhythm that moves on its own, that carries us without our having to control it: the rhythm of life itself.
In that simple breathing, the tension of striving, of wanting to know, of needing to hold on, begins to dissolve.
The mind does not necessarily become thoughtless, but unforced.
Thoughts may still arise, but they take their rightful place — small waves on a quiet sea.
Not deceived by words
Words and concepts help us communicate, yet they can also start creating their own reality.
Those who practice presence learn to feel the difference.
A word is like a label on a jar: useful to know what’s inside, but not the same as the contents.
Once we forget that, we end up living in a world of labels and lose the taste of real life.
The silence of the now reveals the world without those labels.
We discover that we are more than our stories — and that the world is more than our descriptions of it.
What remains is a gentler way of being present: with ourselves, with others, with life itself.
A daily practice
Returning to the present moment takes practice — every day, again and again.
Noticing how we drift off into stories, and gently coming back each time.
The repetition is the practice.
Just as a musician tunes their instrument, we tune our attention to the resonance of life itself.
And then, one ordinary day, you notice that presence has become effortless.
The breath flows calmly.
The world feels clear.
There is no longer any struggle between what is and what should be.
The silence that becomes audible then reveals the difference between the emptiness of a mind full of thoughts and the spaciousness in which everything is welcome.
“Same but different”
Those who regularly practice landing in the present moment begin to notice a subtle shift in daily life.
Things remain the same, yet the way we meet them changes.
We respond less from fear or judgment, and more from clarity and kindness.
That is not spiritual fluff — it is a form of grounded intelligence.
Perhaps the most natural kind there is.
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