The Quiet Underneath

01Sit however you can sit for a while without shifting. Let the back be long and the face be soft.

02Begin by listening. Not for anything in particular — just let sound arrive. Traffic, a fridge, a voice somewhere. Do not push any of it away.

03Now notice that underneath every sound there is a quiet that the sound is happening in. The quiet is not the absence of noise. It was there before the noise and it remains after.

04Bring your attention there. To the quiet underneath. When a thought comes, and it will, let it be another sound happening inside the same stillness.

05Breathe. Let each out-breath sink you one layer lower, like a stone settling through water.

06If you find yourself following a thought, you have not gone anywhere. Simply notice, and return to the quiet underneath. This returning is the whole practice. Do it a hundred times without complaint.

07Stay here for a long minute. I will be quiet with you.

08Now feel the stillness in the body: the parts of you that are not moving at all. The back of the skull. The knees. The space between the shoulder blades.

09Before you finish, make one promise: that at some point today, when the noise rises, you will remember that the quiet is still underneath it. You do not have to create it. You only have to notice it.

10Take a slow breath. Let your eyes open into the room.