I once read a story in a magazine about avalokitesvara listening to Zen. It is said that Guanyin Bodhisattva listened to Zen under the guidance of Master before becoming a Buddha. In other words, meditation practice in a room behind closed doors, without any interruption from outsiders, is very quiet. 500 years later, the master came to ask Guanyin what she heard. She said that she heard the sound of an embroidery needle falling to the ground outside the door. The master shook his head and told her to continue to listen to Zen. Five hundred years later, the master came back and asked her what she had heard. She said that she heard the sound of flowers blooming this time, but the master shook his head and left. Many years later, the master came back from a cloud and asked Guanyin what he had heard. Guanyin began to say that she couldn't hear anything this time. After a while, she said that she heard a flood somewhere thousands of miles away and the voices of those suffering people asking for help. At this time, the master said to Guanyin, you have thoroughly understood Buddhism by listening to Zen, and it is time to travel around the world for a lifetime. This story makes people feel the power of stillness, which can make people become buddhas.
Another time I watched a training lecture on management methods on TV. The main lecturer also advocated the benefits of silence. He asked some managers here to find a quiet time to reflect on the day's work after a busy day, and summarize the day's work so that they can work better the next day. It's best to choose this time after 10: 30 in the evening. He believes that only in a quiet environment can we have clearer and sharper ideas and constantly improve ourselves.
Static use also often plays a very good special effect in movies. For example, in a war movie, the plot reaches its climax in the sound of gunfire, and the protagonist bravely kills the enemy until he suddenly finds that he has run out of ammunition and food. At this tense moment of sacrifice, the director set a mute effect under the moving picture. You can still see the action scene of the explosion on the screen, and there is no sound of the explosion. At the same time, a quiet close-up of the hero's just facial expression was made. Let the audience suddenly fall into silence from the hustle and bustle, feel the tragic hero, and it is easier to catch the audience. In the beautifully-pictured film Hero, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Jet Li, martial artists respectively, also used the technique of moving pictures to silence when fighting on the lake. During the whole battle, only when two people touch weapons will there be a sound. Let people experience the realm of lightness skill in the fascinating China Kung Fu.
In order to pursue a better material life, people have to live in a noisy city, but when individuals have accumulated a certain amount, people who create wealth begin to pursue a quiet life. For example, villas where the rich live are mostly named after villas and lakes, while the environment near mountains and rivers is mostly quiet. Ordinary people can't help but struggle in downtown all their lives. Most of them dream of retiring one day and doing something they want to do. Probably painting, fishing, learning calligraphy, or spending my old age in my hometown in the countryside. In short, it is a relatively quiet life. It can be seen that people originally liked silence. But the reality is that the development of human industrialization and urbanization has made the earth more and more lively. Forests are getting smaller and smaller, rivers are gradually drying up, humans appear in the North and South poles, the development of deep-sea oil fields is advancing by leaps and bounds, and even space is full of planes from all countries. In recent years, intensified global warming will soon turn Russia's inaccessible Siberia and even the poles of the earth into cities. By then, it will be more and more difficult for human beings to find a static soil. In a noisy environment, people often have to keep quiet in the noise. For example, the popularity of self-study exams and the fever of self-study exams. Those who study hard by themselves often have a bad learning environment. They can still study and get good grades in exams. The key is to be calm, they are as calm as water, and their whole body and mind are devoted to books. I admire these persistent people, but this realm is not shared by ordinary people.
What kind of relative silence do we want? I have experienced almost absolute silence in our company's standard quiet laboratory. My eardrum will be a little uncomfortable in a noisy environment for a long time. The closed environment designed to create this absolute silence is also boring.
In a word, I yearn for the tranquility of nature. Imagine you are in a forest, everything is quiet, the wind is sunny, there are flowers and green leaves everywhere, and even there is a stream flowing under your feet, and birds fly over your head, making only a faint sound. This kind of tranquility is a complete relaxation, the true nature, and the place where our human thoughts and wisdom often reach. Perhaps the current popular direction of eco-environmental protection is the sincere return of human beings to tranquility. Let's support it and embrace it.