The Zen Guy, Ch. 13

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

A:  John Cage's 4'33".

What is the sound of the quietest place on earth?

Ask the Anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota.  The Guinness Book of World Records rates it as the quietest place on earth.  The walls of the chamber are lined with sound-absorbing baffles that can capture noise and mute it in an instant.  To make it 99% silent, even the lights are turned off as they emit noises which would be evident once all the otherwise distracting sounds are eliminated. 

So what is left?

Only the sound of your breathing and your heart beat.  Which can be disconcerting if you aren't used to it.  Silence, it turns out, can put a great strain on the brain.  Researchers at NASA have tested the room to simulate the silence of space--an environment astronauts would have to get used to-or not.   The longest anyone has spent in the room is 45 minutes, before they hallucinate or otherwise fail to deal with the radically silent environment.

Can you feel the blood going though your carotid arteries and into your brain?  Can you feel the pressure of it?  

During the late afternoon of the unstructured sitting practice during Sesshin, the rejuvenating practice of feeling the blood flow.   Feel the tension in the muscles ebb and flow with the flow and beat of the blood:-)