The Moment of Peace is specifically structured so that you don’t have to work out timezone differences.  It goes by the local time where you live.  This means, people will be participating throughout the day all across the world. It also ensures everyone gets to participate at a reasonable hour, rather than having to get up during the middle of the night.  You can read more here.

There are events occurring all over the world for The Moment of Peace, you can search and find locations near you on our searchable map.  Alternatively you can start up and advertise your own event in your area so that others can come and join you.  Some people in 2011 even put on events at their home and their people local to their area come and join them for the night.

No you don’t have to at all.  If you like you can just do it at home by yourself, your partner, or with your immediately family, and know that around the world, thousands of people are participating with you.

Have you noticed when you get busy there is an innate and natural drive to want to quieten down and have some “me time”? We go have a bath, we sit and have a coffee or tea, we go and read a book, we do our favourite hobby, we go for a walk, we go surfing or a bike ride, or we just sit in a park or by the ocean and enjoy being and living. This natural instinct is present in all of us and it is telling us to calm down and just to live a little more fully. Have you also noticed when our lives just don’t seem to be working and we are really unhappy we naturally start to seek answers and solutions? This natural drive for peace and happiness arises again. Mindful Silence is just tapping into this natural instinct in us to be quiet and present again with life but in a more skilful and refined way. We simply utilise the inherent qualities of our human experience and of nature to be mindfully aware. Mindfulness is the ability to place our attention on something and notice it. As a practice we learn to sustain and hold our attention on something we are concentrating on (maybe the breath) or we can learn to sustain bare attention on the flow of present moment experience. Stated differently, we can either practise exclusive focused attention or inclusive receptive awareness. If we try this practice, we’ll notice that with our busy minds and troubled lives we’ll drift off into thinking and worrying about other things, we get lost in a kind of daydream of our own. Mindful Silence requires that we bring ourselves back to being aware again in this silence experience of living now, over and over again.

Just like when our bodies are hungry, we need to eat, our lives are also hungry for Mindful Silence to nourish our experience of living. We just don’t seem to put two and two together and realise this. Through doing this practice on a daily basis for 20-30 minutes we allow this simple process of calming ourselves to occur. It is incredibly powerful. We are awake and busy for about 16 hours a day but just 20-30 minutes of Mindful Silence can help balance out this busyness in our lives. As we calm down, our problems also calm down. We are just recognising this inherent and natural drive in us to bring ourselves to peace and through Mindful Silence we are allowing it to occur.

As we do this, our troubles become less and less and we open ourselves up to a more rich and embracing experience of life. Bringing ourselves to peace means we will also find our relationships are much easier and we interact in the world much better. In this way, we create less problems in the world and we build a world that is more accepting, more harmonious. This is the natural result.

Done regularly, Mindful Silence can have lasting benefits in many areas in your life. As you sit in silence the agitation of your problem and the busyness of your mind starts to quieten down and so, too, do the problems in your life.

Psychologically it is a conscious and mental break from our usual thinking mind, engaging in reacting, denying, resisting or distracting. This allows an experience of inner and fundamental peace, the foundation to all psychological well-being.

Physically the body can respond to that quiet mind by lowering the heart rate and blood pressure, with the opportunity to develop our immune system and replenish our energy. It allows our mind and body to relax and release tension, enhancing our ability to have a calmer, quieter peaceful sleep as we move from a state of arousal and agitation to calm awareness.

Emotionally it allows us to come back to the peace of being neutral and achieving inner emotional stability. This becomes a foundation for all healthy and meaningful emotional interactions.

Inter-personally as we relate to others, it provides a foundation to both listening and consciously responding. This then enhances all our interpersonal interactions with others.

Spiritually Mindful Silence is a foundational quality of spiritual experience beyond the particulars of tradition, background, upbringing or culture. Both nourishing and nurturing, this inner quality of awareness allows us to harmonize all other aspects of our life.

Health is the result of the inner harmony and balance. Taking some time to be Mindfully Silent helps to restore and replenish this important underlying state, reducing stress and enhancing psycho-physical well-being.

Professionally our knowledge, skills and talents require a firm foundation in Mindful Silence to work efficiently and productively.

Yes, this is quite natural because we are used to being so busy. We experience a restlessness and boredom and a urge to want to move, scratch and fidget. Try to sit still for as long as you can. If you do eventually move, try to remain mindful and then, after a few minutes try again. Over time, and it does take time, you’ll gradually be able to sit still and quietly for longer periods of time. As you do this, you’ll notice your life gradually and miraculously improving.

We often expect a lot in life, expect things to be a certain way. There is nothing specific you need to be doing, no specific experience or state of mind you are trying to create or cultivate. You are not trying to create happy feelings or happy or calm states of mind. When you are doing it, you just feel or experience whatever it is your are experiencing. Hear the sound of trees, notice the sights you see, notice the thoughts that arise or just the sensations in the body. Mindful Silence is a natural instinct, an innate quality in our experience of being human, so it is impossible for you not to be able to do it. By simply being with life, a natural happiness will be revealed over time. Happiness is naturally there all the time, we just cover it over with all the busy-ness and agitation in our lives. Again, this takes time but within a few weeks of sitting silently and mindfully, you’ll start to notice the difference.

Yes they are. There are many variations of them and all spiritual and religious practices do them slightly differently. Inherent in all of them though is some kind of mindfulness practice, silence and stillness, be present with life, spirit, earth, God or something other than the fixation on ourselves. These qualities of silence and stillness are all just natural qualities within our human condition of living. So whether you are spiritual or religious or not at all, you can still get the benefits in your life without inherently having to believe in anything or follow any spiritual path. That said though, if you choose to, they are of immense benefit as well. Our goal is pass on the simple message of Mindful Silence as an essential life skill that anyone can do to improve their life