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The Quiet Room

Read what Rachel Almog, a member of the TS/TOS in Israel, writes about the project she developed for ‘quiet rooms’ at schools.

Rachel writes:

Time, age and life experiences aroused me to ask more and more about the meaning of why I was born, why there is suffering and pain, and so on. I was agitated with my thoughts spinning as if in a washing machine drum. I had no rest until I studied relaxation, meditation and visualisation. Then one day I discovered that there was a lot of quietness in me. I asked myself again, what made me feel so quiet inside, in my feelings and thoughts? I came to understand that daily meditation was the reason, and really sorry that I didn’t know about it while I was younger. I could have avoided much suffering, distress and frustration.

I thought about those wasted years. If only I’d known about the bliss of meditation. If only I’d known to just take a break every day, to stop for a minute this crazy race of materiality, of all that we think about as important in life: career, money, social class, trying to keep our youth and weight, trying to please, to be important and wanted, and so on. So much energy and strength invested for nothing, just to fill a huge growing emptiness inside… Although nothing changed in my life, meditation gave me a new point of view about it.

The quietness I have experienced in 20 minutes of meditation in my room, isolated from outside noise and hustle, made the change, created a miracle. Indeed, this living marvel is but the start of a long way before me, yet it is a miracle. So I asked myself, even if I did not have this quietness in me in youth, can other children enjoy this? And how?

Being a teacher and used to educating, my natural place is school. Though now retired, I felt I should go to school and teach kids the wisdom of meditation.

That is how the idea of ‘The Quiet Room’ was born. I volunteered over four years ago, to have a quiet room at school. Children come to the pleasant room I have created: curtains, a carpet from wall to wall, quiet music as background, mattresses, cushions, board games and creative games.

All that the kids are asked to do in the room is to keep silent, to play and talk and create silently, to talk kindly, no quarrelling, no incitement and no competitiveness, just to calm down for one hour a week (regretfully not enough). The child has no commitment. Nothing is demanded of him or her.

The child gets the chance to have time-out from ‘stormy’ life, where all the time adults and friends are demanding him or her to fill high social standards without checking to see if the child is ready to fill them. Many children experience frustrations, hardships and problems and carry them into adulthood, sore and sad. I have asked myself: what is my goal? Can I achieve it? What do I want?

I want the world to be a more pleasant place to live in. I want us all to have a quieter mind. The kids who come to my quiet room do behave better to each other. They are more relaxed and quiet in the room. They enjoy attention and get it unconditionally. They feel pleased and relaxed (sometimes even take a nap). They are accepted with a big smile and a hug, and then go back to class satisfied and calmer (that is what their teachers say) – and I am thankful for that.