Zen and the Art of Silent Movie Watching

Must mindfulness always mean meditation—eyes closed, mind clear, simply breathing, simply being? Dan Harris’ recent best seller 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Really Work—a True Story modestly proposed that just 5 minutes of meditation a day could go a long way towards making you more mindful and more happy, even if it’s just 10% happier. But even 5 minutes of meditation seems impossible for many people conditioned to be continually on the go or continually stimulated visually by one screen or another. After reading Harris’ book and David S. Shields’ Still: American Silent Motion Picture Photography (which I reviewed here)
close to one another, my new interest in mindfulness overlapped with my rekindled interest in silent film. If we can’t break our visual addiction but acknowledge the need for greater mindfulness, I thought, then maybe the different kind of visual storytelling of the silent film era might be the solution—a tale of Zen and the art of silent movie watching. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Zen and the Art of Silent Movie Watching."