On the final installment of "The State of Spirituality with Lisa Ling," CBS Mornings heads to Northern California, where people seeking a break from the loud world go to be in silence for eight days.

Northern California

CBS News correspondent Lisa Ling visits the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California, where around 100 people from diverse backgrounds participate in an eight-day silent retreat. Research and participant testimony highlight the benefits of silence, including reduced stress, improved focus, and a sense of spiritual renewal. 

Facilitator Tuere Sala and attendee Noelle Clark share their experiences, noting that silence provides grounding and helps alleviate mental pressure. Despite initial challenges, such as personal crises, participants report healing, transformation, and a lasting sense of inner steadiness that they hope to carry into daily life.

Seeking silence from a loud world

Our series, we call it The State of Spirituality with Lisa Ling, explores people on very unique paths in their journeys of faith, religion, and of course, spirituality. So today, we touch on something that often makes a lot of people very uncomfortable, it's called silence. I know, just try it for a second. Stay silent for 10 seconds, it's hard. But the research shows that silence is physically and emotionally beneficial. Some say that prolonged silence can even be what they call a spiritual experience. Lisa traveled to Northern California to meet a group of people from various faiths and walks of life who are seeking to break from our very loud world. Nestled in the rural hills of Northern California, not far from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco, it's nature that speaks the loudest at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I'm gonna ask you to do something that you've probably never seen on TV before. I'm gonna ask you to stop what you're doing and just be silent. Feels good, right? Well, imagine doing it for eight days. This group of around 100 people haven't uttered a word in more than a week, and that's because they're participating in a silent retreat. If you talk to any of the retreatants, they feel alive, and that's what that silence does. Feeling the body after all that walking and movement. Tuere Sala is the retreat facilitator. She herself has participated in silent retreats as long as three months. Why is seeking out silence so important? I think that silence gives us our ground, gives us our center stability. Post-pandemic, silent retreats are surging in popularity. What would you say compels people to want to come and spend eight days, or in your case, three months sometimes, in total silence? What compels us is suffering, but what keeps you coming back retreat after retreat after retreat is the realization that you can be out of that suffering, that you can be released from that mental pressure. The benefit of silence isn't just anecdotal. Research shows silence helps lower blood pressure, cortisol levels, calms our thoughts, and can improve concentration and focus. We have to learn how to find that stillness. You need it to know that you're moving through life in the direction you want to go. That's exactly why Noelle Clark is here. She sat down with us shortly after speaking for the first time in eight days. How does it feel to be talking again? I feel like my words are coming from a place like deeper inside, a more grounded place. This is Clark's fourth silent retreat. Why did you want to even explore this path of silent retreats? I think I was curious about what could happen in silence. I'm always preparing for something, whether that's like the next phone call, the next email. I remember back then being like, what would it be like to like let all of that go? But letting go was difficult. On her first night there, Clark received shocking news. My teacher pulled me out of the dinner line to tell me that my mom had a heart attack. It was like a really bumpy start to the retreat. Clark's mom ended up being okay. And after much reflection, she decided to stay. Was that stressful? It was difficult. And also it was really, I don't know, really healing. And just thinking about how we hold on to things, resentments, and none of that matters when you get that news. For many retreat participants, the experience is spiritual. They spend their time reflecting and doing grounding exercises like meditation, all rooted in Buddhist practices. Do you feel like transformation happened here? Oh yeah. Without it sounding like a psychedelic-less psychedelic journey, a lot of healing and kind of working with the impermanent stuff around my mom, a lot of forgiveness. For Clark, this retreat wasn't just about the outside world, but connecting back to herself. What will you take back with you from what you experienced this week? I hope to bring this idea that that steadiness that I feel right now is accessible in any moment, to just be able to go inside. It's almost like going home. For CBS Mornings, I'm Lisa Ling in Woodacre, California. Hmm. Everybody I know who has done it really comes away with something that they said was life-changing and was beneficial. It just seems like it would be hard for me to do. What about you? I think, you know, there's a concept in Zen meditation that says that silence is never empty. It's full of answers. And so, you know, I adhere to that, but I don't know that I would want to do it with all these other people. Could you do it, Nate? I think I could. You do? And I would, yeah. All right. I'd like to try that.

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