In the stillness of meditation, the noise… that’s the whole game right there. It’s about quieting the internal racket of who you *think* you are to discover who you actually are. Let’s break down this powerful idea from Daniel Goleman.
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Meaning
At its core, this quote means that meditation helps you strip away the constant, chattering story of “you”—your ego, your roles, your anxieties—revealing a more fundamental, quiet awareness beneath it all.
Explanation
Okay, so think about it like this. That “noise of identity” Goleman talks about? It’s the non-stop mental soundtrack. The “I’m a manager, I’m a parent, I’m not good enough, I need to do better, what did they think of me?” It’s exhausting, right? Meditation isn’t about stopping thoughts. It’s about creating a space of stillness where you can sit back and watch that noise instead of being the noise. You stop identifying with every single thought and feeling. And when that happens, something incredible occurs. The real you—the conscious awareness that was always there underneath the drama—starts to come through. It’s less about becoming something new and more about unbecoming everything you aren’t.
Quote Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Category | Spiritual (229) |
| Topics | identity (102), silence (11), stillness (7) |
| Literary Style | poetic (635) |
| Emotion / Mood | tranquil (6) |
| Overall Quote Score | 85 (305) |
Origin & Factcheck
This gem comes straight from Daniel Goleman’s 1988 book, The Meditative Mind: The Varieties of Meditative Experience. He wrote it in the United States as a deep dive into the science and experience behind different meditation practices, long before mindfulness became a mainstream buzzword. You sometimes see similar sentiments misattributed to Buddhist texts or Eckhart Tolle, but this specific phrasing is pure Goleman.
Attribution Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Author | Daniel Goleman (125) |
| Source Type | Book (4032) |
| Source/Book Name | The Meditative Mind: The Varieties of Meditative Experience (60) |
| Origin Timeperiod | Modern (530) |
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Authenticity | Verified (4032) |
Author Bio
Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and bestselling author whose journalism at The New York Times brought brain and behavior science to a wide audience. He earned a BA from Amherst and a PhD in psychology from Harvard, and studied in India on a Harvard fellowship. Goleman’s research and writing helped mainstream emotional intelligence, leadership competencies, attention, and contemplative science. He co-founded CASEL and a leading research consortium on EI at work. The Daniel Goleman book list includes Emotional Intelligence, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Primal Leadership, Social Intelligence, Focus, and Altered Traits.
| Official Website
Where is this quotation located?
| Quotation | In the stillness of meditation, the noise of identity fades away |
| Book Details | Publication Year/Date: 1977 (originally as The Varieties of Meditative Experience, revised 1988 as The Meditative Mind); ISBN: 9780874778335; Last Edition: Tarcher/Putnam 1988; Number of pages: 320. |
| Where is it? | Approximate page from 1988 edition, Chapter 4: Insight Meditation |