I sit. Usually on a cushion with simply legs crossed and back straight – no special lotus positions. It may be silent. On the other hand, there might be a loud student party near my flat. But in the end, even that does not matter. There can never be a complete silence. Even in the peace of the wilderness there are birds, insects and the wind. When sitting silently, even those can prove to be mayor sources of irritation.
When I sit, I pay attention. I am not either trying to doze off or to achieve some kind of disassociated trance state. I rest my point of view in the immediate present as best as I am able to. When thoughts arise, I am conscious of them. I do not try to feed those thoughts. I try not to attach to them. I let go and let be as best as I can. In the Aro gTér lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism, this method of meditation is called shi-né. It is one, and maybe be most important, of preliminary exercises for practicing Dzogchen. It calms down the mind, cuts though the attachments to thoughts, cultivate fundamental openness and helps to experience the Emptiness.
As I sit, my mind can be like a calm lake under the moonlight or it can be buzzing like an angry nest of wasps. Sometimes everything is easy. You feel like you could sit lot more than normal amount of time. More of often it can just feel dull and you would like to leave the cushion and do something “useful”. In addition, the mind can seem like a can of rotten worms and a nest of utterly useless desires.
When you just continue sitting though and do not give up, you may as well begin to notice something. You are less and less compelled to go on with your every thought, and something else seems to appear. There is like a formless canvas over which the all thoughts and sensation arise. Though I can see it just in tiny cracks, it is still there and it appears to span around infinity itself. Possibly someday I understand it better that I do now.
Whatever you see while sitting on a cushion, you can bring it into your everyday life. You can be aware when not doing formal exercises. I have noticed, it does not even need a lot of effort if you can allow the awareness to flow naturally. You do what you do, but you are more aware of your experience. In addition, this mentality cultivated by silent sitting allows you to be more conscious of your decisions and so allow more real freedom to choose what to do.
To illustrate my mood: Init by Carbon Based Lifeforms (guess what is part of the inspiration for my nickname 
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