SILENCE
Silence can be discomforting. Such as when I cross people whispering in the corridor, who suddenly go silent when I come closer: Are they talking about me?
Silence can be awkward: Such as when you are joining a group of other wedding guests you do not know, and quickly feel you cannot find a topic in common to talk about.
Silence can be unnerving: I remember the colleague from Luanda, the capital of Angola, who could not sleep in Switzerland, because at night the cities are so quiet there: there is no noisy hustle and bustle of human activity.
Silence can be threatening: You step into a café or restaurant and all conversations stop, everyone is staring at you. There is no welcome, not even indifference. The silence says you do not belong.
Silence can make us anxious: We feel lonely; our uncertainties, pains and hurts become audible. We turn on the radio, put on some music to drown it out.
These are silences of avoidance, of judgment, of absencing – making yourself ‘absent’.
SILENCE
There is also the silence of presence.
In the midst of the melody or song, there is a silence that captures us, holds us, fully attentive with our emotional sensing, deeply expressive in its inaudible way.
When we are deeply comfortable with someone, we do not need to talk to feel together. Our affection and trust are such that we can be together without constant talking. In our silence, we are not absent from each other.
In fact, we are more attentive to each other – all our other senses become more attuned to the other. I can feel the mood, sense the emotional field, notice the non-verbal signs and signals.
Silence allows me to feel and observe what is bubbling in me: the tensions or calmness in my body, my emotions, my wandering mind.
Since opens me for what is around me: the fine sounds of nature, a bird call in the distance, the rustle of the wind in the leaves, the smell of cooking in the vicinity, the weight of the heat on a hot midsummer day. I cannot be open to my surroundings if I fill it with my talk.
There were five others, visiting the cave, whose access required a twenty minute walk through the tropical forest. In the two hours, they never once were silent: they did not have any attention to the wonderous diversity of the forest; the cave, lit only by our torch lights, was just an echo chamber for their comments and exclamations. Not once did they listen to the forest, to the cave with its multiple chambers and small passageways, its unwritten history, the creatures that live in it. Not once did they acknowledge us: we remained outside their talking bubble. We let them return on their own, and followed with delay, enjoying the forest bath in all its freshness and beauty.
Silence sharpens my seeing, my listening, my smelling, my tasting, my sensing. This silence amplifies my awareness, my being present – to myself and to others.
In the midst of noisy humanity, any spiritual space, temple, church, mosque, synagogue, meditation hall, spirit contact location…can offer that silence of presence when there is no service or ceremony going on.
Work spaces would benefit from moments and places of silence: An hour a day when we do not talk with each other, yet are so much more present and attentive to each other; a room where we work in silence but also sit and savour a coffee or tea in silence, sharing a simple enjoyment, not distracted by words.
How is silence for you? (Do not answer in words – but in a picture, an image, sounds…)