Strangely, silence is a difficult skill to cultivate. The late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh stressed, “What you need, what we all need, is silence.” Stranger still, silence is essential in everything — even music. The theologian Thomas Merton noted,
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm.
Yet, few of us focus our efforts on cultivating the practice of silence. A previous post titled Looking at Life without Words quoted the writer Alan Watts: “To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, only through silence can one discover something new to talk about.”
Silence creates connection as well. Listening is a way to invite strangers to become friends, observed the writer and theologian Henri Nouwen, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
