Silence

The teaching

As the desert elders, Benedict's Rule, the Quakers and the Indian vow of mauna teaches it.

The rest of the tongue

Silence asks nothing of the body except that the tongue rest. It is the oldest discipline and the gentlest, and every tradition that keeps it gives the same reason: talk covers what is there, in oneself and all around, and silence lets it be heard. The Hebrew Scriptures put it plainly: 'In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin', and 'Be still, and know that I am God.'

Flee, be silent, pray

The desert elders made silence a school. When Arsenius, once a tutor at the imperial court, asked how to be saved, a voice told him: flee, be silent, pray. Abba Agathon, it is said, carried a stone in his mouth for three years until he had learned to keep quiet.

Yet the elders taught that silence is of the heart before the tongue. Abba Poemen said that a person may seem silent while the heart condemns others, and so talk without ceasing; another may speak from morning until night and still keep silence, because nothing said is idle.

The restraint of speech

Benedict gives a chapter of his Rule to the restraint of speech. He begins with the psalm, 'I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue', and teaches that even good words are kept few, out of respect for silence, while idle and foolish talk is shut out altogether. Among his steps of humility, the monk keeps quiet until he is asked, does not laugh easily or loudly, and when he speaks, speaks gently, seriously and briefly, with few and reasonable words.

Speech in Benedict's house is not forbidden but weighed. What needs to be said is said, simply and at the right time, and the rest is left in silence.

The Great Silence

From the last prayer of the evening until after the first prayer of the morning, monasteries keep the Great Silence. Benedict asks that no one speak at all after Compline, unless a guest's need or the abbot's command requires it. The night is kept quiet so that the day begins in prayer. Communities that lived in silence through most of the day, the Trappists for a long time among them, said what was necessary in a language of signs.

Noble silence

The Buddha found his monks gathered and talking and told them that when they meet there are two things to do: speak of the teaching, or keep noble silence. Meditation retreats today keep noble silence for days together: no speaking, no gestures, no meeting of the eyes, often no reading or writing, so that the attention that usually goes outward can stay with the practice. Only the teacher is spoken to, and only when there is need.

Mauna, the silence of the sage

In India the silent sage is the muni, and his silence is mauna. Teachers take vows of mauna for a day, for weeks or for years; the strictest forbid even gestures and writing, the gentlest allow a note for what must be said. Gandhi kept one day of silence every week, and worked and wrote through it. Ramana Maharshi taught that silence is itself the highest teaching, and gave it to many who sat with him without a word being spoken.

The vow is kept for the inner quiet it makes room for, not for the outward show of it.

Waiting in silence

The Quakers worship in silence. They gather without a priest, a set prayer or a programme, sit together and wait upon God, settling into a deeper stillness, which they call centring down. If anyone feels moved by the Spirit to speak, they stand and say what is given, briefly, and the silence closes over it again. Many meetings pass with no word spoken at all, and that is not counted as empty. The meeting ends when two elders shake hands, and then everyone does.

A day of silence

A morning, or a day, is enough to begin. Tell the household beforehand, so that the silence is not taken for anger. Put the telephone away, and go about ordinary quiet tasks without speaking and without filling the gap with screens, music or reading. If something must be said, write a short note.

Notice the urge to speak when it comes, what it wanted, and what happens when it passes; notice the sounds that talk usually covers. Break the silence at once for anyone's safety or need. At the end write a few lines: what was noticed, and what the first words were, chosen with care.

Silence is chosen and kept by oneself, and nobody else is made to keep it. Chosen quiet is a different thing from isolation, and if the silence turns heavy or lonely, it is broken, and a friend is called.