There is a Taoist saying that claims “those who know, do not speak; those who speak, do not know,”[1] and I wanted to find out if this was still relevant today and if we do indeed need silence to help solve the world’s problems. All of humanity shares this secret silent interior, whether they know it or not, and the ways of discovering that interior are diverse and exciting. By examining the many facets of silence, this book will invite you to develop and embrace periods of silence in your life by means you had previously possibly not thought about. I’ll consider my own relationship with silence—which is far from straightforward—and I suspect my own yearnings for silence, as well as my doubts and fears, will chime with those of many others. Nothing about silence is clear-cut. So although I believe that silence is essential, sometimes I find its pursuit a struggle. Silence can force you to confront yourself, which is why many people do everything they can to try to avoid it—often filling their world with vacuous sound. Silence can be transformative—when it snows, the landscape becomes hushed; when machines stop operating, a quietness descends. But silence inevitably also has a dark side, and the exploration of that leads into murky places.
Is silence just the absence of sound? Or does it have a deeper, more profound meaning? Does silence ever really exist? Silence comes before sound—it is not just the cessation of sound; it is there already. The word comes from the Latin silentium, meaning “to abstain, to forbear from speech.” The first use of the word silence in an English text and as an English word dates from 1225 and appears in the text Ancrene Riwle, written at the request of three noble anchoresses: “In silence and in hope shall be our strength.”[2] The dictionary states that it is “the fact of abstaining or forbearing from speech or utterance; the state or condition resulting from this; muteness, reticence, taciturnity.”[3] This initial meaning seems to put rather a negative gloss on the word, but it continues: “The state or condition when nothing is audible; complete quietness or stillness; noiselessness,” which is more appealing.
Where is this boundary between the visible world and the audible world? And if there is a boundary, what and where is it? You can close your eyes and become part of the audible world, leaving the visible behind, but how much harder it is to block out the world of sound. If we think about sound, it is an imposition and, as the British writer Robert Macfarlane points out in Underland, “We cannot see behind ourselves, but we can hear behind ourselves. From all directions, sound flows in.”[4] We’re all so wordy today that just sitting in silence with another person can feel awkward. In the nineteenth century, the philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard wrote that if he were a physician and he had just one thing to prescribe for all the world’s problems, it would be silence: “And even if it were blazoned forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore, create silence!”[5]But why is it that we crave silence? Or what is it in us that needs silence? Silence certainly enhances our powers of attention, and it is a break and rest from the stimuli of the external world. Of course, noise and silence are inextricably linked—the yin and the yang—but do we really only appreciate silence as an absence of sound? I don’t think so. I think it’s far more important than that; as Mahatma Gandhi noted, “It has often occurred to me that a seeker after truth has to be silent.”[6] This makes total sense to me—for how can we possibly grow in depth if we are being constantly distracted by external noise? Silence can stop a rush to judgment. As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said in the last sentence of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should be silent.”[7] To discover a unity and connection with all creation, one has to experience being alone and isolated. By learning to appreciate silence and its benefits, one also learns to truly listen—and when one is truly listening, one begins to hear. The more one can listen, the more one really begins to hear others with compassion and kindness. Often if somebody is grieving or has had bad news, all the person requires is a listener. Words seem, and are, mostly inadequate, and a solution at the time is the last thing needed; it is listening that is important.
Doing mundane tasks in silence can be an anchor to being in the present. As the psychologist and spiritual leader Ram Dass is quoted, “The quieter we become, the more we hear.”[8]Finding silence is never easy, as we are having to compete with not only exterior sounds but also an almost constant interior dialogue that judges, analyzes, compares, and questions. But if we can get past this barrage, there is a quiet place definitely worth the search.
Sarah Anderson
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