Eskişehir, Türkiye
Thursday (Perşembe) 12 December (Aralık) 2024
“To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under Heaven…
A time to keep silence and a time to speak.“
Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 7.
“I don’t wanna be the girl that has to fill the silence….
The quiet scares me, ’cause it screams the truth.“
Pink, “Sober“
Silence is the absence of ambient audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds.
This latter sense can be extended to apply to the cessation or absence of any form of communication, whether through speech or other medium.
Remaining mute can also be a symptom of mental illness.
Sometimes speakers fall silent when they hesitate in searching for a word, or interrupt themselves before correcting themselves.
Discourse analysis shows that people use brief silences to mark the boundaries of prosodic units, in turn-taking, or as reactive tokens, for example, as a sign of displeasure, disagreement, embarrassment, the desire to think, confusion, and the like.
Relatively prolonged intervals of silence can be used in rituals.
In some religious disciplines, people maintain silence for protracted periods, or even for the rest of their lives, as an ascetic means of spiritual transformation.
In the philosophy of perception and the science of perception, there has been a longstanding controversy as to how humans experience silence:
- The perceptual view (we literally hear silence)
- The cognitive view (we only judge or infer silence), with prominent theories holding the latter view.
However, a study published in 2023 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported findings based on empirical experiments testing whether temporal distortions known to be experienced with respect to sounds, were also analogously experienced with respect to periods of silence.
The experimental results in all cases suggested that, at least in this context, humans respond to moments of silence the same way as to sounds—supporting the perceptual view that humans literally hear silence.
Silence may become an effective rhetorical practice when people choose to be silent for a specific purpose.
It has not merely been recognized as a theory but also as a phenomenon with practical advantages.
When silence becomes rhetorical, it is intentional since it reflects a meaning.
Rhetorical silence targets an audience rather than the rhetorician.
Joseph Jordania has suggested that in social animals (including humans), silence can be a sign of danger.
Many social animals produce seemingly haphazard sounds which are known as contact calls.
These are a mixture of various sounds, accompanying the group’s everyday business (for example, foraging, feeding).
They are used to maintain audio contact with the members of the group.
Some social animal species communicate the signal of potential danger by stopping contact calls and freezing, without the use of alarm calls, through silence.
Above: Georgian born, Australian ethnomusicologist Joseph Jordania
Charles Darwin wrote about this in relation with wild horse and cattle.
Above: English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)
Jordania has further suggested that human humming could have been a contact method that early humans used to avoid silence.
According to his suggestion, humans find prolonged silence distressing (suggesting danger to them).
This may help explain why lone humans in relative sonic isolation feel a sense of comfort from humming, whistling, talking to themselves, or having the TV or radio on.
“Silence” in spirituality is often a metaphor for inner stillness.
A silent mind, freed from the onslaught of thoughts and thought patterns, is both a goal and an important step in spiritual development.
Such “inner silence” is not about the absence of sound.
Instead, it is understood to bring one in contact with the divine, the ultimate reality, or one’s own true self, one’s divine nature.
Many religious traditions imply the importance of being quiet and still in mind and spirit for transformative and integral spiritual growth to occur.
In Christianity, there is the silence of contemplative prayer such as centering prayer and Christian meditation.
In Islam, there are the wisdom writings of the Sufis who insist on the importance of finding silence within.
Above: Tomb of Sufi leader Abdul Qadir Jilani (1077 – 1166), Baghdad, Iraq
In Buddhism, the descriptions of silence and allowing the mind to become silent are implied as a feature of spiritual enlightenment.
Above: Buddha Daibutsu, Kamakura, Japan
In Hinduism, including the teachings of Advaita Vedanta and the many paths of yoga, teachers insist on the importance of silence, Mauna, for inner growth.
Ramana Maharishi, a revered Hindu sage, said:
“The only language able to express the whole truth is silence.”
Above: Hindu sage Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879 – 1950)
Pirkei Avot, the Jewish Sages’ guide for living, states that:
“Tradition is a safety fence to Torah, tithing a safety fence to wealth, vows a safety fence for abstinence.
A safety fence for wisdom … is silence.”
Above: Pirkei Avot
In some traditions of Quakerism, communal silence is the usual context of worship meetings, in patient expectancy for the divine to speak in the heart and mind.
Above: Quaker leader George Fox (1624 – 1691)
In the Baháʼí faith, Baha’u’llah said in Words of Wisdom:
“The essence of true safety is to observe silence.”
Above: Baha’i founder Mirza Huseinali Bahá (1817 – 1892)
Eckhart Tolle says that:
Silence can be seen either as the absence of noise, or as the space in which sound exists, just as inner stillness can be seen as the absence of thought, or the space in which thoughts are perceived.
Above: German writer Eckhart Tolle
Monastic silence is a spiritual practice recommended in a variety of religious traditions for purposes including becoming closer to God and achieving elevated states of spiritual purity.
It may be in accordance with a monk’s formal vow of silence, but can also engage laity who have not taken vows, or novices who are preparing to take vows.
The practice of silence is observed during different parts of the day.
Practitioners talk when they need to but maintain a sense of silence or a sense of prayer when talking.
The rules of silence apply to both vowed practitioners and non-vowed guests.
Religious recommendations of silence as praxis do not deprecate speech when it is thoughtful and considerate of commonly held values.
“I was profoundly affected…
I am not sure what those feelings amount to, but they are deeper than mere interest or curiosity and more important than the pleasure an historian or an aesthete finds in ancient buildings and liturgy.
The kindness of the monks has something to do with this, but more important was the discovery of a capacity for solitude and for the recollection and clarity of spirit that accompany the silent monastic life.
For, in the seclusion of a cell – an existence whose quietness is only varied by the silent meals, the solemnity of ritual and long solitary walks in the woods – the troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear and much that is hidden away and all that clouds it floats to the surface and can be skimmed away.
And after a time one reaches a state of peace that is unthought of in the ordinary world.“
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence
According to Andrew March of the Benedictine order:
“We can listen to substantive speech for hours while five minutes of garrulous speech is too much.”
“Silence” may include what might be more aptly characterized as “quietness“, i.e. speaking in low voice tones.
Above: The oldest copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict, from the 8th century (Bodleian Library, Oxford, England)
“I was in fact, in search of somewhere quiet and cheap to stay while I continued to work on a book that I was writing.
A friend in Paris had told me that St. Wandrille de Fontanelle was one of the oldest and most beautiful Benedictine Abbeys in France.
I had made my plans and set out….
Above: Abbey of Saint Wandrille, Rives en Seine, France
The monk opened a door and said:
“Here is your cell.”
It was a high 17th century room with a comfortable bed, a ‘prie-dieu’ (a type of prayer desk primarily intended for private devotional use), a writing table, a tapestry chair, a green adjustable reading lamp and a rather disturbing crucifix on the whitewashed stone walls.
The window looked out over a grassy courtyard, in which a small fountain played, over the grey flank of the monastery buildings and the wall that screened the Abbey from the half-timbered buildings of the village.
A vista of forest flowed away beyond.
Above: Cloisters and courtyard, Abbey of St Wandrille
In the middle of the writing table stood a large inkwell, a tray full of pens and a pad into which new blotting paper had just been fitted….
Back in my cell, I sat down before the new blotter and pens and sheets of clean foolscap.
I had asked for quiet and solitude and peace, and here it was.
All I had to do now was to write.
But an hour passed and nothing happened.
It began to rain over the woods outside.
A mood of depression and of unspeakable loneliness suddenly felled me like a hammer stroke…
So much silence and sobriety!
The place assumed the character of an enormous tomb, a necropolis of which I was the only living inhabitant….
I sat at my desk in a condition of overwhelming gloom and ‘accidie’ (sloth).
As I looked around the white box of my cell, I suffered…“
Patrick Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence
In Christianity, monastic silence is more highly developed in the Roman Catholic faith than in Protestantism, but it is not limited to Catholicism.
Above: Emblem of the Roman Catholic Papacy
The practice has a corresponding manifestation in the Orthodox church, which teaches that silence is a means to access God, to develop self-knowledge, or to live more harmoniously.
Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, placed the virtue of silence on par with the faith itself in a synodal letter from AD 400.
“Monks — if they wish to be what they are called — will love silence and the Catholic faith, for nothing at all is more important than these two things.”
Above: Papyrus image of Patriarch Theophilus (r. 384 – 412)
“My first feelings in the monastery changed:
I lost the sensation of circumambient and impending death, of being by mistake locked up in a catacomb.
I think the alteration must have taken about four days.
The mood of dereliction persisted for some time, a feeling of loneliness and flatness that always accompanies the transition from urban excess to a life of rustic solitude…
Only by living for a while in a monastery can one quite grasp its staggering difference from the ordinary life that we lead.
The two ways of life do not share a simple attribute.
The thoughts, ambitions, light, time and mood that surround the inhabitants of a cloister are not only unlike anything to which one is accustomed, but in some curious wat, seem in exact reverse.
The period during which normal standards recede and the strange new world becomes reality is slow, and, at first, acutely painful.
To begin with, I slept badly at night and fell asleep during the day, felt restless in my cell and depressed by the lack of alcohol, the disappearance of which had caused a sudden halt in the customary monsoon.
The most remarkable preliminary symptoms were the variations of my need for sleep.
After initial spells of insomnia, nightmare and falling asleep by day, I found that my capacity for sleep was becoming more and more remarkable:
Till the hours I spent in or on my bed vastly outnumbered the hours I spent awake.
My sleep was so profound that I might have been under the influence of some hypnotic drug.
For two days, meals and church were almost my only lucid moments.
Then began an extraordinary transformation:
This extreme lassitude dwindled to nothing.
Night shrank to five hours of light, dreamless and perfect sleep, followed by awakenings full of energy and limpid freshness.
The explanation is simple enough:
The desire for talk, movement and nervous expression that I had transported from Paris found, in this silent place, no response or foil, evoked no single echo.
After miserably gesticulating for a while in a vacuum, it languished and finally died for lack of any stimulus or nourishment.
Then the tremendous accumulation of tiredness, which must be the common property of all our contemporaries, broke loose and swamped everything.
No demands, once I had emerged from that flood of sleep, were made upon my nervous energy:
There were no automatic drains, such as conversation at meals, small talk, catching trains or the hundred anxious trivialities that poison everyday life.
Even the major causes of guilt and anxiety had slid away into some distant limbo and not only failed to emerge in the small hours as tormentors but appeared to have lost their dragonish validity.
This new dispensation left 19 hours a day of absolute and godlike freedom.
Work became easier every moment.
When I was not working, I was either exploring the Abbey and the neighbouring countryside or reading.
The Abbey became the reverse of a tomb, but a silent university, a country house, a castle hanging in mid-air beyond the reach of ordinary troubles and vexations.”
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence
In the book Silence: The Still Small Voice of God, Andrew March establishes the roots of the silence doctrine in the Psalms attributed to David:
“Benedict and his monastics would know from chanting the Psalter every week the verse that follows:
‘I was silent and still.
I held my peace to no avail.
My distress grew worse.
My heart became hot within me.
While I mused, the fire burned, then I spoke with my tongue.’ (Psalm 39:3).“
Above: David composing the Psalms
“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.
Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.“
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
St. Norbert’s Arts Center also anchors its views on silence in the Old Testament:
“For God alone my soul waits in silence.
From Him comes my salvation.”
(Psalm 62)
Above: St. Norbert Monastery ruins, St. Norbert, Manitoba, Canada
The Trappist rubric “living in silence” illustrates centuries-old hand gestures which were “developed to convey basic communication of work and spirit“.
Above: Trappist founder Armand Bouthillier de Rancé (1626 – 1700)
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the mystical tradition of hesychasm emphasizes the importance of hesychia (‘silence‘ or ‘stillness‘).
Hesychasm is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Christian traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches in which stillness (hēsychia) is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer.
The Greek term hesychia is a concept that can be translated as “stillness, rest, quiet, silence“.
In the Eastern Orthodox Christian mystical tradition of hesychasm, hesychia refers to a state of stillness and peace that is obtained through extreme ascetical struggle, prayer, and the constant contemplation of God.
The attainment of hesychia is a central theme discussed in hesychast literature.
Silence plays a role in the Benedictine rule.
It is thought that by clearing the mind of distraction, one may listen more attentively to the deity.
Above: Benedict of Nursia (480 – 550) writing the Benedictine Rule, Heiligenkreuz Abbey, Baden bei Wien, Austria. Herman Nigg (1926)
Christian theology differs from Dharmic religions with regard to the mode in which spiritual ascent transpires within the context of contemplative quiet.
Buddhism and Hinduism promote various spiritual practices, as do many Christian denominations.
Above: Wheel of Dharma
However, Christianity, particularly Protestantism, emphasizes the belief that ultimate spiritual achievement is not within the grasp of mortals, no matter how persistent their practice may be.
Rather, the mechanism of spiritual attainment, which they regard as salvation and proximity to the deity, is believed to occur solely through supernatural means—variously described as the action of God or of the Holy Spirit, and called grace.
In contemplative practice, the role of silence is expressed by the Fr. David Bird, OSB, (Order of St. Benedict):
“When both our interior and exterior are quiet, God will do the rest.“
Above: Ora et Labora (Pray and Work).
This 1862 painting by John Rogers Herbert depicts monks at work in the fields.
Cistercian monastics promote contemplative meditation.
Part of the emphasis is on achieving spiritual ascent, but monastic silence also functions to avoid sin.
Above: Coat of arms of the Cistercians
Although speech is morally neutral per se, the Epistle of James (James 3:1–12) and writers of the monastic tradition see silence as the only effective means of neutralizing a tendency towards sins of the tongue.
There is an ongoing dialogue between Benedictine and Cistercian which speaks of a “monastic archetype” characterized by peace and silence.
Above: Icon of the Apostle James
A Trappist’s commitment to silence is a monastic value that assures solitude in community.
It fosters mindfulness of God and fraternal communion.
It opens the mind to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit and favours attentiveness of the heart and solitary prayer to God.
Early monastic communities evolved simple hand signing for essential communications.
Spoken conversations between monks are permitted, but limited according to the norms established by the community and approved by the Order.
“Silence is the mystery of the world to come.
Speech is the organ of this present world.
More than all things love silence:
It brings you a fruit that the tongue cannot describe.
In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent.
But then from our very silence is born something that draws us into deeper silence.
May God give you an experience of this ‘something’ that is born of silence.
If you practice this, inexpressible light will dawn upon you.”
Isaac of Nineveh
Above: Orval Abbey, Villers-devant-Orval, Belgium
Baptist pastor and evangelist F. B. Meyer (1847–1929), a member of the Higher Life movement, developed a strong commitment to silence, which he saw as one of the ways to gain access to God’s guidance on all matters.
“We must be still before God.
The life around us, in this age, is pre-eminently one of rush and effort.
It is the age of the express train and electric telegraph.
Years are crowded into months and weeks into days.
This feverish haste threatens religious life.
The stream has already entered our churches and stirred their quiet pools.
Meetings crowd on meetings.
The same energetic souls are found at them all and engaged in many good works besides.
But we must beware that we do not substitute the active for the contemplative, the valley for the mountain top.…
We must make time to be alone with God.
The closet and the shut door are indispensable.…
Be still, and know that God is within thee and around!
In the hush of the soul the unseen becomes visible, and the eternally real.…
Let no day pass without its season of silent waiting before God.”
F.B. Meyer, The Secret of Guidance
Above: English Baptist Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847 – 1929)
Meyer influenced Frank Buchman (1878–1961), originally a Protestant evangelist who founded the Oxford Group (known as Moral Re-Armament from 1938 until 2001, and as Initiatives of Change since then).
Foundational to Buchman’s spirituality was the practice of a daily “quiet time” during which, he claimed, anyone could search for, and receive, divine guidance on every aspect of their life.
Dr Karl Wick, editor of the Swiss Catholic daily Vaterland, wrote that Buchman had “brought silence out of the monastery into the home, the marketplace, and the board room.”
Buchman, in turn, taught thousands to “listen and obey“, finding resonance with non-Christian as well as Christian religions.
Above: US Lutheran pastor Dr. Frank Buchman (1878 – 1961)
Quaker silent worship is a form of church service that utilizes infrequently-broken congregational silence rather than sermons, singing, or spoken prayer.
Quakers gather together in “expectant waiting upon God” to experience his still small voice leading them from within.
Above: Race Street Philadelphia Friends (Quaker) Meeting House, Pennsylvania, USA
Judaism has a tradition of silence in sacred space and in sacred structures.
Although technically not classified as monasteries, synagogues, yeshivas, and beit midrash (house of study) are the models, along with the Tanakh (Bible), upon which the monastic silence traditions are built.
Rabbi Shmuel Afek starts minyan (a quorum of 10 Jewish adults) with five minutes of silence during which each person can engage in his or her own personal preparation for tefillah (Hebrew Bible).
Isadore Twersky states in Introduction to the Code of Maimonides:
“One must be attuned to the silence.“
Above: US Orthodox Rabbi Isadore Twersky (1930 – 1997)
Judaism also teaches that the Ten Commandments were given to the Jews in complete silence and that if you want to encounter God, you need to experience silence.
“Contradictions have always existed in the soul of individuals, but it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become a constant and insoluble problem.
We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them and see them in the light of exterior and objective values which make them trivial by comparison.“
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
“I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand.
Then the silence of the extraordinary faces.
Great smiles.
Huge and yet subtle.
Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything — without refutation — without establishing some other argument.
For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening.“
Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal
“The chief function of monastic silence is then to preserve that ‘Memoria Dei’ which is much more than just ‘memory’.
It is a total consciousness and awareness of God which is impossible without silence, recollection, solitude and a certain withdrawal.“
Thomas Merton, The Monastic Journey
“I make monastic silence a protest against the lies of politicians, propagandists and agitators.“
Thomas Merton, In My Own Words
Monastic silence is a category of practice which unites faiths and contributes a perennial topic of convergence between Eastern and Western traditions.
Father Thomas Keating was the founder of Contemplative Outreach and former Abbot of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado.
He states:
“As in Buddhism, Christianity has several contemplative methods.
The methods of contemplative prayer are expressed in two traditions: centering prayer, which we represent, and Christian Meditation, designed by John Main, which is now spreading rapidly throughout the world under the charismatic leadership of Father Lawrence Freeman.“
Keating’s approach was more directly influenced by his collaboration with Buddhists from various traditions, whereas Main is influenced by his travels among Indian Hindus.
Keating states that:
“One progresses eventually to Christ nature or Buddha nature.”
Keating distinguishes his contemplative method from that of John Main, another teacher of Christian mindfulness, but states an affinity for “interior silence“.
Above: English Benedictine monk John Main (1926 – 1982)
“The John Main approach is a little different than ours, but both go in the same direction:
Moving beyond dependence on concepts and words to a direct encounter with God on the level of faith and interior silence.“
Above: US Trappist priest Thomas Keating (1923 – 2018)
Fr. James Conner, OCSO wrote about the Fifth Christian–Buddhist Contemplative Conference held at the Naropa Institute in which ordained practitioners from Zen, Vajrayana, and Catholic monastic lineages conducted meditation and discussion.
According to Conner, wordless prayer is designed to transcend rational processes to allow perception of an exalted state.
Above: Friar James Connor
“Zen says that Buddha-nature begins where the rational level ends.
The same is taught in Christianity.
One is to practice thoughtless, wordless prayer and thus perceive the divine presence.“
Silence is interjected into this Christian parable in some circles.
One of Master Gasan’s monks visited the university in Tokyo.
When he returned, he asked the Master if he had ever read the Christian Bible.
“No”, Gasan replied.
“Please read some of it to me.”
The monk opened the Bible to the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew, and began reading.
After reading Christ’s words about the lilies in the field, he paused.
Master Gasan was silent for a long time.
“Yes,” he finally said, “Whoever uttered these words is an enlightened being.
What you have read to me is the essence of everything I have been trying to teach you here!“
Above: The Sermon on the Mount, Carl Block (1877)
The original rendering of this syncope or parable from the Gospel of Luke does not incorporate silence.
The adaptation into Zen tradition could have omitted the role of silence.
This particular use of silence is neither monastic nor vowed, but the dialogue may well have taken place in a monastery rather than a university.
“The sun was scattering diamonds across the ocean as I drove towards the deserts of the east.
Leonard Cohen, my hero since boyhood was singing “So long, Marianne” on my sound system when I turned onto the snarl of freeways that clog and clutter central Los Angeles.
Above: Canadian musician-poet Leonard Cohen (1934 – 2016)
[Verse 1]
Come over to the window, my little darling.
I’d like to try to read your palm.
I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy,
Before I let you take me home.
[Chorus]
Now, so long, Marianne, it’s time that we began
To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.
[Verse 2]
Well, you know that I love to live with you,
But you make me forget so very much.
I forget to pray for the angels,
And then the angels forget to pray for us.
[Chorus]
Now, so long, Marianne, it’s time that we began
To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again
[Verse 3]
We met when we were almost young,
Deep in the green lilac park.
You held on to me like I was a crucifix
As we went kneeling through the dark.
[Chorus]
Oh, so long, Marianne, it’s time that we began
To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again
[Verse 4]
Your letters they all say that you’re beside me now,
Then why do I feel alone?
I’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web
Is fastening my ankle to a stone.
[Chorus]
Now, so long, Marianne, it’s time that we began
To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.
[Verse 5]
For now I need your hidden love.
I’m cold as a new razor blade.
You left when I told you I was curious
I never said that I was brave.
[Chorus]
Oh, so long, Marianne, it’s time that we began
To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.
[Verse 6]
Oh, you are really such a pretty one.
I see you’ve gone and changed your name again.
And just when I climbed this whole mountainside
To wash my eyelids in the rain.
[Chorus]
Oh so long, Marianne, it’s time that we began
To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.
Leonard Cohen, “So long, Marianne“
Above: Marianne Ihlen (1935 – 2016) – Norwegian woman who was the first wife of author Axel Jensen and later the muse and girlfriend of Leonard Cohen for several years in the 1960s.
The sharp winter sun disappeared behind a wall of gray for more than an hour, and then at last I drew out again into the clear.
Turning off the freeway, I followed a riddle of side streets onto a narrower road, all but empty, that snaked up into the high dark San Gabriel Mountains.
Very soon all commotion fell away.
Los Angeles simplified itself into a silhouette of peaks into the distance.
High up, I came to a cloister of rough cabins scattered across a hillside.
A small man in his 60s, stooped and shaven-headed, stood waiting for me in a rough parking lot.
As soon as I got out of my car, he offered me a deep ceremonial bow – though we had never met before – and insisted on carrying my things into the cabin where I was to stay for the next many days.
His dark and threadbare monastic robes flew around him in the wind.
Once inside the shelter of the room, the monk started cutting up some freshly baked bread, to console me for my “long drive”.
He put on a kettle for tea.
I had come up here in order to write about my host’s near-silent anonymous life on the mountain, but for the moment I lost all sense of where I was.
I could hardly believe that this rabbinical gentleman in wire-rimmed glasses and wool cap was in truth the singer and poet Leonard Cohen who had been renowned for 30 years as an international heartthrob, a constant traveller and an Armani-clad man of the world….“
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
Buddhism and Christianity are not the only traditions enunciating the virtues of quietism.
The Tao Te Ching enunciates a view of the supreme value of doing absolutely nothing, in a profound metaphysical sense.
This is called wu wei and is consistent with the concept of sunyata more fully elaborated in Buddhism.
According to the Tao Te Ching, silence is merely the application of this concept to the tongue in addition to hands and feet.
Above: Ink on silk manuscript of the Tao Te Ching – from Mawangdui, Changsha, China (2nd century BC)
“Leonard Cohen had come to this Old World redoubt to make a life – an art – out of stillness.
And he was working on simplifying himself so fiercely as he might on the verses of one of his songs, which he spends years polishing to perfection.
The week I was visiting, he was spending seven days and nights in a bare meditation hall, sitting stock-still.
His name in the monastery, ‘Jikan’, referred to the silence between two thoughts.
Above: Buddhist monk Jikan
The rest of the time he largely spent doing odd jobs around the property, cleaning dishes in the kitchen and tending to the Japanese Abbot of the Mount Baldy Zen Center, Joshu Sasaki, then 88 years old.
Cohen ended up sitting still with his elderly friend for more than 40 years.
Above: Jikan and Joshu Sasaki
One evening – “four in the morning, the end of December” – Cohen took time from his meditations to walk down to my cabin and try to explain what he was doing here.
“It’s four in the morning, the end of December.
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better.
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living.
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
Above: Clinton Street, Manhattan, New York City
I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert.
You’re living for nothing now. I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.
Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair.
She said that you gave it to her.
That night that you planned to go clear.
Did you ever go clear?
Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older.
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder.
You’d been to the station to meet every train, and
You came home without Lili Marlene.
Above: A “Lili Marleen” and Lale Andersen (1905 – 1972) memorial in Langeoog, Germany
And you treated my woman to a flake of your life.
And when she came back she was nobody’s wife
Well, I see you there, with the rose in your teeth,
One more thin gypsy thief.
Well, I see Jane’s awake.
She sends her regards
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer,
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you.
I’m glad you stood in my way.
If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me.
Well, your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.
Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes.
I thought it was there for good, so I never tried.
And Jane came by with a lock of your hair.
She said that you gave it to her.
That night that you planned to go clear.
Sincerely, L Cohen
Leonard Cohen, “Famous Blue Raincoat“
Sitting still, Cohen said with unexpected passion, was the “real deep entertainment” he had found in his 61 years on the planet.
“Real profound and voluptuous and delicious entertainment.
The real feast that is available within this activity.
What else would I be doing?
Would I be starting a new marriage with a young woman and raising another family?
Finding new drugs, buying more expensive wine?
I don’t know.
This seems to me the most luxurious and sumptuous response to the emptiness of my own existence.“
Typically lofty and pitiless words.
Living on such close terms with silence clearly hadn’t diminished his gift for golden sentences, but the words carried weight when coming from one who seemed to have tasted all the pleasures the world has to offer.
Being in this remote place of stillness had nothing to do with piety or purity, he assured me.
It was simply the most practical way he had found of working through the confusion and terror that had long been his bedfellows.
Sitting still with his aged Japanese friend, sipping Courvoisier with his aged Japanese friend and listening to the crickets deep into the night was the closest he had come to finding lasting happiness, the kind that doesn’t change when life throws up one of its regular challenges and disruptions.
“Nothing touches it, except if you’re courtin’.
If you’re young, the hormonal thrust has its own excitement.“
Above: Buddhist monk Jikan
The spiritual practice of silence has been extended into the healthcare setting under the rubric of mind-body healing.
Dr. Jack Engler of the Theravada tradition of Buddhism is Director of the Schiff Psychiatric Center at Harvard University and participates in Christian – Buddhist dialogue.
Dr Engler lived as a novice at the Abbey of Gethsemane, which is affiliated with Merton, and studied Buddhist meditation practices in Burma and India.
Above: Abbey of Gethsemane, Bardstown, Kentucky, USA
“Time passes in a monastery with disconcerting speed.
Except for the great feasts of the Church, there are no landmarks to divide it up except the cycle of the seasons.
Days and weeks pass almost unperceived.
Six months, a year, 15 years, a lifetime – are soon over.
The speed of this temporal lapse is a phenomenon that every monk notices.
The only regret I heard was that they delayed so long in the world before coming to the Abbey.
They came from very different backgrounds.
They were recruited from widely different income groups.
I asked one of the monks how he could sum up, in a couple of words, his way of life.
He paused a moment and said:
“Have you ever been in love?
It is exactly the same.“
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silent
Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, recommended silence to philosophers who were tempted to overextend their reach:
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.“
Above: Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951)
Some common proverbs counsel silence, for example:
- It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.
Above: US President Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)
- If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
- You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court.
“Sitting still as a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it.
Going nowhere as a way of cutting through the noise and finding fresh time and energy to share with others.
I had sometimes moved toward the idea, but it had never come home to me so powerfully as in the example of this man, Leonard Cohen, who seemed to have everything, yet found his happiness, his freedom, in giving everything up.”
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
A common way to remember a tragic incident and to remember the victims or casualties of such an event is a commemorative moment of silence.
A moment of silence (also referred to as a minute’s silence or a one-minute silence) is a period of silent contemplation, prayer, reflection or meditation.
Similar to flying a flag at half-mast, a moment of silence is often a gesture of respect, particularly in mourning for those who have died recently, or as part of a tragic historical event, such as Remembrance Day.
Above: Remembrance Day poppy
A minute, or 60 seconds, is a common length of time for the memorialization, though organizers may choose other periods of time, normally connected in some way with the event being commemorated (there might be a minute given for every death commemorated, for example).
During a moment of silence, its participants may typically bow their heads, remove their hats, and refrain from speaking, or moving, for the duration of it.
The first recorded instance of an official moment of silence dedicated to a dead person took place in Portugal on 13 February 1912.
The Portuguese Senate dedicated ten minutes of silence to José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior, Baron of Rio Branco, Brazil, and Minister of the Exterior of the Brazilian government, who had died three days earlier on 10 February.
This moment of silence was registered in the Senate’s records of that day.
Above: José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior (1845 – 1912)
In the same year, large parts of the United States kept a ceremonial silence to honour the dead of the Maine and the Titanic.
Above: USS Maine (1889 – 1912)
Above: RMS Titanic (2 – 15 April 1912)
The first person to publicly suggest a moment’s silence as a vessel to hold the sorrow and loss of war was either South African author and politician James Percy Fitzpatrick or Australian journalist Edward George Honey, himself a World War I veteran.
While the Australian government claims Honey was the originator of the idea as it pertained to war remembrance, there are no primary sources to conclusively confirm a date in which Honey’s proposal predated Fitzpatrick’s.
Nevertheless, each person’s idea was conceived less than a year from each other, so it is possible the shared idea was a matter of parallel thinking.
Above: South African writer Percy Fitzpatrick (1862 – 1931)
Eric Harding’s booklet written in support of the monument to Honey erected in 1965 acknowledges that other silences had been held before (upon the death of King Edward, the silences in South Africa “when the war was going badly for the Allies“, ceremonies in Australia for lost miners, in the US when the Maine was sunk, amongst others), but in his words:
“The originality of Honey’s suggestion is based on the fact that this was the first time in history that a victory had been celebrated as a tribute to those who sacrificed their lives and their health to make the victory possible.”
Harding also acknowledges that, despite extensive research, no evidence of Honey’s attendance at any rehearsal at Buckingham Palace nor any record of an official communication mentioning Honey’s letter having played a part in the adoption of the remembrance tradition, could be found, and that the only “proof” was that the letter preceded the formal approach to the King by several months.
However he also writes that:
“Sir Percy’s right to recognition for bringing the matter to official notice does not detract in any way from Honey’s right to recognition as the first to make the suggestion.“
According to an Australian War Memorial article, Honey attended a trial of the event with the Grenadier Guards at Buckingham Palace, as did Fitzpatrick (although it was not known whether they ever actually met or discussed their ideas).
However, Honey’s wife (“Millie“), as reported by her friend M.F. Orford’s 1961 article, states that:
“He never went out into the streets near the crowds at any time during the observance of the Silence.”
They only heard about the observance of the first Two Minutes’ Silence when the order was announced by Buckingham Palace.
Above: Australian journalist Edward George Honey (1885 – 1922)
Many people in the Commonwealth of Nations observe the two-minute silence at 11:00 am on 11 November each year (Armistice Day) to remember sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war.
Above: Flag of the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly the British Empire)
In addition, a two minutes of silence is also observed in the United Kingdom on the second Sunday of November, which is more recently known as Remembrance Sunday, and is televised with a close up image of the Big Ben clock chiming 11, and the buglers sounding “the Last Post” at 11:02 am.
Above: Elizabeth Tower, housing the Great Bell “Big Ben” , Westminster Palace, London, England
In Australia and New Zealand, the ceremony was quickly adopted for commemorations held at dawn on ANZAC Day, 25 April.
This moment of silence is held to remember the service men and women who died in WWI and subsequent conflicts.
In Israel, moments of silence are held in memory of the victims of the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah and in memory of fallen soldiers and of terrorist victims on the day before Israel’s independence day.
In Japan, a minute of silence is observed (and televised nationally) at ceremonies every August in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities at the same time as the atomic bombings.
Above: Bombing of Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki, Japan (9 August 1945)
Moments of silence are often observed prior to other events including gatherings such as sports matches, with reasons for silences ranging from national and international tragedies or to the death of individuals connected to a group.
In recent years, in the United Kingdom and Israel, the minute’s silence at sports events has been replaced by a minute of applause.
In Ukraine, a minute of silence is observed every day at 9 am to commemorate the victims of Russia’s invasion of the country.
It was officially designated by a presidential decree on 16 March 2023.
In Indonesia, a moment of silence is called Mengheningkan Cipta and is always accompanied with a rendition of a hymn of the same name, composed by Surakarta Sunanate musician Truno Prawit.
This tradition was said to originate at the behest of Indonesian President Sukarno (1901 – 1970) in the 1958 Heroes’ Day ceremony in Ambon.
Above: Flag of Indonesia
Silent prayer as a mode of prayer has antecedents in the Bible.
Above: The Gutenberg Bible, the first published Bible
Jews have been praying silently for thousands of years.
Above: The Western (“wailing“) Wall, Jerusalem, Israel
Quakers have practiced silent worship for more than 300 years, believing that all people have the light of God within and that no priestly intercession is needed for the divine to speak.
Silent worship in Quaker meetings is seldom entirely silent, and individuals speak as they are moved to by the Spirit.
The larger society perhaps adopted the practice of silent prayer in public gatherings because silence contains no statements or assumptions concerning beliefs.
Above: Benches and the partition between male and female sections in the 1870 Sugar Grove Friends Meeting House northwest of the roundabout of Sugar Grove Road and East County Road 600S near Plainfield in Guilford Township, Hendricks County, Indiana, USA
Since silence requires no understanding of language to interpret, it is more easily accepted and used than a spoken prayer or observance when persons of different religious and cultural backgrounds participate together.
Today, the moment of silence is used to avoid offending people with religious pontification and to empower individuals to interpret the moment as they wish.
In the US colonial period, Pennsylvania Quakers did not worship together with non-Quakers, except those who might become converts.
They were separatists and did not pray in ecumenical gatherings or in service to institutions.
In recent times the co-opting of Quaker-style silence for non-sectarian and non-controversial public observances has led to its almost universal use in the English-speaking world as well as in other plural societies.
This is also the case within many secular institutions where diverse groups are expected to participate but not necessarily share beliefs – such as in government, schools, commercial companies and the military.
The use of a moment of silence to memorialize fallen soldiers or to allow private reflection in public schools, for example, was not introduced by Quakers themselves.
Above: Star symbol used by many service organizations of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
The US Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that official organization, sponsorship, or endorsement of school prayer in public schools is forbidden by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Teachers and school officials may not lead classes in prayer, but prayer is permitted at voluntary religious clubs, and students are not prohibited from praying themselves.
Other rulings have forbidden public, organized prayer at school assemblies, sporting events, and similar school-sponsored activities.
Public moments of silence in the United States both arise from and contribute to this debate over prayer and the separation of church and state.
A moment of silence lacks any specific religious formulation, and therefore it has been presented as a way of creating reflection and respect without endorsing any particular religion.
Above: First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama return to the White House after leading a moment of silence for the victims of the 2011 Tucson shooting.
US President Ronald Reagan was a supporter of a moment of silence in American schools.
In 1981, Reagan formally proposed a constitutional amendment permitting organized prayer in public schools.
In his 1984 State of the Union address, Reagan asked Congress, who begin their day with an invocation:
“If you can begin your day with a member of the clergy standing right here leading you in prayer, then why can’t freedom to acknowledge God be enjoyed again by children in every schoolroom across this land?”
Above: US President Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004)
Colin Powell, a longtime advocate, recommended a simple moment of silence at the start of each school day.
Further, he stated that students could use this interval to pray, meditate, contemplate or study.
Above: US Secretary of State Colin Powell (1937 – 2021)
However, critics often view the moment of silence as publicly endorsing prayer “in disguise“.
This issue has been especially raised by atheist groups and advocates, who argue that no non-religious purpose is served by designating an official moment of silence.
Moments of silence point to the tension in the US Constitution and society between accommodation and endorsement.
Accommodation of religion is to ensure an environment where a person or student can practice their religion.
A question with “moments of silence” laws is whether accommodation was already achieved by the fact that a student can pray or meditate on his/her own without an official moment of silence.
Above: Constitution of the United States, page 1 (1787)
Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said, on a “moment of silence” case:
“Students were already allowed to pray, meditate or reflect under the statute before it was amended.
The addition of the word ‘pray’ where it wasn’t needed clearly shows that legislators intended to promote religion, and that’s not their job.”
Courts have stated on these moments of silence cases that a secular purpose is necessary and according to Alabama Governor George Wallace v. Ismail Jaffree:
“A statute must be invalidated if it is entirely motivated by a purpose to advance religion.“
Above: Alabama Governor George Wallace (1919 – 1998)
Although since 1976 Virginia state law permitted school districts to implement 60 seconds of silence at the start of each school day, in 1985, the US Supreme Court ruled that an Alabama “moment of silence or voluntary prayer” law was unconstitutional, in the case Wallace v. Jaffree.
In April 2000, a new law came into being requiring all Virginian public school students to observe a moment of silence.
Above: Flag of the Commonwealth (State) of Virginia, USA
Also, in 2005, a law was passed in Indiana requiring all public schools to give students a chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance and observe a moment of silence every day.
Above: Flag of the US State of Indiana
In October 2007, Illinois enacted legislation to require public schools to provide students with a moment of silence at the start of the school day, a statute that was challenged in Illinois state courts.
Above: Flag of the US State of İllinois
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia also require such moments of quiet in the classroom.
In more than 20 other states, teachers are allowed to decide whether they want such a classroom time-out.
In October 2000, the US District Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled that the “moment of silence” law was constitutional.
Judge Hilton stated:
“The court finds that the Commonwealth’s daily observance of one minute of silence act is constitutional.
The act was enacted for a secular purpose, does not advance or inhibit religion, nor is there excessive entanglement with religion.
Students may think as they wish – and this thinking can be purely religious in nature or purely secular in nature.
All that is required is that they sit silently.“
His ruling was upheld in the 4th Circuit.
Above: Judge Claude M. Hilton
Others argued that the law was not enacted for a secular purpose, pointing to statements made by supporters of the legislation.
State Senator Charles R. Hawkins (R-Pennsylvania) stated the moment of silence is “a very small measure to address a very large problem“.
He also said:
“Prayer is not a bad word in my vocabulary.”
Above: State Senator Charles R. Hawkins
Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia, stated:
“Lawmakers are at the very least placing Virginia law right on the line of separation of church and state or they are crossing it.
The state is playing with fire here.“
The ACLU was opposed to a proposed constitutional amendment by Newt Gingrich in the early 1990s which would have set aside a voluntary moment of prayer during the school day, which was later independently described by President Bill Clinton as a “moment of silence“.
Above: US President Bill Clinton (r. 1993 – 2001)
When a terrorist attack occurs, association football federations can order minutes of silence for upcoming matches as a gesture of respect for victims who were killed.
In November 2016, La Mia Flight 2933, carrying the Chapecoense football club to the first leg of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana finals, crashed in Colombia, killing nearly all of its members.
Most European football federations ordered a minute of silence following the crash.
On the planned date of the final, a memorial was organized by Nacional and Medellín City Council to honor the deceased persons from the crash.
About 45,000 people were present inside the stadium.
In January 2019, footballer Emiliano Sala was killed in a plane crash, and minutes of silence were subsequently observed before Premier League, Ligue 1 and European competitions matches.
Above: Argentinian footballer Emiliano Sala (1990 – 2019)
Argumentative silence is the rhetorical practice of saying nothing when an opponent in a debate expects something to be said.
Poorly executed, it can be offensive, like refusing to answer a direct question.
A well-timed silence can throw an opponent off and give the debater the upper hand.
An argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio) is an argument based on the assumption that someone’s silence on a matter suggests (an informal fallacy) that person’s ignorance of the matter.
In general, ex silentio refers to the claim that the absence of something demonstrates the proof of a proposition.
“Master your voice.
Pauses are power!
A speaker who pauses effectively is in control.
The speaker starts with a pause which signals to the audience that as soon as their chit-chat subsides, the main event will get under way.
The speaker pauses to let the audience assimilate what was just discussed.
If the speaker tells a light-hearted anecdote, there is a pause for the ensuing ripple of laughter and pauses until the laughter subsides.
If there are those talking and not listening, the speaker pauses and looks at them until they stop.
The speaker pauses for emphasis.
When the speaker is finished, there are pauses for the applause that should be inevitably received.
Pause for power.
Knowing when NOT to speak can open doors.
The less you say, the more people listen.
On the speaker’s platform, you are the only person speaking, but do not make it a non-stop monologue.
Incorporate pauses wherever you can.
Before you say your first word, pause.
Before you say something riveting, pause.
After you have said something provocative, pause.
When the audience laughs, pause.
When you need to catch your breath, pause.
When you want to recapture your reader’s attention, pause.
Remember, the person who controls the silence, controls the room.
Pause.”
Elizabeth Urech, Speaking Globally
The right to silence is a legal protection enjoyed by people undergoing police interrogation or trial in certain countries.
The law is either explicit or recognized in many legal systems.
The documentary film In Pursuit of Silence (2016) portrays the spiritual and physical benefits of silence, as well as the price paid individually and collectively for a noisy world.
It is narrated by authors Helen Lees (Silence in Schools), Pico Iyer (The Art of Stillness), Susan Cain (Quiet), Maggie Ross (Silence: A User’s Guide), and George Prochnik (In Pursuit of Silence).
Above: English writer Pico Iyer
“The idea of stillness has been around as long as humans have been:
The poets of East Asia, the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, regularly made stillness the centre of their lives.
But has the need for being in one place ever been as vital as it is right now?“
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
Music inherently depends on silence, in some form or another, to distinguish other periods of sound and allow dynamics, melodies, and rhythms to have greater impact.
For example, most music scores feature rests, which denote periods of silence.
In addition, silence in music can be seen as a time for contemplation.
The audience feels the effects of the previous notes and melodies, and can intentionally reflect on what they have heard.
Silence does not hinder musical excellence, but can enhance the sounds of instruments and vocals within a given musical composition.
In his book Sound and Silence (1970), the composer John Paynter says:
“The dramatic effect of silence has long been appreciated by composers.”
He gives as an example:
“The general pause in the middle of the chorus ‘Have lightnings and thunders …‘ in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion“:
After the pause, the music continues to the words:
“Open up the fiery bottomless pit, O Hell!“
The silence is intended to communicate a momentary sensation of terror, of staring into unfathomable darkness.
Above: German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Another example of a dramatic silence comes in the “rest full of tension” at the climactic ending of the Hallelujah chorus in Handel’s Messiah.
Above: German composer George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)
Musical silences may also convey humour.
Haydn’s Quartet in E flat, Op. 33 was nicknamed “The Joke“, because of the comic timing of the pauses at the end of the last movement.
Above: Austrian composer Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)
Taruskin says:
“Whenever this ending is performed, it takes the audience an extra second or so to recover its wits and realize that the piece is indeed over.
The result is an inevitable giggle — the same giggle that overtakes a prestidigitator’s audience when it realizes that it has been ‘had’.“
Above: Danish comedian-pianist Victor Borge (1909 – 2000)
Barry Cooper writes extensively of Beethoven’s many uses of silence for contemplation, for dramatic effect and especially for driving the rhythmic impetus of the music.
He cites the start of the second movement of the Ninth Symphony, where the silences contribute to a powerful sense of propulsion:
“The rhythm of bar 1 is incomplete and demands a note at the beginning of bar 2.
The substitution of such a note by a whole-bar rest therefore gives the effect of a suppressed sound, as if one were about to speak but then refrains at the last moment.
The ‘suppressed sound’ is then repeated in bar 4, and ‘developed’ (by being doubled) in bars 7 and 8.”
Grove writes of the “strange irregularity of rhythm in the sixth bar” of this movement.
Above: German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Robert Schumann’s song “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet” from his song cycle Dichterliebe uses silence to convey an almost Gothic ambiance, suggesting the darkness of the grave where the dreaming poet imagines his lover has been placed:
“I wept in my dreams.
I dreamt you were lying in your grave.“
Above: German composer Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856)
In his book advising pianists and singers about interpretation, the pianist Gerald Moore stresses the need to fully observe the precisely notated rests, especially in the fourth bar above “where nothing is happening, that is to say nothing except a silence, a pregnant silence which, if shortened, dissipates the suffering it is intended to convey.”
Above: English pianist Gerald Moore (1899 – 1987)
Much has been said about the harmony of the opening to Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde, which Taruskin calls “perhaps the most famous, surely the most commented-on, single phrase of music ever written.”
His strategic use of silences between phrases intensifies the troubled ambiguity of the music:
“The chord that fills the ensuing silence in the listener’s inner ear is the unstated – indeed never to be stated, and ultimately needless to be stated – tonic of that key.“
Above: German composer Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)
Some of the most effective musical silences are very short, lasting barely a fraction of a second.
In the spirited and energetic finale of his Symphony No. 2, Brahms uses silences at several points to powerfully disrupt the rhythmic momentum that has been building.
Above: German composer Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
During the 20th century, composers explored further the expressive potential of silence in their music.
The contemplative concluding bars of Anton Webern’s Symphony (1928) and Stravinsky’s Les Noces (1923) make telling and atmospheric use of pauses.
Above: Austrian composer Anton Webern (1883 – 1945)
Eric Walter White describes the ending of Les Noces:
“As the voices cease singing, pools of silence come flooding in between the measured strokes of the bell chord, and the music dies away in a miraculously fresh and radiant close.“
Above: Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971)
John Paynter vividly conveys how silence contributes to the titanic impact of the third section of Messiaen’s orchestral work Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964):
Woodwinds jump, growl and shriek.
Silence.
Eight solemn bell strokes echo and die.
Again silence.
Suddenly the brasses blare, and out of the trombones’ awesome processional grows a steady roar … the big gongs the tam-tam beaten in a long and powerful resonance, shattering and echoing across mountains and along valleys.
This is music of the high hills, music for vast spaces:
‘The hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God’.
We can feel the awe and the majesty of the High Alps and the great churches.
The instrumental sounds are vast.
The silences are deep.
The words of St John are alive in the music, and through these sounds Messiaen reveals himself and his vision.“
Above: French composer Olivier Messianen (1908 – 1992)
An extreme example from 1952 is 4′33“, an experimental musical work by avant-garde composer John Cage, incorporating ambient sounds not foreseeable by the composer.
Though first performed on the piano, the piece was composed for any instrument or instruments and is structured in three movements.
The length of each movement is not fixed by the composer, but the total length of the combination of three movements is.
The score instructs the performer(s) to remain silent throughout the piece.
Above: American composer John Cage (1912 – 1992)
There are telling examples of the use of silence in jazz.
A frequently used effect, known as “stop-time“, places silences at moments where listeners or dancers might expect a strong beat, contributing to the syncopation.
Above: Composition for Jazz, Albert Gleizes (1915)
Scott Joplin’s Rag-Time Dance (1902) features stop-time silences.
Early recordings of the Rag Time Dance follow Joplin’s instructions:
“To get the desired effect of ‘Stop Time’, the pianist will please stamp the heel of one foot heavily upon the floor.”
Later recordings disregard this direction – the regular beat is implied rather than stated and the silences are more palpable.
Above: American composer Scott Joplin (1868 – 1917)
Keith Swanwick is enchanted by the “playfulness and humour” engendered by the stop-time effects in Jelly Roll Morton’s solo piano recording of The Crave (1939):
“If we listen to this, tapping or clicking along with the beat, we shall find ourselves surprised by two patches of silence near the end.
The beat goes on but the sound stops.
The effect is something like being thrown forward when a car stops suddenly.
It is the biggest surprise in an engaging piece of music full of little deviations (syncopations) from the repeated beat.“
Above: American composer Jelly Roll Morton (né Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe)(1890 – 1941)
Other examples include the closing bars of Louis Armstrong’s recording of Struttin’ with Some Barbecue (1928) and the hair’s-breadth pause at the end of pianist Bill Evans’ solo on Miles Davis’ recording of On Green Dolphin Street (1959).
Above: American musician Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971)
Above: American composer Bill Evans (1929 – 1980)
Duke Ellington’s “Madness in Great Ones“, from his Shakespearean suite Such Sweet Thunder (1957) conveys the feigned madness of Prince Hamlet through abrupt and unpredictable pauses that interrupt the flow of the music.
Above: American composer Duke Ellington (1899 – 1974)
The reggae band Black Slate had a hit in 1980 with the song Amigo.
The instrumental introduction features sudden silences before the voice enters.
“With machines coming to seem part of our nervous systems, while increasing their speed every season, we have lost our Sundays, our weekends, our nights off – our holy days.
Our bosses, junk mailers, our parents can find us wherever we are, at any time of day or night.
More and more of us feel like emergency room physicians, permanently on call, required to heal ourselves but unable to find the prescription for all the chatter on our desk.
As I came down from the mountain, I recalled how, not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury.
Nowadays, it is often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize.
Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources –
It is a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources.
Going nowhere is not about austerity so much as about coming closer to one’s senses.
Talking about stillness is really a way of talking about clarity and sanity and the joys that endure.“
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
“The multiplication of technologies in the name of efficiency is actually eradicating free time by making it possible to maximize the time and place for production and minimize the time in between.
New timesaving technologies make most workers more productive, not more free, in a world that seems to be accelerating around them.
The rhetoric of efficiency around these technologies suggests that what cannot be quantified cannot be valued – that the vast array of pleasures which fall into the category of doing nothing in particular, of woolgathering, cloud-gazing, wandering, window-shopping, are nothing but voids to be filled by something more definite, more productive or faster paced.
The indeterminacy of a ramble, on which much may be discovered, is being replaced by the determinate shortest distance to be traversed with all possible speed, as well as by the electronic transmissions that make real travel less necessary.
Time saved by technology can be lavished on daydreams and meanders and I know these things have their uses, but I fear their false urgency, their call to speed, their insistence that the destination is more important than the journey.
Walking is about being outside, in public space.
Public space is being abandoned and eroded, eclipsed by technologies and services that don’t require leaving home.
Insidious forces are marshalled against the time, space and will to walk and against the version of humanity that walking embodies.
One force is the filling-up of “the time in-between”, the time of walking to or from a place, of meandering, of running errands.
That time has been deplored as a waste, reduced, and its remainder filled with earphones playing music and mobile phones relaying conversations.
The very ability to appreciate this uncluttered time, the uses of the useless, often seems to be evaporating, as does appreciation of being outside – including outside the familiar, mobile phone conversations seem to serve as a buffer against solitude, silence and encounters with the unknown.
The fight against the collapse of imagination and engagement may be as important as the battles for political freedom.”
Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust
“I call them “the techno zombies”.
I have a class on Sunday morning, addicted to their phones, bordering on the comically ridiculous.
Their tragic resistance to interacting with anyone around them finds me scathingly labelling them as “simply sad”.
Their faces are impersonal cliff sides.
Their obsessive fixation on their phones manifests itself in complete disinterest in the world around them.
Ears cannot listen to the heartbeat of others, for headphones batter eardrums.
Eyes cannot see the beauty of the moment, for they are hypnotically lost in the handheld screen beneath them.
Their fate is of their folly.
Their folly is their fate.
They are as indifferent to the Universe as the Universe is indifferent to them.
They neither know the serenity of nature nor the struggles of the individuals around them.
They are neither cruel nor beneficent, neither treacherous nor wise.
They are simply indifferent, flat screen indifferent.
“A man said to the Universe:
“I exist.”
The Universe replied:
“However, the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
“When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important and would not maim the Universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple.
He hates deeply that there are no bricks and no temples.”
What is heard on their headphones and seen on their screens is only the semblance of life.
What life actually is, remains ambiguous to all.
None of them know the colour of the day, for none of them look up at the sky.
In a Universe of unease and uncertainly, they seek solace in the distraction of technology, never daring to feel, never daring to think.
Perfect cannon fodder in the subtle slavery of capitalism.
They claim they are connected to a universal humanity, globally wired, piecemeal, intertwined by the Internet, but cell phones cannot capture the subtlety of shadow a smile reveals nor can mobiles cast comfort in the way that a hug can.
“A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers.
There was lack of woman’s nursing.
There was dearth of woman’s tears.
But a comrade stood beside him.
He took that comrade’s hand.
He said:
“I shall never see my own native land.”
Above: American writer Stephen Crane (1871 – 1900)
A phone cannot caress you.
A phone cannot hold you close to a heart.
They care for a machine that cares not for them.
Only in open communication and physical contact and awareness of the beauty of the moment can we find solace in human solidarity.
The Universe is uncaring and the Internet is impartial to what you may feel in the isolation wherein you voluntarily imprison yourself.
Perhaps God does not hear us, because His ears hear music we cannot.
Perhaps God does not see us, because His eyes are glued to events beyond ourselves.
He cannot save us, for we refuse to save ourselves.
We blame God for our misfortunes while ignoring Him and His creations.
The sky is falling, but they do not look up.
The world is ending, but they cannot hear the blade swing nor see the executioner.
Their life is in their hands, but that life is only half alive, half lived.
I would show them the errors of their ways, but they do not look up.
I would tell them tales to teach them of life, but they do not listen.
The palette is a blank screen, a whiteboard no one reads.
The sun is warm, but the soul is cold.
They do not see the shadows on the hills.
They do not feel the trees nor smell the daffodils.
They cannot catch the breeze nor feel the winter chill.
They will not listen.
They don’t know how.
They see not fires that blaze nor the joy of days,
All they have is electronic haze of techno craze.
They cannot love, for they know not what love is.
They are not alive, for they know not what living means.
Above: Self-portrait, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890)
They are nothing more than portraits hung in empty halls.
Frameless heads on nameless walls.
Strangers on the ‘Net they haven’t met and will soon forget,
Whose love they crave and “Likes” collect.
Ragged souls in name brand clothes,
Empaled on silicon thorny rose,
Bloodless throes of thoughts no one knows
Hope lies crushed and broken on the snows
A beautiful Sunday, sight unseen.
Melodious birdsong sounds so obscene.
Starry night above, eyes drawn below.
A world around, that nobody knows.
Suicide slow, measured in bytes.
Battery full, lives empty and light.
Life missing from their lives.
Experience? Mere epitaph survives.
They will not be missed,
For they are not here.
They never were.
They would not listen.
Not listening still.
Perhaps they cannot.
Perhaps never will.
I feel pity for the people they could be.
I feel pity for the people they cannot be.
I would cry, but there would be no point.
No need to get myself out of joint.
Tears unseen flow without purpose.
What a brave new world this really is.
Tik Tok, life passes them by.
Instant Instagram incidents in the blink of an eye.
The Twitter discordant, X marks the spot,
Meta now is what Facebook was not.
Look up for salvation and follow the sun.
Battery fails when days are done.
Social Truth lies to us all.
Heed the media’s clarion call.
Pump up the volume
They cry “Spotify“.
I cannot look up
I don’t know why.
Heads bowed in prayer
To electronic god.
They think I am strange.
I know that they’re odd.“
Canada Slim, Facebook, Monday 10 December 2024
What are your first thoughts when asked to think about coffee shops?
You are likely to visualize a warm cozy atmosphere, plentiful cups of steaming coffee and a constant buzz of chatter.
However, as you walk into a small coffee shop in downtown Tokyo, you are immediately struck by the quiet of the place.
Surprisingly for this type of establishment, there is an utter lack of voices.
Customers are contentedly catching up with their emails or meditating on their day in silence.
Despite being a relatively new trend, silent cafés are gradually becoming more and more popular in Tokyo and worldwide.
Initially seen as a novelty, they are now catching on.
A growing number of people are discovering that they offer a wonderful antidote to the hustle and bustle of modern day life.
Some silent cafés limit the chat ban to specific hours during the day, while others impose a complete ban on all talking throughout the day.
Approximately 70% of the clientele are female and most customers are in their 20s and 30s.
The vast majority of customers visit alone.
In the warm, silent and relaxing atmosphere of these cafés, comfortably decorated in relaxing colours, with greenery in the form of potted plants and wildlife in the form of fish in aquariums, you are transported to a more relaxed bygone era.
People are reading books, catching up on work and studies, consumed in hobbies or catching up on the news digitally, but all in absolute silence.
The waiters and waitresses are moving silently and taking the customers’ orders using whispers.
However, in some silent cafés, the proprietors provide conveniently placed notebooks, so that customers can communicate with each other when necessary without disturbing other customers.
The coffee shop culture in Japan has been growing steadily over the last ten to fifteen years as a number of coffee shops chains have become established.
However, while customers frequenting a coffee shop chain usually grab their caffeine fit in a rush, those customers visiting the silent cafés are likely to spend at least an hour savouring both their coffee and the atmosphere before returning to their hectic lifestyles.
Takahashi Akemi, a convert to silent cafés, has been frequenting them for some time now.
She loves coffee, but has always been too inhibited to go to a coffee chain unaccompanied.
“I am so happy that I can go for a coffee now without feeling uncomfortable about being on my own.“
On Friday 6 December, I took a walk – seeking out whether Eskişehir has a Silent Café.
It does.
It is beneath an apartment block that diagonally thrusts itself onto an anonymous street corner.
It fittingly sits stock-still across from a military cemetery in the Odunpazari district.
It has only a solitary sign on the sidewalk to announce its existence but neon covers the entrance of Silent Café Kütüphane (Turkish for “library“).
This is our happy place.
I sit at seat 01 in this happy place.
I feast, inexpensively, whispering my wishes to the married couple who own and operate this establishment.
This could be a happy place for studying, for reading a book, for meditating about life, woolgathering, contemplation and reflection.
But besides the proprietors I am not alone.
A half dozen young people, perhaps high school, perhaps university, arrive as a pack, sit beside one another, eyes glued to laptops and ears plugged by headphones.
The tram stop is close.
As I see no bicycles outside, I assume that they took the tram to get here.
The WiFi signal is strong, so laptops and cellphones can be used.
Happily, for them, not only won’t they speak to one another, but the very concept of a Silent Café is that they shouldn’t speak to each other.
But I cannot help but feel that they have misunderstood the potential value of a Silent Café, for though they must be silent they nonetheless have sound blasting in their ears.
I like the Café and the couple who run it are friendly and hospitable, but the sadness I feel seeing the young engage in zombie pursuits even here discourages me.
I eat my meal, but do not linger long after.
I walk home, though my ES Card transit card is both valid and full.
I find myself thinking of Italo Calvino:
“The whistle of blackbirds has this special feature:
It is identical to a human whistle.
After a while, the whistle is repeated – by the same blackbird or by its spouse – but always as if it were the first time it occurred to them to whistle.
If it is a dialogue, each line comes after a long reflection.
And what if the meaning of the message were in the pause and not in the whistle?
What if it were in the silence that blackbirds speak to each other?
A silence, apparently the same as another silence, could express a hundred different intentions.
Even a whistle, for that matter.
Speaking to each other while remaining silent or whistling is always possible.
The problem is understanding each other.
Or no one can understand anyone.
Each blackbird believes he has put into the whistle a meaning that is fundamental for him, but that only he understands.“
Italo Calvino, Palomar
Above: Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923 – 1985)
No one hears the blackbirds.
No one listens to the silence between the whistles.
There is no reflection.
There is no meaning.
There is no understanding.
The ramble is lost in loneliness.
The jukebox of my mind plays….
Out in the shiny night, the rain was softly falling.
Tracks that ran down the boulevard had all been washed away.
Out of the silver light, the past came softly calling,
And I remember the times we spent inside the Sad Café.
Oh, it seemed like a holy place, protected by amazing grace,
And we would sing right out loud, the things we could not say.
We thought we could change this world, with words like “love” and “freedom”.
We were part of the lonely crowd inside the Sad Café.
Oh, expecting to fly,
We would meet on that beautiful shore in the sweet by and by.
Some of their dreams came true, some just passed away,
And some of them stayed behind, inside the Sad Café.
The clouds rolled in and hid that shore.
Now that Glory Train, it don’t stop here no more.
Now I look at the years gone by and wonder at the powers that be.
I don’t know why Fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free.
Maybe the time has drawn the faces I recall
But things in this life change very slowly, if they ever change at all
No use in asking why, it just turned out that way
So meet me at midnight, baby, inside the Sad Café
Why don’t you meet me at midnight, baby, inside the Sad Café?
The Eagles, “The Sad Café“
The jukebox switches songs, but the depression deepens…
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.
Blackbird, fly. Blackbird, fly,
Into the light of a dark black night.
Blackbird, fly. Blackbird, fly,
Into the light of a dark black night.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back.
The more you come to know them, the more one seeds them with memories.
The old is ever new when one rambles.
İn silence, one can read to know one is not alone in the Universe.
In silence, one can write to discover the depths of one’s soul.
In the silence of a ramble, one is both a part of the crowd, the chaos, the cacophony, yet distinctive and distant within the quiet of one’s thoughts.
The young zombies walk, but they do not see beyond their phones.
The young zombies hear, naught but what their headgear is programmed to emit.
The young zombies live, without lives.
They are younger than I, but closer to death.
They are intoxicated by their technology.
Pink sings again as the record flips again.
“I’m safe, up high.
Nothing can touch me.
Why do I feel this party’s over?
No pain, inside,
You’re my protection.
But how do I feel this good sober?“
Above: American entertainer Pink (né Alecia Beth Moore Hart)
I think of Henry David Thoreau:
“An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness and I can still get this any afternoon.
Two or three hours’ walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see.
A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominion of the King of Dahomey.
There is in fact a sort of harmony discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle of ten miles’ radius or the limits of an afternoon walk and the threescore and ten (70 years) of human life.
It will never become quite familiar to you.“
Henry David Thoreau, Walking
Above: American philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
Perhaps this is what keeps the zombies addicted:
The comfort of familiarity (and yet they complain that life is boring).
It is the unpredictable incidents between official events that add up to a life – the silence between whistles.
It is the incalculable that gives life value.
The randomness of rambling, reading and writing, the unscreened beyond our screens, allows you to find what you don’t know you are looking for.
You don’t know a place until it surprises you.
You don’t know a person until that person surprises you.
You don’t know yourself until you explore both within and outside yourself.
Rambling, reading and writing maintain a bulwark against the erosion of the mind and the body and the soul.
Serendipity is our salvation.
Above: The Three Princes of Serendip
The road to Salvation cannot be found on Google Maps.
Look up.
Look in.
Listen to the silence.
“Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone.
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp.
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking.
People hearing without listening.
People writing songs that voices never share.
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
“Fools” said I, “You do not know,
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you.
Take my arms that I might reach you.”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence.
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence“
Sources
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Beatles, “Blackbird“
The Bible
Italo Calvino, Palomar
Leonard Cohen, “So long, Marianne“
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
The Eagles, “The Sad Café“
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence
Shirley Hudson, New World English C1
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere
Don McLean, “Starry Starry Night“
Pink, “Sober“
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence“
Henry David Thoreau, Walking
Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Elizabeth Urech, Speaking Globally: How to Make Effective Presentations Across International and Cultural Boundaries
Wikipedia
