Member-only story

The Language of Silence

David Price
4 min readFeb 17, 2024

--

Alice Paul Roderick

The paradox about waking up — I mean the ordinary kind of waking up that occurred to you and me this morning — is that you can’t make it happen, yet it’s inevitable. The same holds true spiritually. You can’t wish, pray, beg, force, or meditate yourself awake.

— Alan Watts

*

I would not accept anything as Truth until I found the truth myself.

— Krishnamurti

*

… cats aren’t materialistic; they’re neoplatonic. They live in worlds of soul, in a world full of figures, omens, indications…

— James Hillman, The language of life

*

Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn’t mean not talking and not doing things, it means that you are not disturbed inside. If you’re truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in you can enjoy the silence. There are moments when you think you’re silent and all around is silent, but talking is going on all the time inside your head. That’s not silence. The practice is how to find silence in all the activities you do.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

*

We don’t generally know much about the spiritual state of silence, but we have ideas about it. We have words to…

--

--

David Price
David Price

Written by David Price

I write about creativity, loving, language learning and psycho/spirituality. I’m a longtime painter and reader.

Responses (13)