*SILENT/*SILENCE - also see STILL, MEDITATION, QUIET, CONTENT
We can't grasp the nearness of God with our senses and reason. Only when all representation falls silent can God reveal himself as he is. (Meaning, p220)
Speak good or be silent. (Islam, Wisdom, p317)
Just as we see more clearly in a pool of water when it is calm and still, so in interior silence we begin to perceive the movements of our hearts and minds. (Purif, p138)
St. John of the Cross describes contemplative exerience: "Silent music, sounding solitude." The great Buddhist intuition that the highest wisdom is found not in Cartesian clear and distinct ideas but in the tranquil silence that transcends all thoughts, all images, all ideas, all reasoning, in the total extinction of craving and desire. (Zen, p2-3)
It is unrealistic to aim at having no thoughts. When we speak of developing interior silence, we are speaking of a relative degree of silence. By interior silence we refer primarily to a state in which we do not become attached to the thoughts as they go by. The constant starting over with patience, calm, and acceptance trains us for the acceptance of the whole of life. (Open Mind, p53-5)
He will be more pleased that you preferred to listen to His silence. In centering prayer God is speaking not to your ears, to your emotions, or to your head, but to your spirit, to your inmost being. The fruits are: in your calmness, in your peace, in your willingness to surrender to God in everything that happens. That is why interior silence is greater than any insight! (Open Mind, p83)