The venerated Chinese teacher Lin-chi, who died in the year 866, once interrupted the silence with a shout that was said to have nearly cracked the universe.... Breaking the silence can sometimes be a shortcut to cracking open the mysteries of the universe. But for now, I'm quite content to sit here quietly. There is only the infrequent shout of a distant ocean wave to rise above the regulated whisper of my own breathing. Soon, even these sounds fade.
In the middle of a healing conference on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, a young Native American died of acute alcoholism. Unfortunately, it is not an unusual occurrence on Indian reservations to die of alcoholism. I was working with Matt and Dennis Linn who were in training on the reservation. We were invited to the wake that was to be held later that evening. The Linns told me what to do when we got to the tribal hall.
"When we go into the tribal hall tonight, the man will be in a casket in the front of the room with all of his grieving family around him, and nobody will be talking. The Indian people will be there. Go in, don't say a word, take the hand of each of the grieving relatives, shake it once, and sit down with the rest of the people who are there."
We sat there in silence with the family. The Native Americans sat there all night long with that family, not saying a word. Your presence speaks so much louder than anything you could say. Sometimes we talk too much, rather than remembering to "be still and know that I am God".