God is Silence. There is a silence of the tongue, a silence of the whole body. There is a silence of the soul and the spirit. The silence of the spirit is when all its movements are stirred solely by Being; in this state it is truly silent, aware that the silence which is upon it is itself silent.
Sometimes there would be a rush of noisy visitors and the Silence of the monastery would be shattered. This would upset the monks; not the master, however, who seemed just as content with the noise as with the Silence. To those protesting he said one day:
"Silence is not the absence of sound,
but the absence of self."