Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
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 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. "