Your days pass like rainbows, like a flash of lightning, like a star at dawn. Your life is short. How can you quarrel?
~ Jack Kornfield in A LAMP IN THE DARKNESS: ILLUMINATING THE PATH THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES
Silence makes the secretions of the mind visible. By emptying myself when I fast, emptying myself in solitude, I might discover myself full -- of history, wilderness and society. And I can see my identity co-evolving with all of creation ... I willingly entered the Valley of the Shadow through solitude, silence, stillness, meditation, and prayer. In those quiet places, I discovered a mindstream whose depths were luminous.