Returning to silence
It gives them life and rears them.
It gives them life yet claims no possession;
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude;
It is the steward yet exercises no authority.
- Tao Te Ching, X (D.C. Lau translation)
Most religions have a practice of quieting the mind. Sometimes these are prominent and central – like meditation within Buddhist and Yoga traditions – other times they are less well-known and harder to access, like “contemplation” within the Western Christian tradition.
I grew up in a household that was deeply immersed in Christianity. My father had been a Roman Catholic priest (and a missionary in India) before leaving the priesthood, retraining as a social worker, and meeting and marrying my Mum. My mother was born in rural India - the daughter of adventurous Protestant missionaries from New Zealand and Australia. Despite this, I grew up not knowing much about contemplation or silent prayer. Meditation was something other religions did. Christians, in contrast, read the Bible, practised verbal prayer, confessed their faith in Jesus Christ, sang, and engaged in endless, selfless, loving service.
Some of my favourite memories of India are of rising early, when everyone except our ayah was asleep, and when the world was still cool and just waking up.
Silence isn’t always golden. When we speak dishonestly or don’t say what is right, we can create a toxic, pernicious form of silence. Christians and churches have a long history of this!
I first attempted to meditate in my early twenties, during a time in my life when I was horribly anxious. I just kept focussing on my breath, even though I wanted to squirm and die. Suddenly, after twenty minutes or so, I started to feel calm, then very calm. I had peeked into another world. I saw the image of a buddha with his eyes closed, reposed in seemingly endless meditation. There were other people there, too – other saints and buddhas – endlessly praying or meditating for the sake of our world. I just thought it was my fruity imagination at the time!
For the next twenty years or so, on and off, I tried various types of meditation – breath-based forms from Eastern traditions, Christian forms of mantra meditation, and contemplative ‘Centering Prayer’ for almost a decade. They all helped immensely and brought me closer to God. In the end, I did what most masters and teachers advise you not to: I gave up on a formal practice, did what I liked, and let silence teach and guide me directly (with great support and inspiration from George Fox).
Did Jesus meditate? Did he practice silent prayer? What might the following ‘wisdom passage’ mean?
…whenever you pray, go into your room, and shut the door and pray to the Father who is is secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6: 6).
Generally, apart from the above perhaps, we don’t find Jesus expounding on meditation. What is visible to us is more the other side of that – the other side of silence – what it means to live a life that is born out of spirit, or rebirthed out of the holy life-breath.
Photograph at top of page by M.C.M. - carved stone relief somewhere in Maharashtra, India
