The Silence of the Monks.

There's a concept in Buddhist philosophy that the highest art you can attain is to fill your everyday moments with the full presence of yourself, and thus transform them into meditative acts. The Trappist Monks of Oka Abbey, in Quebec, are the only Western-based monastic order that still actively practices the “vow” of silence. Jeremy Mesiano managed to get them to discuss silence without breaking Omerta their code of silence through an E-mail exchange with a monk. The silence does make us aware of our inner workings, however, what we call in the monastery, "self-knowledge.. Silence seems to keep us from idealizing ourselves. This says on one level that silence is in our lives to create an ambience of recollection so I'll remember and honor the universal presence. . On another level, silence reminds me that the misuse of words, the abuse of language can also be the sinful abuse of people; silence for us means not talking, more than not making noise… On yet another level, silence means listening. "Listen." That's the great ethical element of silence: to check my words and listen to another point of view. I'll never have any real peace should my sense of well-being depend on soundless peace. When I can learn the patience of receiving, in an unthreatened way, what I'd rather not hear, then I can have a real measure of peace in any situation. Silence is an aid and not an end in itself. It aids prayer, communal and private, and seeks to reduce distractions. Silence aids deeper meditation and contemplation. The first advantage contemplation and silence bring to me is the serenity, the calm and peace of mind. When there is lot of noise or movement around you, it’s tough to take notice of what you’re going through. It is sin that makes the world complicated, and sin comes from us. But if sin comes from in us, then a monk, living in silence and solitude, is sitting in the eye of the storm. My own impression is that life in the world provides many diversions which guard a person from really engaging the battle with sin, and can even render him quite insensible of its existence. Such a person is not so much engaging the complexity of the world as becoming numb to it. In the cloister, on the other hand, you engage the Adversary face to face. It is hard for me to imagine where in the world a person more directly engages “the world in all its complexity” than battling with the very source of evil in one's own heart in the solitude and silence of the cloister.