“Silence is the great revelation,” said Lao Tzu. Even without going any further, this is a powerful statement about the quality of practice. It instantly reminds us of what we know of silence already that comes in breeze and birdsong. The silence that feeds our hungry heart when we spend time in the mountains and woods, in the natural world where all sounds align with inmost silence, not interfering, but rather part of the silence of vast openness.
But in the human world, the world of industry and traffic and endless opinion, to know silence, the cessation of all chatter in our own hearts that zazen sits us down to, to taste the peace and liberation that it brings and the intimacy with our own life moment, is like nothing else. Just itself. What is revealed? What is the great revelation that we are all seeking? Caught in the chaos and cacophony of the human-made, the mania of opinions, and agendas where is silence?
Silence throughout heaven and earth is our birthright. When sitting in zazen, relax and allow everything to let go…..don’t waste time endlessly circling the hamster wheel of thinking, thinking, thinking. The first great step, the first great revelation you have already received in zazen. Settle down into it and open to the refuge and wisdom of this noble silence.
