a deeper silence

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No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything 

that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. 

These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and peace 

that is “heard” when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests.

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But what can the wind say when there is no hearer?

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 There is then a deeper silence:

 the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. 

That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.

~ Thomas Merton

thanks to http://practiceofzen.wordpress.com/

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In a frontispiece poem to The Solitary Life, Merton wrote:

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Follow my ways and I will lead you

To golden-haired suns,

Logos and music, blameless joys,

Innocent of questions

And beyond answers.

For I, Solitude, am thine own Self:

I, Nothingness, am thy All.

I, Silence, am thy Amen.

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