The Power of Words

As well as experiencing the power of words everyday through the news media and advertising, we also experience the power in novels, poetry and so on. Some of us may have changed our direction in life as the result of words we read or heard. Some of us may have gained greater understanding from someone's words.

Words conveyed most of what we know. Almost all of our knowledge has come to us via words and a great deal of our opinions and even our emotional life, is built up on the basis of words – things we heard in childhood that conditioned us, or things we heard during our education that excited us or broadened our horizons or things said in the schoolyard that hurt us or helped us. Words have been crucial in creating us, in creating our world. The whole world is mediated through words.

Words can move us to action. Words can cause wars or great acts of heroism or amazing self-sacrifice. Words are powerful. Words are moving. Words are expressive and capable of motivating us to great heights and depths. William Wordsworth said: “Words are too awful an instrument for good and evil to be trifled with: they hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts.”  It is worth reflecting on how words affect us for good or ill and also how our words affect others.

 

Morality

Often when people first encounter a Buddhist they ask what are you not allowed to do? The hidden assumption in this question is that there is some authority such as a deity or a pope or such like who lays down the rules and the rest of us obey them. But it's not like that at all. The ethical precepts and principles of Buddhism are advice and you are free to take the advice or not, there is no compulsion. Indeed compulsion of that kind would be considered unethical in Buddhism. So the advice is if you want to have a happy and satisfying life you will need to make some effort to live by these principles. The terms used for right and wrong behaviour are 'skilful' and 'unskilful' which indicates that being ethical is a skill, a capability, which we can develop. It is a matter of intelligence not obedience.

The path of ethics involves trying to live your life in accordance with the ethical principles of non-violence, generosity, contentment, honesty in communication and mindfulness. If we were to say those in terms of what not to do it would be – don't harm any living thing; don't take what you are not given; don't coerce or manipulate people, especially for sexual gratification; don't be untruthful or dishonest in your communication and don't get so intoxicated that you become unmindful or unaware.

Radical Religion

The Buddha’s message is still radical and even revolutionary today: firstly he says your suffering is largely caused by your own mental states. You can do something about that and nobody else can do it for you. You are responsible for your own states of mind and for your life. This is quite radical even today. We live in a culture of blame and complaining. Secondly he says religion is whatever works to alleviate suffering and transform people completely in the direction of wisdom and compassion. There is no God or Guru to save you, you need to follow the guidance or take the medicine and in that way save yourself. This is a radical redefinition of religion. Then he says spiritual practices are a means to an end not ends in themselves. This is also radical.

And in our materialist, shopping culture his message about where happiness comes from is still radical. He says there is no lasting happiness to be found in worldly things. Therefore accumulating wealth or possessions or even having children doesn’t bring lasting happiness. In the end we will have to let go of everything and we will be happier if we train ourselves in letting go.

And in a world where some people are willing to kill or be killed on the basis of some real or imagined insult to their teacher or teachings it is quite radical for the Buddha to say that he and his Dharma do not need to be defended. Buddhism doesn’t need laws against blasphemy. Anger because the Buddha is denigrated or pride because Buddhism is praised are equally unhelpful on the path. (Brahmajala Sutta, Digha Nikaya) Buddhism is a radical teaching. Strong medicine for a sick world.

Impermanence

We can experience people dying. We can experience the ending of a relationship. We can experience our computer breaking down. But that is not insight. Insight into impermanence goes beyond knowing that all things are impermanent, it goes beyond our experiences of impermanence. When we experience impermanence at work in our lives and when we acknowledge the impermanent nature of all things to ourselves, there is still a sense in which we don’t fully take it on board. There is still an inability to let this knowledge and experience really permeate our lives fully.

We can carry on having an experience that impermanence means that all things come to an end sometime. But it doesn’t mean that. All things are impermanent all the time. It is the nature of things to change and keep on changing all the time, always. There is no non-change. There is no non-impermanence.

There is only impermanence always. If we can let this truth really sink into our being, to the very depths, then it transforms our whole view of ourselves and the world. It takes us outside time. It takes away all fear. Fear is fear of change, fear of death. We are really impermanent, thoroughly impermanent, 100% impermanent and not just in death, but all the time, every moment, every infinitesimal fraction of a moment, we are a process physically, emotionally and mentally.

Nothing stands still, nothing is fixed. There is nothing to hold onto. There are no moments even. When we know this, when this is constantly before our vision, permeating our vision, then we have a completely different experience of the world; liberated from fear, joyful, completely in unity with the universal flow of energy that is life

A Simple Life

Our craving for things is being encouraged all the time by advertisers. That is their job and they are very very good at it. We may think we are impervious to advertising but the advertisers know better. So we need to be aware that our wants are not just our wants, they are the wants that we have been persuaded to have. Often what we want is what others want us to want. By living a simple life with deliberately few wants we remove ourselves from the sphere of influence of the advertisers to some extent and get to experience our craving as craving and our needs as needs. A simple life is also more ecologically sustainable and of course more in accord with the spirit of going forth.

Ecology

Ecology includes us. Nature includes us. What we do to ourselves we do to nature. What we do to ourselves, we do to the ecology of the planet. It is not just other people that we influence. We influence the whole planet. Our state of mind as human beings is a major factor in the ecology of the world. Much work in the sphere of ecology in recent years is about trying to get human beings to realise this. As Buddhists we have our part to play because we have available to us a whole toolkit to perform the work of transforming human consciousness. And transforming human consciousness is ecological work. Much of the damage we have caused to the delicate ecological balance has been due to lack of awareness. This lack of awareness was compounded by some ideologies which saw the natural world as separate from humanity and something that had been given to us to use a we wished.

This unawareness and these ideologies are no longer such a big factor, but there is still a great deal of unawareness around the issue of interconnectedness and interdependence and how each individual has an impact on the overall web of conditions. This is where the Buddhist perspective can be very helpful. The teaching of pratitya samutpada  (dependent arising) says that everything arises in dependence on conditions which in turn arise in dependence on conditions and so on until all conditions everywhere and in every time are encompassed. In other words, what pratitya samutpada shows, when we penetrate deeply into it, is that everything throughout time and space is inter-related. This is an awe-inspiring vision, which has implications on the cosmic level, and on the personal level. On the universal level it has ecological, political and life or death implications. On the personal level, where it manifests as the law of karma, it is a way to understand and penetrate more deeply into our minds. If we can work with pratitya samutpada we may find a bigger perspective opens up for us and we gradually move away from the narrow linear cause/effect interpretation of reality and come more and more to see everything in terms of interconnection or inter-relatedness. If we can do this kind of work on our own minds, our own emotional and mental states, then we will be doing ecological work at the deepest level, transforming the structure of consciousness. And it could be argued that a transformation in the structure of human consciousness is in the final analysis the only answer to the problem of a consciousness that blindly destroys it’s own nourishment.

Money

What is money? Perhaps we know how we feel about money but do we really know what money is? Money is not pieces of paper. Those pieces of paper or the numbers on your bank statement represent something, but what do they represent? Mainly what money represents is energy. It is the energy of production and trade and money is a convenient way of exchanging products and services without having to resort to barter every time. The money in your bank account or wallet in some way represents some of your energy. You have expended energy in some way and so much money has come to you. And it is lying there with unrealised potential, latent energy. What you do with it is buy somebody else’s energy or if you save it in the bank, you in effect, give it to someone else to use.

Money is not a thing. It is a movement of energy, with potential for creation and destruction. Money is full of possibilities. That’s why we like it so much. Our attitude to money can be seen as our attitude to energy and potential and possibility.

Another thing about money is that there is no security in it. It is a symbol of security, and a very potent symbol, but money itself is almost the opposite of secure. Security brings up an image of something fixed, safe, comfortable, but money is fluid, moving, never quite what it seems.

No Hope For Buddhists

The chief virtues in Christianity are Faith, Hope and Charity. Buddhism has some parallel with Faith in the virtue of Saddha (Shraddha - Sanskrit), which means 'placing the heart on' and indicates the aspiration to tread the spiritual path. Charity is also present in Buddhism in the virtue of Chaga or Dana, which means generosity and letting go of attachment to things.

But there is no such virtue as hope in Buddhism. This is because the Buddhist vision of reality is based on the law of conditioned co-production. What this means, simply put, is that everything in existence arises in dependence on conditions. When this is applied to the spiritual path it means that if the conditions are in place then the progress will naturally follow and there is no need for hope.

Applying this to the moral life of the individual, it becomes the law of karma, which states that all actions have consequences; skilful (kusala) actions have beneficial consequences and unskilful (akusala) actions have the opposite effect. Skilful refers to the states of mind of love, generosity and wisdom. Actions are of body, speech and mind. So when we act, or communicate or think with a mind that is free from hatred, greed, and spiritual ignorance we will experience positive consequences. This law of karma means that if we make the effort to be skilful in our thoughts, expression and actions then our spiritual progress is guaranteed and we have no need of hope. So there is no hope for Buddhists!

Revolution

The revolutionary rhetoric of the 1960s and 70s was replaced by the pragmatism of the 1980s and 90s. And the pragmatism of the 1990's has had to give way to the onslaught of the media environment, which has such an influence on many people's concerns. This is an environment of ever shifting sands.

Violent extremists have monopolised the language of changing the world and the rest of us have to make do with finding solutions to a management problem. Use of resources, people-capital, creating opportunities, are the tasks now. The idealists are anti-global, anti-capitalist, anti-vivisection, anti-war, anti-consumerist, anti-technology. But where is the coherent vision for a better life. Perhaps there is one or perhaps nobody is naïve enough to put forward a political answer to everything, since the communist experiment was such a disastrous failure. I think it is reasonable to be sceptical about any great political or social solutions to the world's problems. I don't believe it is possible to change the world by political revolution. I agree with the Irish poet, W.B. Yeats:

“The Great Day

Hurrah for revolution and cannon-shot!

A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.

Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!

The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.”

But I do believe it is possible for human beings to change. In fact I know from experience that it is possible for human beings to change, to evolve. Therefore I see it as a noble and generous thing to try to provide conditions for as many human beings as possible to change. The first thing I can do is to try to light the fire of faith (shraddha) in the hearts of others by letting them see the fire in my own heart. The second thing I can do is come together with like-minded individuals and create a network of friendships, a spiritual community, which has a momentum of energy to carry the message of the Dharma, the Truth, down through the generations, spreading a benevolent influence throughout the world, touching hearts, transforming lives. For that to happen I don't necessarily need the language of revolution, but I think something of the fervour and passion of revolution is needed. This is a great, awesome, all-encompassing vision and it is not going to be brought to life by half-heartedness or timid goodwill. It needs energy, passion, fire. Initially that energy has to be channelled into transforming ourselves; changing our self-centredness into generosity, changing our ill-will into energy for the good, changing our resentment into confidence, changing our blaming of others into activity for the benefit of others, changing our narrow self-interest into a broader perspective.

As we change and others around us change, we gradually become, together, a vibrant spiritual community and then our real altruistic Bodhisattva work can begin in earnest, as we co-operate with each other to embody the message of the Buddha for the sake of all beings.

Refuge

“Many people, out of fear, flee for refuge to (sacred) hills, woods, groves, trees and shrines. In reality this is not a safe refuge. In reality this is not the best refuge. Fleeing to such a refuge one is not released from all suffering.” (Dhammapada, Verses 188 and 189) Here we are introduced to the image of refuge, the metaphor of going for refuge. It goes on to say: “He who goes for refuge to the Enlightened One, to the Truth, and to the Spiritual Community, and who sees with perfect wisdom the Four Ariyan truths - namely, suffering, the origin of suffering, the passing beyond suffering, and the Ariyan Eightfold Way leading to the pacification of suffering - (for him) this is a safe refuge, (for him) this is the best refuge. Having gone to such a refuge, one is released form all suffering.” (verses 190-2) A true safe refuge is something we can rely on, something dependable, something that won't let us down. A false refuge is something that we can't depend upon, that will let us down.

To go for refuge to something means it gives meaning to our lives, we live for it, we organise our lives around it, we give our energy and attention to it. To go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha means to put the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha at the centre of our lives, to organise our lives around them and to give our time and attention and energy to embodying them in our lives. But as the text says, many people, out of fear, flee for refuge elsewhere. For us it may not be sacred hills, woods, groves,, trees and shrines. We may put something else at the centre of our lives. We may give meaning to our lives in other ways; career, family, lover, money, children, possessions etc. but all these things will pass, none can be completely depended upon.

According to the Dhammapada, the only safe refuge, the only thing that can be completely depended upon, the only thing that can really give full meaning to your life is Enlightenment, Nirvana, the state of Buddhahood. One thing that is very noticeable about the Dhammapada is that it doesn't put in any qualifications, no “ifs” or “buts”. It just says this is the truth, this is the way things really are and you are left to make of it what you will.

Questions

There is an opportunity to answer a lot of questions between birth and death, but you have to ask them first.  

Life is a question.

Questions beget questions.

Questions are your best teacher.

The most profound questions are often the simplest. The most profound answers are often the simplest, too.

What happens when you die is not the question; the question is what happens when you live.

Conditioning

We are very influenced by the world around us. The views and attitudes of the time and place in which we live pervade our lives and it is extremely difficult to step back and see things from a higher or bigger perspective. We have been influenced since childhood by various views, attitudes, beliefs and conventions. Sometimes we are more under the sway of past conditioning sometimes we are more under the sway of present conditioning.

Monogamous marriage based on personal emotion is an example of a recent historical convention that has a huge impact on us and on what we conceive of as normal. The internet and social media are examples of current conditioning factors that have a huge impact on us and our sense of identity. Credit cards, advertising, nationalism are all relatively new phenomena which have had and continue to have a huge impact on us. Often we are unconscious of this and we are also often unconscious of the more personal conditioning and conventions of our upbringing which continue to influence our behaviour, attitudes and ideas; the impact of our relationship with our father and mother, the impact of any religious conditioning and so on.

All of these things are influencing us all the time and these influences will sometimes be at variance with the Buddha's teachings about skilfulness and unskilfulness. That is why it is important to become aware of how we have been and are being conditioned and influenced. Reflection, meditation and time spent alone all help with this.

Enlightenment

 

Enlightenment can be talked about in many ways. One very common way is to talk in terms of the perfection or consummation of Wisdom, Compassion and Energy. But of course we are swimming in very unfamiliar waters when we dive into the topic of Enlightenment or Nirvana. We need to come to the surface and indeed come back to earth and ask ourselves, what is the relevance of all of this to me and to my life now.

There is plenty of hatred, conflict and polarisation in the world and if we are to help to alleviate some of that we need to become aware of and deal with our own inner conflicts, which often manifest in our lives as conflict with others. There is a great deal of unhappiness, dissatisfaction and mental ill-health in the world and if we are to help we need to become aware of and learn how to deal with our own unhappiness and dissatisfaction. There is plenty of greed, craving, addiction and consumption in the world, which is leading us into more suffering. If we are to help we need to become aware of and deal with our own craving, greed and addictions. This is something of the relevance of the Buddha and his Awakening to our lives. But really we each need to individually ask ourselves the questions about what our life is for and what we want to do with our period alive and also to look with objective and kindly eyes at what we are actually doing with our lives. Self deception helps no-one.

Influence

The whole universe is interconnected and that of course includes us. There is no such thing as an isolated individual. We may experience isolation on a social or psychological level but real isolation from the rest of the living universe is not possible. We eat food which we buy in a shop where we are served by people and the food was put on the shelves by others and delivered by others and harvested and grown by others and the soil was prepared by others and the seeds provided by others and the plants grew because there was sufficient light and moisture and space. All of these things connect us to vast numbers of people and to the sun and the climate and the earth’s atmosphere and the solar system, the galaxy and beyond. We cannot be isolated from life. Even when we are dead our body returns to the earth and nourishes the plants and worms.

We are also connected to other people by virtue of influence and effect. The influence they have on us and the effect we have on them. Virtually everything we know, all our knowledge, comes from somebody else. We learn from books, from other people, parents, teachers etc., and it is a completely rare event for anyone to have an original thought and even when that does happen it is in relationship to all the thoughts others have had previously in a particular area, whether it is art or mathematics or science. We have imbibed influences since birth and we continue to imbibe them. To a large degree we are made up of influences whether from other people or the climate or the environment we live in. All these things form and shape our consciousness, affect our thoughts and emotions and are very much who we are. In a sense all we are is interconnection. There is nothing solid or substantial or fixed that we can point to and say that’s me, completely unaffected by any influence from elsewhere.

The other side of this is that we are always having an effect. We are always influencing. Some people are referred to as influential people, but, in fact, everybody is influential. It is not possible to have no effect on anybody or anything. By eating food you have bought in a shop, you have had an effect on the shop and those who work there and the whole chain of supply. I read an interview in a magazine with the CEO of Tesco’s. The point was put to him that a huge store like Tesco has a lot of power, too much power even. He said that from where he stood all the power was with the consumer and he had to be constantly attentive and sensitive to what shoppers wanted or didn’t want. Otherwise even the biggest business could collapse quite quickly. There is obviously a lot of truth in that. But more immediately than that we have an effect on people we come into contact with. We can never know how much of an effect we are having. Sometimes we say or do something quite small and it has a big effect on someone. Perhaps a little act of generosity where it was not expected or a sharp word or a flippant remark.

Meditation

Meditation is not about having big experiences. Meditation is a continuous flow of positive mental states and when we sit to meditate what is important is the effort we make not the experience we have. We may have a very pleasant experience but if we are not making an effort to take things further then it is not a good meditation. A good meditation is one in which we make an effort to change our habitual negative mental states or make an effort to maintain our positive mental states and use them as a basis for penetrating deeper into the nature of reality. Effort has to be appropriate and balanced of course. We need to know and acknowledge where we are starting from and be patient and persistent in our efforts to change.

Consumerism 2

I want to say something positive about consumerism. One of the reasons I want to say something positive about consumerism is that barring catastrophe, it is going to be with us for a long time and those who have not had the opportunity to consume the so-called good things of life are going to want to. In the foreseeable future we are likely to have more consumerism rather than less, with India, China, South America and eventually Africa stepping on to the train to go shopping with everybody else. Given that that is what we have and are likely to have, what positive possibilities does consumerism hold for us?

It has been said we are consumers rather than citizens. I was thinking about this and I came to the conclusion that it may not be such a bad thing if people were less identified with being citizens. Being a citizen implies belonging to a particular nation with all the characteristics of group mentality that that implies. It can lead to a sort of defensiveness and isolationism that is both oppressive and dangerous. Consumerism on the other hand crosses boundaries and cultures and at the level of international business it creates a world of connections and relationships that have the potential to defuse dangerous situations. On the personal level it gives a certain amount of power to the consumer. When you vote in an election you exercise some power, but also when you spend money you exercise power. You exercise power because, just as with your vote, you can make a choice. Your vote gives you a choice every four years or so to say who you want to govern or what policies you favour. The money in your pocket gives you a choice every day to say which products and companies you want to support and which you would prefer not to. Businesses, even the biggest of them, are quite sensitive to what the consumer wants and doesn’t want. It has even been noted that sometimes business is ahead of government in its thinking on issues of an ethical or ecological nature. Being consumers means we are connected to a vast international web of trade which has a positive side to it and we can exercise some power in this network of trading by making informed choices about where to spend our money. Another point worth noting is that businesses are sensitive to criticism and if you see a business doing something you think is unethical, it is worth writing a letter to point it out. Business people and politicians know that for every two people that complain there are probably another twenty who have the same complaint but stay silent.

Consumerism

In the story of the great Tibetan yogi, Padmasambhava, he encounters a monstrous character who is known as Black Salvation and also as Matarangara, which means 'the one who devours his mother'. The depiction of Black Salvation is a description of everything that is repulsive and revolting and monstrous and it is a symbolic way of saying that Samsara is repulsive and monstrous. It is a way of saying that what we have to overcome on the way to spiritual awakening is something that has tremendous power and energy and fills our world, a huge monstrous presence.

For our society I think the great monster is what is known as consumerism, or the idea of progress through consumer led growth. Why is consumerism monstrous, a Matarangara, one who devours his mother, a Black Salvation? The view, put very simply, is that happiness and fulfilment are a product of economic well-being. Your security, your contentment, is dependent on the possession of a sufficient amount of money and goods. And as our irrational minds engage with this view, our natural craving assumes that greater happiness and fulfilment is achieved by a steady accumulation of money and possessions. Also an offshoot of this view, is the view that choice is a supreme good and having choice is the equivalent of freedom. The more choice we have, the more freedom we have.

Another head of this many headed monster says everything is something to be purchased and appropriated whether it's a smart phone, an overcoat, a car or meditation, yoga and Buddhism. Individualism is also part of the logic of consumerism. Individualism leads us to consider ourselves as somehow separate from and unconnected to others. Consumerism also encourages narcissism; the tendency to see everything in terms of how it affects me and the self-centredness and vanity that goes with that.

In a culture of consumerism we are consumers before we are anything else. Before we are citizens or family members or adherents of a religious doctrine. Above all of that we are consumers, that is our identity and if we refuse that identity we will find ourselves pitted against the many headed hydra of consumerism. In Greek mythology when one of the heads of the monster Hydra is cut off, two more grow in its place. That would suggest that in encountering the many headed demon of consumerism we need a more subtle and intelligent approach. Cutting off heads that regrow doubly is no solution. In the work of overcoming the demons of the mind and the demons of the marketplace, we need intelligence and awareness, alertness and love.

Imagination

           What words obscure, imagination can clarify.

What words clarify, imagination often insists on obscuring.

Only the literal-minded need wings in order to fly.

It is essential to plumb the depths, but only if we want to scale the heights.

You cannot ascend into heaven unless your feet are firmly on the ground.

Because your feet are firmly on the ground, it doesn't necessarily mean you've arrived anywhere.

A deep understanding requires great flights of imagination.

Flights of imagination often go nowhere.

Imagination is the gateway to reality.

Metaphor is the language of imagination.

Every language has the potential for both truth and misunderstanding.

Anything that limits the imagination is a misunderstanding.

Intuition is to imagination what the spring is to the river.

Imagination is to vision what the thread is to the cloth.

The highest vision is the greatest wisdom.

The greatest wisdom is compassion.

Words divide: imagination makes whole.

Reality is undivided.

The imagination can never be chained.

Brotherhood is limited only by the imagination.

The artist sees; the great artist goes beyond seeing.

Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist there will be sunny days and cloudy days.

Rain or shine the optimist lives in sunny world.

Rain and shine the pessimist lives in a cloudy world.

You can be optimistic about the past.

Innovations are nothing new.

Sex

There are two levels to our fascination with sex. There is the level of the basic animal drive and much of civilisation is about bringing a measure of control and discipline to that. Every human society has its rules and norms to regulate this basic drive. The rules and norms can vary enormously; what is or is not acceptable can vary enormously. These rules of society are often tied in with questions of property ownership and peaceful relations between clans, tribes or nations. So that to breach the rules is not just a personal matter but something that affects the stability of the society.

The second level to our fascination with sex is more emotional and psychological. In order to have sex you have to be physically intimate with another person and this physical intimacy becomes a way into emotional intimacy. However physical intimacy is not emotional intimacy and all sorts of problems can arise when a society accepts and encourages the view that physical intimacy is emotional intimacy. Aligned with this is the view that there cannot really be emotional intimacy without physical intimacy. This is the view that has grown up in many societies over the last couple of hundred years.

Sex has become, to some extent, divorced from questions of property and alliances and has become more a question of a search for emotional fulfillment. This is the romantic ideal. The positive side of this is that people are not forced into unsuitable relationships or relationships that are repulsive to them. The downside is that it can overload one relationship with too many expectations. Especially a relationship that is sometimes built on the shaky foundations of a physical attraction and physical intimacy.

The spiritual community can help by being a further source of emotional fulfillment. When we have friends with whom we are emotionally intimate, it can take some weight off the relationship where we are also physically intimate. It helps us to lower the expectations we have of our sexual partner, which can also help us to become more content. Contentment is a state of feeling rich and fulfilled, so that there isn't a constant aching yearning for something more or someone more. If we are content and feeling emotionally rich there is less temptation for us to try to manipulate others for our satisfaction.

Communication

There is no communication without listening. There is no listening without interest. You have to be interested in the other person, in their life, in their point of view,if you are going to listen to them. If you are not interested in them or if your primary interest is in yourself and getting your opinion heard, then you won’t be able to listen.
Listening requires interest. There is no interest without awareness. In order to be interested in a person or in anything you have to be aware of that person or that thing. If you are not aware you can’t be interested and therefore can’t listen and therefore will not be in communication.

There is no awareness without silence. Silence, stillness, solitude, and reflection are what we need from time to time in order to allow our awareness to grow and expand and deepen. As Bhante Sangharakshita says in Crossing the Stream: “As music is born of silence, and derives its significance therefrom; and as a painting is born of empty space, and derives its significance therefrom; so are our lives born of silence, of stillness, of quietude of spirit, and derive their significance, their distinctive flavour and individual quality, therefrom. The deeper and more frequent are those moments of interior silence and stillness, the more rich in significance, the more truly meaningful, will our lives be. It is the pauses which make beautiful the music of our lives. It is the empty spaces which give richness and significance to them. And it is stillness which makes them truly useful.” (p.95)