HONESTLY, I NEVER thought I’d ever remember my kindergarten teacher again. She was an Anglo-Indian lady called Miss Tony, who wore little coloured dresses with matching lipstick, nail colour and hair bands. As five-year-olds, we wanted to wear lipstick too. We wanted long hair like she had. After snack-time, we would hate it when she asked us to put our (index) finger on our lips. Once we were quiet, she would ask us to put our heads down (on our desks) and close our eyes. We would all obey like good little children, but wonder why Miss made us listen to the sound of silence every day.
Not that I know now what Miss Tony’s point was. But I understand somewhat the power of silence. Or even the sound of silence, as in the famous Simon and Garfunkel song. In the song, a man dreams that he is walking on the streets alone at night and, in the light of the street lamps, watches a stream of people going by their daily business in terrible isolation.
And in the naked light I saw/ Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking/ People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared/ Disturb the sound of silence.
A French soldier
If the Simon and Garfunkel number stresses that silence (lack of communication, in this case) grows ‘like a cancer’, Vietnamese spiritual teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has an entirely different take. In his book, At Home in the World, he tells us the amazing story of a young French soldier who is transformed by the sound of silence — or, the positive power of silence.
The year is 1947. The First Indochina War is going on. The French have set up a military post in Vietnam’s mountainous Hue region, where the monk is studying at the Buddhist institute in the Bao Quoc monastery. It is a time when much blood is shed in daily skirmishes between the French aggressors and the Vietnamese protesters (Viet Minh).
Please, can we talk?
One morning, Thay – as students call the monk – is on his way to another monastery. Soon after he goes over the top of a hill and down a road, he hears someone calling out from behind. At first, he ignores the call. Then, he hears the clip-clop of military boots following him, and stops. A young French soldier catches up. He asks Thay where he was coming from. When Thay mentions Bao Quoc monastery, the soldier asks him whether that was the big temple near the train station on the hill. Thay nods.
Pointing to his guard post, the soldier says: “If you’re not too busy, please come up there with me so we can talk for a little while.”
Stunned into silence
The soldier then tells Thay that a few days ago, around 10 o’clock at night, he and five colleagues had raided Bao Quoc. They were searching for Viet Minh reportedly holed up inside. The orders were to arrest the protesters, even shoot them.
But when they reached the monastery, they were stunned. There was pin-drop silence all around. The oil lamps had been turned down, almost dimmed. The place looked deserted. To announce their arrival, the soldiers loudly stomped their boots on the gravel. Not a leaf stirred. Where had all the Viet Minh gone?
“It was incredibly quiet. The shouting of a comrade made me uneasy. No one replied. I turned on my flashlight and aimed it into the room we thought was empty – and I saw fifty or sixty monks sitting still and silent in meditation,” says the soldier.
Invisible force
Thay tells him that was the monks’ evening sitting hour, when they concentrate on their breath. “It was as if we’d run into a strange and invisible force,” replies the soldier. “We were so taken aback that we turned and went back out to the courtyard…. I felt drawn to their calmness. It really commanded my respect.”
After some 30 minutes, the temple stirred back to life. A monk came by to invite the soldiers inside but they decide to take their leave. “That day I began to change my ideas about the Vietnamese people,” he says.
What’s the point?
Looking somewhat disturbed, he tells Thay there were many French soldiers who were homesick and longing to return to their families. They had been sent to kill the Viet Minh but there was no knowing who would kill and who would live. What kind of hatred was it that forced humans to kill fellow humans? Weren’t the sufferings of the Vietnamese people similar to the sufferings of the French during the Second World War?
“The peaceful and serene life of those monks makes me think about the lives of all human beings on Earth. And I wonder why we’ve come to this place. Why is the hatred between the Viet Minh and us so strong that we have travelled all the way over here to fight them?” asks the soldier.
Power of silence
According to Thay, the soldier’s moment of realisation came at the monastery. The trigger was the powerful and pervasive sound of silence. “That moment of profound silence in the temple had changed him. He allowed the lives of all living beings to fill his heart, and he saw the senselessness and destructiveness of war. What made it all possible was that moment of complete and total stopping and opening to the powerful, healing, miraculous ocean called silence.”