Falling, in the way I mean it, means finding a stillness in the midst of life's calamitous downhill rush. And in sitting silently, we prepare ourselves to fall. Silence, in face, lies at the heart of spiritual practice in many of the world's religions. In the most common form of Buddhist meditation, one sits silently, often for long periods, continually returning the awareness to the breath, to this wind of our origin and of our passing away.
— Philip Simmons, Learning to Fall