Silence, when it is deep, can unite. Words can sometimes be used to impede communication! One retreat master who conducts retreats very similar to Zen retreats at which the participants spend hours together in total silence and in emptying the mind of all thought content, told me that he always gets his retreatants to practice their contemplation together in a hall. The reason: It helped enormously to bring all these people — as many as eighty of them, generally total strangers to one another — together and give them a deep sense of union with one another.
— Anthony de Mello, Sadhana