"Real silence is beautiful.
Everyone needs to find it.
To make silence is to turn your eyes, your ears, your mind to the inside of things, to give all your attention to one thing, to one person.
A beautiful silence is needed to attend to someone whom no one has ever seen.
Silence is a thing that is easily broken.
There are the noises that come from outside.
There are the images, that is the pictures from all my senses, that come from outside and inside.
Distractions break silence.
They kill attention.
By trying hard, little by little, I can overcome distractions,
not pay attention any more to noises or images.
I can look attentively at just one thing.
I can also shut my eyes.
If a noise penetrates my ears I do not move;
I do not turn my head.
And in this way I become responsible
for my own silence.
"To know how to make silence is to know how to make oneself strong and free.
It is to make oneself able to attend to the one thing that matters.
"I can make silence alone. I can make silence with some of my friends.
When we reach the point of making silence, all together, to pray, that is even better.
A beautiful silence in the presence of God is already a prayer.
"O God, make us children of quietness, and heirs of peace."
— St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
