What if silence isn’t something we need to achieve, but something already present, waiting to be inhabited?
For many years, I thought of silence as something to be achieved.
When I first began practicing meditation, and particularly when I discovered Centering Prayer, I imagined that the goal was to quiet the noise. If I could somehow still the constant chatter of my mind, move beyond the distractions, and shut out the sounds of the world around me, perhaps I would finally arrive at silence.
I was working toward silence as though it were a destination.
But over the years, something in my understanding has changed.
What if silence isn’t something we achieve? What if silence is already here?
What if silence isn’t on the other side of noise, but rather something deeper, something beneath it all?
Before the First Word
I’ve been pondering the opening verses of Genesis.
There, in the ancient story of creation, the Spirit—the breath, the wind—of God moves over the waters. And then, into that primordial setting, the Divine speaks:
“Let there be light.”
Now, I’m not offering a scholarly interpretation of Genesis here. I’m simply sharing what has begun to emerge for me as I’ve lived with these words.
I find myself imagining a vast, eternal silence.
And from within that silence, the first word arises.
The speaking doesn’t interrupt the silence. Instead, the word emerges from the spaciousness of silence itself.
Perhaps silence is not simply the absence of sound. Perhaps it is the spaciousness within which sound, form, beauty, and life itself can arise.
And if creation is not merely something God did once, long ago, but is an ongoing unfolding of divine creativity, then that spaciousness remains present.
Creation continues to emerge.
And silence continues to make room.
The Silence Beneath the Noise
I’ve practiced Centering Prayer for something like twelve or fourteen years now. One of the things I’ve discovered is that silence doesn’t necessarily require the absence of sound.
There is always something making noise.
Even as I sat at my computer preparing to record this week’s podcast, I could hear the fans beginning to run. Outside, there are cars passing, birds calling, people going about their lives.
And inside, of course, there is that seemingly endless conversation in my own head.
Thoughts. Questions. Plans. Worries. Memories.
Yet beneath all of it, there is silence.
I’ve begun to think of silence not as something that disappears when noise begins, but as something that remains present even in the midst of noise.
We carry it with us.
Recently, while traveling in Portugal, I spent some wonderful moments simply sitting at cafés, watching people pass by, drinking coffee, listening to the sounds of the streets, and being present.
There was plenty of sound. Conversations, footsteps, music, the ordinary rhythm of life.
And yet there was also a kind of silence.
Not an absence of sound, but an interior spaciousness that allowed me simply to be there.
To receive the moment without needing to change it.
To inhabit the ordinary.
Perhaps that’s part of what it means to inhabit silence.
God’s Original Language
One of my teachers, though I never had the opportunity to meet him, is Thomas Keating, the Trappist monk who helped revive the modern practice of Centering Prayer.
Keating spoke of silence as God’s original language.
I’ve been sitting with that thought.
We’re so accustomed to thinking of communication as words. We speak, we listen, we write, we read. Even the words we read silently seem to generate a kind of sound in our minds.
But what if the Divine communicates in something more fundamental than words?
What if silence is not simply where we go to listen for God, but is itself a kind of divine language?
Perhaps learning to inhabit silence means learning to listen differently.
Not necessarily listening for another voice, another message, another answer.
But becoming present to the spaciousness within which life is unfolding.
And perhaps, in that spaciousness, something of the Divine becomes more perceptible.
Something of ourselves becomes more visible.
Something new has room to emerge.
Making Room for What Arises
I’ve come to believe that silence makes room.
Room for creativity.
Room for understanding.
Room for compassion.
Room for love.
When my inner life is crowded with the constant need to analyze, explain, solve, judge, or accomplish, there is sometimes very little room left simply to receive what life is offering.
But in those moments when I find myself slipping into silence—even when the world around me is quite noisy—something opens.
I become a little less occupied with the noise of my own thoughts.
A little more available to the person in front of me.
A little more present to the beauty around me.
A little more receptive to whatever may be emerging.
And perhaps the creativity that is part of the divine image within each of us finds room to express itself.
We don’t have to manufacture that creativity.
We make room for it.
Learning to Inhabit Silence
So how do we begin?
I think meditation can help us become familiar with the silence that is already present.
There are many forms of meditation. Some involve repeating a mantra or phrase. Others invite us to focus our attention in particular ways.
My own primary practice has become Centering Prayer.
In Centering Prayer, we choose a sacred word—not as something to repeat constantly, but as a simple expression of our intention to be present and receptive.
When a thought arises, we don’t fight it.
We don’t have to figure it out.
We don’t have to identify every sound, solve every problem, or pursue every feeling.
When we become aware that we’ve become engaged with a thought, we gently return to our intention through the sacred word.
And then we let the word go.
We return to being present.
Again and again.
Not because we’re trying to become particularly accomplished meditators, but because we’re learning to recognize the spaciousness that has been there all along.
And slowly, perhaps, we begin to discover that we can inhabit this silence beyond our times of formal meditation.
In a crowded mall.
At a concert.
In the middle of a difficult conversation.
Sitting in a café.
Or simply going about the ordinary moments of our lives.
The sounds don’t have to disappear.
We simply learn to recognize the silence beneath them.
Nothing to Achieve
I want to be careful here.
The last thing I want to do is give you one more spiritual accomplishment to pursue.
One more thing to get right.
One more measure by which to judge whether you’re making progress.
That’s not what this is about.
Inhabiting silence isn’t about becoming a better person or proving ourselves worthy of some spiritual reward.
It’s about discovering something that may have been present all along.
A spaciousness beneath the noise.
A stillness beneath the activity.
A presence that doesn’t depend on our ability to create it.
Perhaps silence is the first language of the Divine.
Perhaps it is the spaciousness from which all that is continues to arise.
And perhaps, when we learn to inhabit it, we become a little more able to recognize the extraordinary gift of simply being.
So this week, I invite you to experiment.
Find a few moments to sit quietly. Or perhaps simply notice, in the middle of an otherwise busy day, that beneath all the sounds and thoughts and activity, there may be a silence that has never left you.
Don’t try to achieve it.
Just see whether you can inhabit it.
And remember, whether you find that silence or not, whether you meditate or never meditate at all, whether your mind is perfectly still or filled with a thousand competing thoughts—
You are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
Not because of what you accomplish.
Not because of how spiritually mature you become.
But simply because you are.
And that is enough.
This reflection grows out of an episode of the Infinitely Precious Podcast, part of an ongoing series exploring what it means to inhabit our lives more fully. Listen to “Inhabiting Silence” wherever you enjoy podcasts.
