Silence, in contemplative traditions, is not the absence of noise — it is the absence of the inner chatter that normally colors every perception. When inner speech slows, the world speaks more loudly than one had realized.
The Quakerism meeting, Zen Zazen, the The Jesus Prayer of Eastern Orthodoxy, Sufi sama in its stilled moments — each treats silence as a doorway, not a void.
“In silence,” wrote Meister Eckhart, “God is best praised.”