We can listen to sounds but we can also listen to the silence they punctuate.
The great Sufi mystic, poet and musician, Hazrat Inyat Khan said, "The purpose of music is to draw us into the silence." And Debussy declared, "Music is the silence between the notes." We are taught to listen to the notes of the instruments, the singer's voice and the words to the songs. All of these can be exquisitely beautiful and deeply moving. Yet, we know a performance was inspired when there is a hush of stillness when it is over—before the thunderous applause.
If we learn to listen for the spaces and the pauses in music, and even the silence that each note emerges from and dissolves into, we will find an unexpected joy in the stillness. We can look for this same stillness between our thoughts. They are born from and return to—Silence. |
