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No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything
that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.
These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and peace
that is “heard” when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests.
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But what can the wind say when there is no hearer?
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There is then a deeper silence:
the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer.
That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.
~ Thomas Merton
thanks to http://practiceofzen.wordpress.com/
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In a frontispiece poem to The Solitary Life, Merton wrote:
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Follow my ways and I will lead you
To golden-haired suns,
Logos and music, blameless joys,
Innocent of questions
And beyond answers.
For I, Solitude, am thine own Self:
I, Nothingness, am thy All.
I, Silence, am thy Amen.
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