Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

What was in the beginning? “In the beginning was the Word,” would be the statement that immediately comes to our mind in the case of Christianity, as these words open the Gospel According to St. John. In the case of Islam, the corresponding statement would be: “In the beginning was the Voice,” for it was the voice of Gabriel that Muhammad heard on the Night of Power, urging him to “Iqraa (Recite)!”

What was in the beginning in the case of Buddhism? We might say, “In the beginning was the Silence,” recalling how the Buddha accomplished Enlightenment while sitting in silence under a Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya. The statement, “In the beginning was the Silence,” applies more specifically to Zen Buddhism, for, according to the Chinese Chan tradition, Zen Buddhism started with Mahakasyapa’s silent smile of understanding when the Buddha on one occasion, instead of using words, silently held up a lotus flower to begin his discourse.

With such beginning, it is not surprising that silence has come to play an important role in Buddhism, especially in Zen practice. Keeping silence is recommended not just while we are sitting in meditation but also while we are engaged in other types of daily activities such as eating, washing, standing, walking, and lying down. Silence we keep during our daily activities is known as “noble silence,” which, according to Thich Nhat Hanh, is “conscious, intentional quiet.” (Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise, 2015, p.81) By keeping noble silence while we are engaged in these daily activities, we are, the Buddha tells us, trying to calm our thoughts, which is needed if we are to reach enlightenment: “One who, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, has calmed his thoughts and delights in the stilling of thought: a bhikkhu such as this can reach the highest enlightenment.” (Anguttara Nikaya IV.11)

Calming our thoughts to take delight in the stilling of thought is not an easy task for us today, as we are living in the world full of noise, not just the noise around us but also the noise inside of us. Since we have little control over the noise around us, our practice of silence must begin with stilling the noise inside of us, as Thich Nhat Hanh recommends us to do: “When you’ve been able to still all the noise inside of you, when you’ve been able to establish silence, a thundering silence, in you, you begin to hear the deepest kind of calling from within yourself.” (Silence, p.12) By stilling the noise inside of us, we will begin to hear the inner voice prompting us to find answers to such questions as who we are, why we are here, and what we are going to do with our life. Since Zen does not rely on letters and words for transmission of the Dhamma, it is not in the suttas that we will find answers to these questions. We will begin to see the true nature of reality in the world around us only when we are able to recover silence within us by stilling the noise inside of us.

When we are able to recover silence within us, we will begin to enjoy listening to a sound as well: “You can just hear a sound, and listen deeply, and enjoy that sound. There is peace and joy in your listening, and your silence is an empowered silence. That kind of silence is dynamic and constructive. It’s not he kind of silence that represses you. In Buddhism we call this kind of silence thundering silence.” (Silence, p. 80)

Here again, Thich Nhat Hanh refers to the term: “thundering silence.” We all know that thunder is not silent. If so, what is this “thundering silence”? Most of us tend to treat it as an oxymoron, or a rhetorical device that prompts us to gain insight into some phenomenon by combining two contradictory terms. As a matter of fact, Thich Nhat Hanh seems to find no contradiction in the expression, “The Sound of Silence,” which Paul Simon used as the title of his 1964 song, when he says: “Silence is often described as the absence of sound, yet it’s also a very powerful sound.” (Silence, p.8)

In the context of Zen practice, “thundering silence” could be treated as a koan, which is employed to guide us towards enlightenment. Reflecting on a koan, as we all know, does not mean to figure out its meaning through logical reasoning. Rather, it means to employ the kind of reflection called prajna, which will illuminate the true nature of reality. By reflecting on thundering silence while listening to the sound of a bell, or the chirping of a bird, we will be led into the mental state which Master Sheng Yen calls “silent illumination”: “Silence is samadhi, and illumination is prajna. When samadhi and prajna are not two separate things, this is silent illumination.” (Attaining the Way: A Guide to the Practice of Chan Buddhism, 2006, p.126) By stilling the noise inside of us through Zen practice of noble silence and thundering silence, we will thus be able to reach the highest enlightenment the Buddha teaches us we can, for the silence we find by calming our thoughts is “illuminating silence.”