To pray is to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live... It is so embarrassing to live. How strange we are in the world and how presumptuous our doings. Only one response can maintain us: Gratefulness for witnessing the wonder: for the gift of our unearned right to live, to adore, to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.
Sometimes there would be a rush of noisy visitors and the Silence of the monastery would be shattered. This would upset the monks; not the master, however, who seemed just as content with the noise as with the Silence. To those protesting he said one day:
"Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self."
