Thich Nhat Hanh came on stage. In the space of ten minutes, this small Vietnamese man had drawn every single one of us into his silence. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that he drew us each into our own silence, into that peace which we each inherently possessed, but had not yet discovered or claimed. His ability to bring forth this state in all of us, merely by his presence in the room – this is divine power.
We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet, our silence.
I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot. When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast. We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest.
~ from "A Dialogue of Self and Soul" by William Yeats
While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness That I was blessed, and could bless.
