Native American Indians value silence and recommend it in stories and pointed sayings ... "Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf" ... "No flies come into a closed mouth" ... and a clause in an Indian prayer, "Oh my Grandfather, may I lose no good opportunity to hold my tongue." They feel comfortable in silence, and are often irritated, or at best amused, by our "windmill machine" of constant chatter. Silence, "going behind the blanket," removing oneself from useless or annoying contact are highly developed techniques, second nature to the Indian way.
The process of establishing ourselves in a habitual state of compassionate love takes place in the context of countless failure to be compassionate.But this proves to be no hindrance as long as we commit ourselves to being compassionate toward ourselve in our failings to be compassionate.Even our failures to be compassionate prove to be but new opportunities . . .This process of yielding to compassionate love unfolds and deepens over a lifetime of learning that when all is said and done, love is the playing field where we most truly meet ourselves and others as we really are, precious in our collective frailty.