I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out, I found was really going in.
~ John Muir
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."