The Secret Sharer

 Sometimes the absence of a response can be a very wonderful experience or lesson. Today during our group meditation sharing session after the sitting meditation, nobody had too much to say at the end. I felt the calmness of the people there, but at the same time there wasn't much to say after the sitting. I started to talk about gratitude and wanted to read a section from Master Sheng Yen's book shortly thereafter, but somehow I didn't feel that there was a smooth segue, and I also felt the silence of the group. I ended with transfer of merit instead and went off to my class afterward.
   There are many ways to choose to look at moments of silence. Unfortunately, it often feels as though early childhood conditioning has made people associate silence with a lack of completion or even a sense of rejection. But silence opens new doors, in the sense that it asks that people see their connections as deeper than words. There are times, for instance, when sitting with people fills me with a deep joy, which simply cannot be captured in words. Could it be that the silent aspect of  simply being together is much more precious than what we say to each other?
   I don't mean to suggest that language should be entirely replaced with silence. In fact, today's episode left me feeling ambiguous about the role of silence in the group's discussion and sharing interactions. I did feel, in fact, that I hadn't prepared enough to create a smooth conversation with the others, and this gave me pause to think about better preparing the sharing topic in the next group meditation. But at the same time, there is room to be together and experience empathic failures without this being necessarily catastrophic to the group relationship. I think this is what meditation is about: being able to weather the different emotions and responses around us without condemning some states or favoring others.
    There are always things that everyone can learn in these moments, but there should never be a sense of blame when we run out of things to say or are in a moment when the wordless is much more heartfelt and needed.