words, silence

"The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish; when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.  The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits; when the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.  The purpose of the word is to convey ideas; when the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.  Where can I find a man who has forgotten words?  He is the one I would like to talk to."

This story is so much about silence, and being willing and able to be silent.  I know I'm best able to be silent-- truly silent, in my heart and mind as well as with my voice-- when I feel like I've been understood.  When my gestures, actions, words have actually given form to what I want to get across.  The paradox, of course, being that silence in itself doesn't (usually) do the speaking.  We have to speak through something in order to arrive at that place of understanding.   Somewhere past our words, gestures and actions (or within or before them) are the ideas we're meaning them to contain.   The ideas are the whole things. 

We all know this, and probably don't think about it too hard most of the time.  But thinking about it for a while, and about the pleasant silence of sharing something truly deep and knowing that it has been understood, just made me think about reading a letter.  It's so startlingly sensory, and it's such a tangible form of expressing and understanding.  You're actually holding someone's words.  It's so meaningful.

Imagine receiving a letter in the mail.  You carry it into your home.  You hold it in your hands.  It feels like a secret.  The envelope, sealed by the one you know, is the same one you tear open; the paper, folded by the one you know, is the paper you unfold.  Though you're reading, it feels almost like listening...the person's handwriting speaks aloud like the natural lilt of their voice.   But even as you are carried along by the sound of their thoughts, you are also aware of their silence...that these thoughts may never have been anywhere else but in their mind, before the pen met the paper and came to you.  The intimacy of the experience softens you as you read, the words entering your heart with the same kind of silence that ushered them out of someone else's.  Finally, as you finish reading, you re-fold the paper.  The voice lingers.  

The words, and much more than just that, are something you will keep.