Learning from Silence
About This Book
Over three decades, Pico Iyer has made more than a hundred retreats to a small Benedictine hermitage perched above the sea in Big Sur, California. He is not a Christian and belongs to no religious group, yet those stretches of silence have changed his life. They remind him of what matters most and wake a joy that cannot be erased. For him, silence is more than an escape from noise and hurry. It brings back deeper truths he had lost along the way. Learning From Silence follows Iyer through his many seasons at the monastery while his own life keeps shifting. Houses burn, a parent dies and a daughter is diagnosed with cancer. He shares what he has come to understand there, along with the insights of other people outside monastic life who have learned from hardship and inwardness. He also argues that solitude can be a training in community and companionship. Writing as an outsider, he offers a rare view of monastic life and of the devoted people who keep a place of quiet and reflection open to everyone. The book considers what silence can teach about how to live, how to love and, finally, how to die.
ISBN: 9780143474364
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