When people go into meditation retreat, they often practice something called “noble silence” — the decision simply not to talk for a period of time, and explore how that affects one’s perceptions and way of being in the world altogether  •  through such practices, people have discovered that in order to touch the sacred, we need to be still; we need to be quiet  •  when we are still in that way, sacredness kind of descends upon us  •  silence usually means refraining from speech, but there are other kinds of silence as well: silence of movement; visual silence; mental silence; emotional silence; and spiritual silence  •  the point of such practices is to invite a kind of silence into our life altogether, so that the busy actions that we need to do to get by in the world are infused with a different kind of quality  •  you could call it “silence within action,” a quality of sacredness that is just pure, deep silence.