My room was the size of a narrow walk-in closet and absorbed me in a matter of seconds. I felt confined—Alcatraz came to mind. If I stood in the middle of the space with outstretched arms, I could almost touch the unpainted cinderblock walls on both sides. My cell contained nothing more than a bed, a wooden desk, a chair, a lamp, and a small sink in the corner. There was one faucet—cold. A simple wooden cross was hung on the wall. There could be no concerns about running out of hangers. There was no closet. There was also no mirror in the room. To look at yourself was vanity.
The slow, somber toll of a bell proclaimed bedtime. It was 7:30 according to my wristwatch—no clocks in the rooms—a timeless look. I was wide-awake.
I laid in bed listening to the overflowing silence. It was loud and clear.
The bed was the width of a surfboard and just as comfortable to lie on. It was a row of pine boards with a three-inch foam pad on top. My tailbone was parked on the planks. The edges of the thin sheet covering me were frayed.
I felt my heart beating as I lay there silent and still. I listened to it. It rocked my entire body as if I was on a freight train riding over the rhythmic glitches of an old track in a repeated endless swayback. Like riding gentle waves on my surfboard. What were the beats saying? Some day they would stop. I would stop. I was at the right place. Monasteries are about stopping.
I caught slivers of light out of the corner of my left eye. Turning my head, I noticed two-inch wide, eight-foot long, horizontal bars of gold on the wall of my room.
Speaking in silence, the bars of light illuminated the landscape of my room, bringing clarity to the intentional emptiness.
It was not a religious vision. There was no mystery. The setting sun was shyly sinking behind the winter hills. The light entering my room was filtered through half-open plantation blinds hanging from the single window.
In less than five minutes, the golden bars were gone from sight, but still visible in my mind.
It was a spiritual experience because I paid attention to it.
Spirituality is rooted in being awake. Listening. Observing. Personal enlightenment can’t be put into words. The language of spirituality is silence. I wondered if words were ever helpful in discovering truth. When people start using words, the result is not necessarily enlightenment, but often, argument.
Morning. 3:15 AM. I had fifteen minutes to make it to Matins in the monastery chapel. Matins is the first of the eight “offices” that make up the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the church that consecrated the day to God. Lauds was then at 6:45 AM. The remaining six were spread throughout the day with Compline to call it a day before the monks retired at 7:30 PM. In summer, the day starts in the dark of the night and ends in the light of day. The idea was to “flow” with the timetable of the day—and night. An intense preoccupation with structure here. It was a repetitive daily schedule that was a nonstop journey. The days did not finish with a period or even a semicolon. There seemed to be no beginnings or endings. Sleep was a comma, a pause.
“All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence.”
— Herman Melville (1819–1851)