‘Meditation is not
thinking that we must not think.
Meditation is feeling the silence
of the whole body
with your whole body.’
(Chamalú)

We were told we had to think with the body. Now we are told to feel the silence of the body. And we are encouraged to do that because – we are told again – that is precisely the true way to meditation. Maybe they are right. Maybe meditation is after all the silence of the soul, and the way to it is the silence of the body. Maybe body and soul form an intimate and intertwined unit, and the organic calm of cells and neurons generates the peace and serenity of the soul that finds itself in the mystical embrace of the unity of being. And maybe this is meditation.

The silence of the body. I have tried it in the midst of a public bus, among the pushing and pulling of the people, the shaking at the potholes, the trivial conversations, the roar of the traffic. I asked my body to stand erect in the middle of the surrounding chaos. And a temporary oasis descended among the offending din. The noise from outside continued, but its vibrations passed through my body without affecting it. There was no tension in my muscles, no curling up in nerves, no defensiveness in my skin. There was no violence in my hands, and no impatience in my feet. My whole body breathed at once, and the breathing created a peace zone around me, to defend the inner tranquillity against the onslaught of the forces of unease. It was a fact. The body can be at ease even if everything around it is up in arms. In such moments the peace of the body becomes image and support of the peace of the soul that abides in it.

The silence of nature seizes us with the grip of an intensely religious feeling. A mountain summit, the majesty of a motionless cloud in the remote sky, the darkened mystery of a starry night. Everything speaks, because everything is silent. And if nature knows how to keep silence, we too can begin to practise those silences in our own body, and learn to still noises so that we may communicate better. That is meditation.

We carry within ourselves the best tool for effective meditation: the pauses of life, the orchestra of silence, a body innocent of thoughts and words. To feel that body intimately, quietly, devotedly, is the practical meditation that calms down our impatience and unities the soul. That is the deepest and richest ‘recollection’ of ascetical practice, the felt contact with ourselves in all our bodily reality, the live acknowledgment of God’s presence in the body which he made and in which he dwells day and night.