Three doors

With this rung the summit of the Ladder begins. John Climacus distinguishes two silences. Silence of the body is order in one’s disposition and senses. Silence of the soul is knowledge of one’s own thoughts, and a mind that cannot be robbed. Whoever loves silence, he says, has a brave and strict thought that stands guard at the doors of the heart and turns away what presses in from outside.

John is very cautious here. Complete solitude is not for everyone, and least of all for someone inclined to anger, pride and rancour. What awaits such a man in solitude is the loss of reason, not peace. For a man with a family and a job, this rung therefore does not mean withdrawing from people, but inner silence in the middle of life: short, firm periods of peace, and a mind that does not run after every worry.

Today its absence is easy to see. There is no moment in the day without sound: music, the phone, the news, conversation. When you are left alone in silence, you grow uneasy. Your thoughts jump from worry to worry. And you are curious about everything: other people’s news, other people’s lives, other people’s messages. John says nothing kills silence as much as curiosity.

His advice begins with the image of three doors: lock the door for the body, the door of the tongue for words, and the inner door of the heart for thoughts. In practice, set a place and a time without people, without conversation and without screens, and in that time watch your thoughts. The elder who taught John silence advised joining a short prayer to the breath: one half on the in-breath, the other on the out-breath. Ten minutes a day is enough to begin. The same elder noticed the schedule by which thoughts attack: in the morning vanity and bodily thoughts, around noon despondency, sadness and anger, and in the evening the belly. It is a precious timetable for the whole day: in the morning guard the purity of your thoughts, around noon do not decide anything in a state of nerves, and in the evening watch your food and drink.

A tiny hair disturbs the eye, and a small worry spoils the silence.

So in your quiet time do not plan and do not solve problems. Write the worry on paper and leave it for later. And when you come out of silence among people, save your words, because when the cage door is open, the birds fly out. Carry one sentence through the day and repeat it, as those who lived in silence did.

There are two traps. The first is silence as escape: whoever flees his family into “silence” is not on this rung. The second is a promise you cannot keep. John recalls the man who began to build a tower without counting the cost. Do not promise yourself an hour of silence a day if ten minutes is realistic.

John himself gives the sign that you have climbed: the fruits of true silence are a steady mind, a purified thought and fewer words, while the fruits of false silence are more anger and less love. If after your quiet time you love your own people better, you are on the right road.

The question remains: once the doors are closed, with whom does one speak in the silence?

N. Ž.