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Quote by C.J. Cooke

“She hasn't kept anything from him that she hadn't been keeping from herself. He doesn't get that truth and memory can be too complex, too tentacled, to boil down to a linear narrative. That sometimes, silence is a form of survival.”

Quote by C.J. Cooke

Work

The Lighthouse Witches

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C.J. Cooke

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“Silence is chosen every time there is a positive outcome or to avoid a negative one. We choose silence only when it’s beneficial to us. If we think we have something to win by remaining silent instead of speaking, we will choose to do so. Silence doesn’t just happen. It’s not a situation when someone has run out of words and stays silent. Silence is carefully and smartly chosen every time there is a beneficial outcome.”

“The sound of silence was beginning to get louder, and familiar. And I was deeply in love with it. Not only does it not involve religious practices, it makes you shed all religious affiliations for ten days. What you are left with is your bare breath. That becomes the only thing you focus on – your personal rosary. There are no pictures of gurus, or even of the Buddha himself. There are no personalised gods or its dubious derivates – dogmas, or godmen – to prostrate before. No hugs, kisses, threads, amulets, satins or holy ash. No holy ‘trap’ of devices designed for an instant osmosis of blessings. No grand trickery that makes life here a hell in promise of a heaven there. It shows us the same arduous path that some of the enlightened men have walked. Men who can only show the path and are not the destination; where they communed with their truth, or, for lack of a better word, their God, in silence. The choice is left to us, to walk, stroll, stray, or squat on that path. [Many men; Ab to Za, all those alphabets and all the other men in between… Same grand truth, revealed in parts… Same path, seemingly different… Same destination…. No single path.] But Vipassana does not offer us the easier path of pleading, coaxing, extorting or seducing such men for easy blessings. It nudges you to start walking. To be your own blessing. To create your own miracles.”

“The sound of silence was beginning to get louder, and familiar. And I was deeply in love with it. I stopped being mute, and became dumb again. There are no pictures of gurus, or even of the Buddha himself. There are no personalised gods or its dubious derivates – dogmas, or godmen – to prostrate before. No hugs, kisses, threads, amulets, satins or holy ash. No grand trickery that makes life here a hell in promise of a heaven there. It shows us the same arduous path that some of the enlightened men have walked. Men who can only show the path and are not the destination; where they communed with their truth, or, for lack of a better word, their God, in silence. The choice is left to us, to walk, stroll, stray, or squat on that path. [Many men; Ab to Za, all those letters of alphabets and all the other men in between… Same grand truth, revealed in parts… Same path, seemingly different… Same destination…. No single path.] But Vipassana does not offer us the easier path of pleading, coaxing, extorting or seducing such men for easy blessings. It nudges you to start walking. To be your own blessing. To create your own miracles.”