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Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh

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Answers from the Heart Publisher: Parallax Press

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Thich Nhat Hanh

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“Joy is possible when you dissolve into silence. It is like a drop which dissolves into the ocean. When you are ready to dissolve into the whole, joy happens.If you resist to dissolve, if you try to remain a separate entity, we protect ourselves.That is what everybody is doing. They try to be an ego, they try to protect themselves. They defend themselves against the whole. Everybody is afraid against the whole, because the whole is vast. Many years ago, a spiritual teacher, who has counseled thousands of people, told me: “You will dissolve into the silence. All the earlier enlightened Masters and all the small Deva’s  are just here to help you to get enlightened.” The whole surrounds you from all sides. The whole surrounds you from the inside  and from the outside. The whole is like the wind, which invisible and exists  everywhere. We are not separate. We are part of the whole. Dissolve into the  whole, drop the  ego. Fel yourself as part of the whole. Slowly the experience of  being part of the whole deepens. One day it becomes your truth, your being, your reality. Then you have arrived home. When you live the whole and forget yourself as a separate entity, each moment becomes a joy.”

“Dodging across the alley, covered by the blackness, the three men maneuvered to the front of the next hut. The air was still, soundless. It was so quiet that Tommy thought that every infinitesimal noise they made was magnified, trumpet like, a klaxon noise of alarm. To move silently in a world absent all external noises is very difficult. There were no nearby city sounds of cars and buses or even the deep whomp-whomp-whomp of a distant bombing raid. Not even the joking voices of the goons in the towers or a bark from a Hundführer's dog creased the night to distract or help conceal every footstep they made. For a moment, he wished the British would break into some rowdy song over in the northern compound. Anything to cover over the top of the modest noises they made.”

“This is how silence works in families: it means questions go unanswered, timelines are unclear, and the details of a child's life are a mystery that will not be resolved.”