The Eloquence of Silence: Surprising Wisdom in Tales of Emptiness

Can emptiness really be fulfilling? It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? After all, aren’t we most happy when we are satiated, feeling stuffed after a big dinner, or when our calendars are full, and our lives are brimming with activities? Thomas Moore begs to differ.In his new book, The Eloquence of Silence: Surprising Wisdom in Tales of Emptiness, Moore looks at the merits of emptiness from a variety of perspectives. Through a series of short chapters, each beginning with an anecdote from both religious and non-spiritual texts, he speaks to how feeling empty opens us up to new possibilities and perspectives. His message: “You probably need to empty out as much as you fill up.”While Moore is best known for his many books on the various aspects of the soul, in The Eloquence of Silence, he rarely mentions it by name. He doesn’t have to. His teachings reach somewhere deep within us, touching not so much the head, but the heart. And even mentioning the heart comes up short, because he is really shining a light into our souls, the deep, dark essence at the core of our being.Moore’s calls to emptiness read like written meditations. Much like traditional meditation, his words put you in a different state of mind. The world around you may temporarily slip away as your focus turns inward. He is our tour guide, lighting the way along a darkened path until we reach a clearing, a vast emptiness that is not to be feared but to be embraced.Do we really need emptiness?Moore believes our modern lives are too jam-packed. Too filled with information and activities and material possessions. He opines that “perhaps we produce too many things and use too many words and even think too many thoughts.” And that poses a problem. Because when are lives are filled to the brim with stuff, we have no room for growth.That’s why Moore advises us to “resist pressures to frantically fill every minute with activities or explanations or purpose.” When we begin to honor the emptiness inside us, we’re like the farmer clearing a field for new crops. We’re making room for growth and become “open and awake” to life. Moore asks us to consider:How many aspects of our lives have run their course, yet we keep at them anyway? Some things are not significant like an old, frayed shirt in the closet or a pair of shoes with holes in them. Other things are significant: a rusting career or relationship. We keep them and don’t realize how they stop up the flow of life in general.Moore urges us to “learn to appreciate emptiness and make it part of your daily experience. It can give you peace and comfort, especially when your life is full and active. It balances out any tendency to do too much or even to think and feel excessively.” It gives our souls room to breathe.(From my Wake Up Call common at Patheos)

To the best of my recollection, "The Care of the Soul" was perfectly timed when it was first released. It seemed many of us were thirsting for a smoothing of personal, internal frictions from troubles that are so natural to just being human. I can say, given the state of the world where so many things seem to be broken or spinning out of control, the timing of "The Eloquence of Silence" could not have been better.Whether one is a Care of the Soul devotee or not, "The Eloquence of Silence," I believe, will earn companion status, a work that we will read and want to keep with us for occasional opening to any page. The chapters are brief, the points are profound, and can be re-read and re-learned for a lifetime, it seems to me. In Thomas’s style, the lessons are understandable. I think I get it and, truthfully, I might see my activity of writing this review as a move away from what Thomas makes poignantly clear throughout the book: I could have just been silent, and let myself go into the profound nothingness of the book’s very lessons.I want to draw a contrast with Care of the Soul, where his writing leans toward what the Sufi’s call baqāʾ: Thomas helped us to make peace with the self as a path to harmony and the Holy. "Silence," though, carries us into fanāʾ, where the lesson is making peace with something unknowable and infinite—that which is the flowing stream of life, of the Universe. In "Silence" we go toward a smoothing of the friction arising from dark times.For devotees of Care of the Soul, we might notice the shifts in the Thomas’s thinking: He brings in the Earth and all of life, now: “You were crafted,” he says, “by the accumulated wisdom of insect, butterflies, and lions, trees, grasses, flowers, clouds, rain and snow.” Those are the words of someone who's sharing from a space gained only by the (many) experiences of life, a sage.It’s interesting to me to note that, perhaps in his aging, like a fine wine, Thomas has grown in his own comfort to speak with authority. In "Silence" he makes statements about what we should do. I recall Care of the Soul being written with more equanimity, often using phrases like “…perhaps we should begin to…”. "The Eloquence of Silence" seems more declarative, with words like “If there is one lesson you need to learn…” But it’s okay, that’s what teachers are for.In the end, I wonder something. Did Thomas Moore, so adroit in his crafting of Care of the Soul, have an idea that, from the alpha of that book, he would bring the reader to the Omega—the zenith of the human spiritual journey?

I recall listening to Thomas Moore talk on emptiness at a retreat center in Austin, Texas, back in 2006. His words forever lodged into my mind and imagination when he said, “If you fill up your life, nothing unexpected can happen. You can’t make fresh discoveries, and you will have few surprises and revelations.” (From Chapter “Doors and Windows”) At the time, I felt stuck in my life and I was searching and seeking a new idea or fresh perspective that might help dislodge me from the cycle of repetition. I had been busily adding new activities to my life, looking for more of something I was not able to define. Thinking long and hard about Moore’s comments, I began emptying out areas of my life to make some room for what might be hovering in the wings that might be trying to happen if I could only get out of my own way. As I created more space, some new, unanticipated opportunities slowly emerged from nowhere.The Eloquence of Silence offers a unique perspective and shows us how honoring silence and emptiness is a practice. If you want to open up your life, Moore can show you a gentle way to do so. In a world where everybody seems to be screaming their opinions, blasting the internet with podcasts, and tweeting what they think, Moore reminds us of another way of being. In his chapter “No Speaking”, he tells the story of a speaker who does not speak and the teacher who did not teach, reminding us “For every word about things that matter, we need hours of contemplation and reflection.” Ponder on that!If you are a wisdom seeker, this book is for you. And it would also make a wonderful gift for a thoughtful, soulful friend. I treasure Thomas Moore and his wisdom and unique perspective.