What is the sound of silence?

1. 61

   whoisbidposted 12 years ago

   What is the sound of silence?
   
   How can silence have a sound?

   replyreport
2. 84

   Doc Snowposted 12 years ago

   One answer is that the sound of silence is the sound of your circulatory and nervous systems working.  Usually, you can't hear them; but in an anechoic chamber, you hear (as composer/philosopher John Cage said) "a high sound and a low sound."
   
   They are the true sounds of silence, because if they cease you are already dead.

   replyreport
3. 60

   MickSposted 12 years ago

   What is the sound of one hand clapping?********************************************

   replyreport
4. 92

   greatstuffposted 12 years ago

   I know this doesn't answer your question, but I like Paul & Simon's SoS

   replyreport
5. 73

   SidKempposted 12 years ago

   Of course, silence doesn't have a sound. But the poetic phrase "sound of silence" and the question "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" do have their uses. In the song "The Sound of Silence" (Simon & Garfunkel), the word sound is used metaphorically, meaning meaning or consequence. And the consequences of silence are often injustice and the death of creativity.
   
   The question, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is a call to sit in silence and listen in silence. When we listen in silence, our minds and hearts open, and we see the world in a whole new way. Another Zen story has a student ask, "How do I enter the Way?" The teacher replies, "Can you hear the flow of the distant stream?" The student says, "Yes," and the teacher answers, "Listen from there." The student then says, "And if I had not been able to hear the stream?" Then the teacher replied, "I would have told you to listen from there."
   
   In listening to silence, we become attentive to all that is. Many musicians believe that silence is alive, and that all sound arises from it. Instead of seeing silence as empty, they see it as pregnant, full of the possibilities of all the music in the world.

   replyreport