"In the life and teaching of Buddha, true silence leads to truth by avoiding wordiness and worldliness because such silence is truth." - A.J.V. Chandrakanthan from "The Silence of Buddha and His Contemplation of Truth"*
At first, in class, when we were equating silence and truth, I didn't fully buy it. It didn't feel applicable to me, and I couldn't figure out how they were one in the same. But then I dug back in my brain to my freshman year World Religions class and Buddhism, and specifically Buddha himself, came to mind. I remember my teacher talked about how he had gone on a 2 week silent meditation trip in the woods....two weeks...no talking...why?!... But of course the reason that he and those throughout history who have done the same do it to seek truth--whether truth about themselves or the world. It seems impossible in this day and age to completely disattach ourselves from everything like Buddha did, but silence though meditation, a glen walk, or a 2 week retreat, is a good start.
Once I got thinking about Buddha, I realized that Friday is almost like a Buddha character of sorts, very sagely, honest, but more importantly, is the one character that we never see lie or make up stories. Susan Barton mother and Susan Barton daughter tangle themselves in endless lies from Susan Barton calling herself Mrs. Crusoe and not even sending nor writing the letters, to their tangled and unresolved relationship. We see lies from Foe about his stories and where he is when writing Susan's story, and we are skeptical of his name to begin with as we discussed in earlier classes (Foe --> Faux). But Friday is our silent constant that we trust because for one, he has never disproven this trust, and his form of expression is through dance or throwing petals as opposed to making up stories. It is in this that I buy into the silence = truth relationship. Friday is like our own Buddha that avoids "wordiness and worldliness" because "such silence is truth" regardless if he actually can talk or not.
*www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/884025chandrak.html
I think that this is a really interesting connection. Thinking back to my religion class I remember being struck by the power of silence as the Buddha presented it, however, while reading Foe, I seemed to completely forget about that power, as I was too frustrated with Fridays inability to communicate. I guess I saw his silence as more of a forced silence than a “silent meditation” like Buddha’s. In your blog post, you say that he is the only character that we never see lie or make up stories, but for all we know his silence is a front. I can see the argument you are making in your blog post, however, I am still having trouble looking past my frustration with Friday’s inability to speak to be completely on board with it.
ReplyDeleteIn your words... "great [quote], great post."
ReplyDeleteThis idea of "wordiness" complicating truth is really interesting-- truth is lost in noise. In some ways I think this is very true. Because we all see things differently, the way we communicate is inherently tinted through our own personal lens. Using this argument, it would never be possible for anything to be told in a way that is completely true.