Silence is Golden

About half an hour from the city you can find the sound of silence in a beautiful park. Most people are home with their families during Spring Festival, so the park was relatively empty. We spent the day there preparing ourselves for the noisy week to come. The cherry blossoms welcomed us with their sweet fragrance and the coy and goldfish followed us as we circled the pond. No car alarms, no "bombs" exploding, just birds chirping and children playing. Sweet serenity! This park is steeped with thousands of years of history. The monks wore black with their hair in buns on top of their head. The gentle sounds of an old man playing the two stringed "banjo" filtered up to us as we climbed to the summit. How many people, wondered Frank, have traversed these steep hand-hewn stairs over the past thousands of years? Whose steps were we walking in? Picturesque scenes awaited us around every corner and it was like stepping forward in time, when the worries of today will no longer be remembered. We enjoyed a rather large lunch beneath an old hotel. Kung Pao Chicken, Bai Cai (sauteed Napa Cabbage), potato slivers with garlic and chilies, two types of stir-fry pork, and a bowl of rice big enough to feed 6 people. Somehow we finished most of it. Maybe the fresh air stimulated our appetites. Our day of quiet and beauty had come to an end. But our appreciation for the beautiful things made for our enjoyment was enhanced, our spirits lifted and our minds reset for the goals at hand.
Mandy

Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.
Hans Margolius

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
Mahatma Gandhi