by Claire Greenwood, AMFT

I HATE SILENCE WHEN IT’S TIME TO SPEAK

As a former Buddhist nun, I have a complicated relationship to silence. I was ordained in Japan at the age of twenty-four and spent most of my twenties in a Zen convent. I calculated once that I’ve spent more than 10,000 hours of my waking life in silent meditation, not to mention silent periods of work. But as the ninth century Byzantine nun Kassia says: “I hate silence when it is time to speak.” 

When I left monastic life, I could no longer be silent. Almost immediately I wrote and published two books. The words fell out of me with a kind of compulsive, violent quality, like a child vomiting up the Halloween candy they couldn’t help but eat too much of. I did all the naughty things I’d missed out on. I remember the first month after I left and re-entered lay life, I listened to my headphones almost nonstop. I wanted noise.

It’s been six years since I left monastic life, and I’m starting to welcome in silence again. The first hour of my day is always silent. As a therapist on the fairly common “Buddhist monk to therapist career pipeline,” I appreciate the advice to be with clients. I am fairly good at “being with” — at noticing my reactions, allowing myself to be impacted by a client’s words, inviting reverie, and saying less. But like Kassia I also know there is a time to speak. Speaking is harder for me than being silent. 

Most Buddhist traditions have ethical guidelines around speech. The Eightfold Noble Path, a kind of roadmap for Buddhist ethics, describes “right speech” like this: "It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will." If all of these conditions can’t be met, the Buddha recommends that monks keep “noble silence.” 

Of course, therapists aren’t monks (or, therapists are not only monks). We are in the business of relating, and sometimes our silence can be abandoning. Writing this makes me think of a client who has more trauma than anyone I’ve encountered. He describes his childhood as a “sadistic Grimm’s fairytale”: abandoned by his mother shortly after birth, and physically tortured and verbally berated by his father, who would slap him and call him a “pussy” whenever he expressed vulnerability, as well as randomly.  

Now, he struggles with how to relate to his own anger. He tells me about the romantic partners he’s lost because of the “cruel” things he has said to them. He’s told me the details and they are indeed shockingly cruel words. But he is also capable, funny, and kind, with a fierce love of justice. This week, he is struggling to make a simple request of his boss, and he is worried that anything he says will be perceived as “rageful.”  

He speaks for a long time and then stops, looking at me expectantly. By now I know this look. He wants me to say something. He doesn’t want to be alone with all of this. I feel trapped with him in the unspeakable horrors of his childhood — a dark fairy tale where words and silence are both violence, where all speech is wrong speech. I want to tell him that he is not bad, that this is not his fault, and yet I feel strangled. The truth seems too large to talk about. 

Finally, I manage: “I don’t have anything good to say.” 

We both know it’s an inadequate response. He tilts his head back and laughs a big laugh, and warmth fills the space. 

“I appreciate your honesty,” he says. 

We move on.