Why Silent Meetings
Our meetings are silent because it is time for us to focus on the spirit within - the inner light - time to commun with the divine, within ourselves and others.
Words, of course, have value. We use them often - including in blog posts like this - but sometimes they are a distraction, or don’t quite communicate what is going on with us. Within Buddhism, there is the concept of the conventional world and the real world. The conventional world is the world we create in our minds with words, cultural expections and concepts and similar. No matter how much we try, we can never quite match our conventions to reality. Spiritual times are beyond the words of a sermon and we do not use them in our meetings. So, for us, meetings are a spiritual time of communion with the spirit where words are allowed at times, but where the focus is on experience.
The How of Silent Meetings
We sit quitely, waiting on the spirit. For some, this is a time of prayer. For others, this is a time of meditation. Both conceptualisations are a starting point for opening ourselves to the truth - the being - that which is divine within ourselves. At times, a person will have something they feel led to say. They will speak briefly and then we return to waiting on the spirit. This waiting in meetings is communal. It is our shared time.
May all beings know peace!
Gerald Tūruapō Jordan, MBA, MEd, MCouns
23 October 2025