I am writing this piece for no other reason but simply out of a deep keenness to capture and share the essence of an extraordinary experience. Of course, all my writing is a pursuit without purpose, a product of my whimsical and fanciful mind but this one is special.

It is of a time at my second Vipassana course. Of a time when there was quiet outside and quiet inside. Like a hush enveloping me in a void. A void so complete like space beyond sky. When there was silence outside, I heard the bulbuls and treepies in conversations, the squirrels in squeals and the bugs and ants bustling in a rhythm. Fresh leaves unfolded with patience and dried ones floated down with gentle elan. I even saw the very first flight of a babbler chick and it elated me as if my own offspring took his first step. My world expanded in that confinement.

At the start of the course, every meditator takes a vow to follow five precepts for the duration of the course, of which the vow of noble silence is particularly important. In the practice of the noble silence, foremost is the complete silence of speech, then silence of eyes and gestures and eventually silence of the mind.