Learning from Silence

From the bestselling author of The Art of Stillness, a revelatory exploration of the abiding clarity and calm to be found in quiet retreat.**

Over the past three decades, Pico Iyer has made more than a hundred journeys to a small hermitage high above the sea in Big Sur, California. He's not a Christian, nor a member of any religious group, and yet his life has been transformed by these periods of time spent in silence.

In ** Learning from Silence**, Iyer travels deep into inner stillness and joy in his many seasons at the monastery, even as his life is going through constant change: houses burn, a parent dies, a daughter is diagnosed with cancer. He shares the revelations he experiences, alongside wisdom from other non-monastics who have learned from adversity and inwardness. Most profoundly, he shows how solitude can be a training in community and companionship.

In so doing, he offers a unique outsider's view of monastic life - and of a group of selfless souls who have dedicated their days to ensuring there's a space for quiet and recollection that's open to us all.

Radiant, intimate and gripping, ** Learning from Silence** offers ageless counsel about the power of silence and what it can teach us about how to live, how to love and, ultimately, how to die.

Beautiful . . . Iyer masterfully and lyrically shows us how we may need to find a new home - one far more solemn, communal and silent than our present one - in order to return properly to ourselves. -- ** Alain de Botton**

I trust that reading this book may help many to lead lives of greater compassion and deeper peace of mind. -- ** His Holiness the Dalai Lama**