“The measure of our ability to live in silence is our reaction to noise (whether external or internal) and not in the length of time we go without hearing anything or hearing only what we like to hear. As contemplative practice matures, we begin to relate to disruptive noise differently. We learn to meet sound that displeases with the same stillness with which we meet the sounds that please us.”

Laird, Martin. A Sunlit Absence : Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 49.