You won’t find my name in any scroll, but I was there, deep in the forested hills of ancient India, where silence wrapped itself around the trees like a second skin. I was a simple monk, not well-known, not powerful—just one among many who had taken up the robes in search of inner peace. My teacher was Venerable Mahākassapa, one of the Buddha’s chief disciples, wise beyond words and patient like the earth.
I still remember the morning it began. A young man arrived at our monastery, barefoot and trembling. His name was Bhāra, and his eyes, dark like the wet stones of the mountains, held a shadow I recognized: loss.
“My mother and sister…” he began, voice cracking. “The fever took them both.”
He had wandered alone for weeks through jungle paths with no aim but to escape the memories that haunted him. The villagers in his town said he had once laughed deeply and sung in the marketplaces—but that was long before death scraped the joy from his face.
Venerable Mahākassapa took him in with few words. That was his way. Words, he often said, can carry truth, but silence can hold it.
Bhāra worked hard—gathering firewood, sweeping the grounds, watching the elder monks meditate under the canopy of trees. But he refused to meditate himself. He feared the silence, the stillness inside his mind. “In silence, the memories come roaring,” he told me once, his voice dry like the wind.
One morning, Mahākassapa told Bhāra of a nearby cave, hidden behind a waterfall. “Go,” he said simply. “Take a lamp, and face your fear.”
So he went.
For seven days, we did not see Bhāra. The lantern he carried was lit each night—we could see a soft glow from the forest, flickering like a distant star beyond the trees. Then, on the eighth morning, he returned.
He was different.
Not joyful. Not sorrowless. But still.
He bowed before Mahākassapa and said, “The light has shown me what the darkness was hiding.”
Later, when I asked him what he meant, he told me this:
“At first, I was angry. Angry at death, at the silence of the world, at the people who left me. I thought hiding deep in that cave would be punishment. But when I sat still, really still, and let the tears come, I felt something strange. I noticed the flame of my lamp. It danced, soft and steady. I realized the pain I carried was like that cave—dark, but not empty. I had filled it with anger. But in that flame, I saw the truth: the light was never outside me. It was always here—inside.”
In time, Bhāra became one of our most devoted monks. He served others with calm and compassion, not because he had forgotten his pain, but because he had released it.
That day, I learned something I hadn’t from scriptures, chants, or even long hours of meditation. The journey from sorrow begins not by running from the cave, but by lighting a lamp and stepping in. Those who face their darkness with mindfulness find not despair—but freedom.
And I vowed, from then on, never to fear the silence within.
You won’t find my name in any scroll, but I was there, deep in the forested hills of ancient India, where silence wrapped itself around the trees like a second skin. I was a simple monk, not well-known, not powerful—just one among many who had taken up the robes in search of inner peace. My teacher was Venerable Mahākassapa, one of the Buddha’s chief disciples, wise beyond words and patient like the earth.
I still remember the morning it began. A young man arrived at our monastery, barefoot and trembling. His name was Bhāra, and his eyes, dark like the wet stones of the mountains, held a shadow I recognized: loss.
“My mother and sister…” he began, voice cracking. “The fever took them both.”
He had wandered alone for weeks through jungle paths with no aim but to escape the memories that haunted him. The villagers in his town said he had once laughed deeply and sung in the marketplaces—but that was long before death scraped the joy from his face.
Venerable Mahākassapa took him in with few words. That was his way. Words, he often said, can carry truth, but silence can hold it.
Bhāra worked hard—gathering firewood, sweeping the grounds, watching the elder monks meditate under the canopy of trees. But he refused to meditate himself. He feared the silence, the stillness inside his mind. “In silence, the memories come roaring,” he told me once, his voice dry like the wind.
One morning, Mahākassapa told Bhāra of a nearby cave, hidden behind a waterfall. “Go,” he said simply. “Take a lamp, and face your fear.”
So he went.
For seven days, we did not see Bhāra. The lantern he carried was lit each night—we could see a soft glow from the forest, flickering like a distant star beyond the trees. Then, on the eighth morning, he returned.
He was different.
Not joyful. Not sorrowless. But still.
He bowed before Mahākassapa and said, “The light has shown me what the darkness was hiding.”
Later, when I asked him what he meant, he told me this:
“At first, I was angry. Angry at death, at the silence of the world, at the people who left me. I thought hiding deep in that cave would be punishment. But when I sat still, really still, and let the tears come, I felt something strange. I noticed the flame of my lamp. It danced, soft and steady. I realized the pain I carried was like that cave—dark, but not empty. I had filled it with anger. But in that flame, I saw the truth: the light was never outside me. It was always here—inside.”
In time, Bhāra became one of our most devoted monks. He served others with calm and compassion, not because he had forgotten his pain, but because he had released it.
That day, I learned something I hadn’t from scriptures, chants, or even long hours of meditation. The journey from sorrow begins not by running from the cave, but by lighting a lamp and stepping in. Those who face their darkness with mindfulness find not despair—but freedom.
And I vowed, from then on, never to fear the silence within.
