Presence retreat in silence ’Teaching without words’

We are accustomed to understanding the world and other people through language and expressing ourselves throughwords. Yet communication between living beings goes far beyond language. Animals do not possess human language, yetthey are still able to perceive one another and exchange information. Likewise, between human beings, a glance, a lovinggesture or an inner feeling can convey something that words can hardly express.

So what can we perceive when words become silent?

How can we communicate with other people and our surroundings when we no longer rely on words?

Language helps us learn, understand and express ourselves. At the same time, however, it can easily lead us into what wecall postnatal thinking: we analyse, judge and explain, constantly trying to comprehend ourselves and the outside worldthrough the intellect.

In the Teaching Without Words, we temporarily let go of our habit of relying exclusively on language. Our postnatalthinking can gradually become still. Our attention withdraws from the outside world and turns inward once again: fromthinking to feeling, from the postnatal back to the prenatal.

Being without words does not mean that communication ceases. On the contrary, when we become still, we can perceiveour inner world more subtly and become more aware of our true feelings and energetic state. At the same time, we learnto perceive other people and our environment with our hearts.

Love, benevolence and a sincere heart do not always need words. They can be felt and shared:

• Inwardly – by truly feeling and sensing ourselves.

• Outwardly – by perceiving others and sharing love and benevolence with them.

The more we learn to perceive ourselves and others, the more our hearts can open. In this way, encounters andcommunication between people can become more genuine, heartfelt and immediate.

Sifu Wei Ling Yi regarded the Teaching Without Words as one of the highest forms of teaching and cultivation in YiXue:

“The highest wisdom we can attain is the wisdom of the soul. The highest teaching we can receive from ourteacher is the ‘Teaching Without Words’.”

Sifu also described communication beyond words in this way:

“Our hearts connect and our souls communicate with one another. It is an exchange from heart to heart, fromsoul to soul.”

Opening Prenatal Perception Through Silence

In this Teaching Without Words seminar, YiXue teachers Wei Na and Lian Yü will follow Sifu’s teachings and accompanyparticipants on their shared journey of cultivation without words.We will enter a state of wordlessness and set aside our usual verbal communication for a period of time. We will practisein silence, experiencing, understanding and sensing without words.

Our postnatal thinking may gradually become still, allowing our mind and energy to gather once again. In this innersilence, we learn to perceive, receive and communicate. We reconnect with our true selves. We become receptive to thelove and benevolence of all beings and learn to share our own love and benevolence with others.

Sifu said:

“There is a need for teaching through the heart and teaching through the soul. The heart opens, and the soulwill communicate with us. This is why we speak of a ‘Teaching Without Words’.”

When words become silent, we may discover something anew:

The heart can perceive.

Love can be shared.

Life itself can communicate.

Some teachings need words so that we can understand them. Other teachings require our silence so that we can perceivethem with our hearts. Teaching Without Words – From Heart to Heart, from Soul to Soul.