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I got in to a habit of trying make more use of "spare moments" in time that made me feel a bit "overwhelmed", and I found "silence" as a remedy to this.

Is Silence "Meditation"?

One confusing thing for a while was the practice of "meditation", which is more associated with the non-Christian Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism but has become popularized in the West as a habit.

Meditation is a distinct practice of focused attention that is not the same as silence as understood here. Silence does not require attention, but can be perhaps an absence of focused attention.

So I do not consider silence to be a "form of meditation" and do think Christians could avoid "meditation" and instead pray (which will have some focus of attention) or observe silence (which might lack as much focus of attention).

"Meditation" is also kind of vague, as there are all kinds of "meditation practices" that exist, while silence is kind of "one" practice of an "abstinence from external inputs".

Silence in Religion

Silence has been recommended a bit in the Christian West, although it doesn't seem to get as much attention today. For example in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the entry on "silence" says:

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13790a.htm

> All writers on the spiritual life uniformly recommend, nay, command under penalty of total failure, the practice of silence.

Conclusion

Silence seems kind of like a "fast" from all activity, including concentration exercises like meditation. For me it's felt like an antidote to information overload, noise, and overstimulation.

Have you had any thoughts or experiences to share related to the topic of silence as a religious practice?

edit: another Catholic writing on silence: https://www.ecatholic2000.com/cts/untitled-562.shtml