Camille Clarke

Si­lence. Still­ness. This was the fo­cus of var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions yes­ter­day which took part in Just This Day at the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral, Hart Street, Port-of-Spain. For the sixth con­sec­u­tive year, the School of Phi­los­o­phy com­mem­o­rat­ed Just This Day by walk­ing qui­et­ly.

The group walked slow­ly around the labyrinth on the church grounds. In an in­ter­view out­side the church yes­ter­day, head of the school, Bri­an Cameron, said there was need for rest and prayer. He said: "We thought in the midst of the hus­tle and bus­tle to en­cour­age peo­ple to de­vote time to con­tem­pla­tive ac­tiv­i­ties like prayer, re­flec­tion, si­lence and still­ness."

He said the ini­tia­tive start­ed from their sis­ter or­gan­i­sa­tion, the School of Eco­nom­ic Sci­ence, in Lon­don, Eng­land, since 2007. "It has a pos­i­tive in­flu­ence on in­di­vid­u­als on the whole. In­di­vid­u­als need to ap­pre­ci­ate the im­por­tance of si­lence, and on the bet­ter part of the day than the phys­i­cal day," he said.

Cameron said de­vo­tion with prayer, still­ness and si­lence were nec­es­sary dai­ly. Joanne John­son, a mem­ber of the school, said oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions took part in the event glob­al­ly. "Si­lence and still­ness be­long to no one and every­one. It is just an aware­ness to in­vite peo­ple to find that sa­cred space in your­self," she said. John­son said walk­ing the labyrinth was an an­cient tra­di­tion and the in­ten­tion is to "draw us to the qui­et with­in our­self."

"We teach kids to be qui­et ex­cept that it is forced. It is a re­al pal­pa­ble ex­pe­ri­ence. There is so much de­bate and loud dis­cus­sions about every­thing. This is a way to say shh­hh...just be still. There is no di­vi­sion, there is sin­cer­i­ty de­spite num­bers. We know in our heart and start­ing with our­selves," she said. Rev­erend Rinchen Blake, a Bud­dhist monk, said the im­por­tance is be­ing able to walk around with the mind be­ing peace­ful.

"You can walk and still be calm. The sim­ple form of Bud­dhism teach­es the way of suf­fer­ing and the way out of suf­fer­ing. Most peo­ple can't do this be­cause their mind is not un­der con­trol," he said. Blake said the mind caus­es suf­fer­ing by feel­ings of sad­ness, hap­pi­ness, ir­ri­ta­tion, or be­ing un­sat­is­fied. "If we have ex­pe­ri­ence sit­ting on a beach that is med­i­ta­tion, bring­ing it in­to our dai­ly life. It is a way of let­ting go," he said.