Silence – positive silence – has always been the underlying concern of Eastern philosophy. Indeed, one might go so far as to say that that is what all Eastern philosophies are all about. For the locus of truth in Eastern thought does not reside in the speech or saying of the philosopher, but primarily in the way he lives his silence. Here truth is not so much a quality of a statement or proposition as the reality of an existential state of affairs consummated in silence – whether it be the perfect sincerity of the Confucian Sage, the pure spontaneity of the Taoist Real Man, or the satori of the Zen Master. This does not mean, of course, that speech has no function to play, but its function is secondary and even negative. In Eastern philosophy the importance – and indeed the meaning – of what a philosopher has to say and has said must be judged in the light of his silence – his transcendence of speech.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6253.1976.tb00387.x