Nearly all meditative practices, East or West, employ a mantra or sound or prayer as a focal object. But the mantra becomes an accompaniment, for it is contrived by the meditator. Not only might many practitioners be unaware of the full meaning of the words but they might as well be repeating any words from any foreign tongue without knowing their meaning. Instead of cultivating sound, we ought to be cultivating silence. In cultivating silence we do not hear ourselves, that is, our “selves” and, emptied of self, we can be filled with the universe.