When you experience both Silence and the Word deeply, you see that the Word comes from the Silence and the Silence is in the Word. When you really listen to God speaking to you in each moment, you see that what speaks to you is the Silence.
This tenderness for life, bodhichitta, awakens when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence. It awakens through kinship with the suffering of others. We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we can take the pain of the world in, let it touch our hearts, and turn it into compassion.