Aflame

Learning from Silence

By: Pico Iyer

Narrated by: Pico Iyer

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Reading Aflame may help many to lead lives of greater compassion and deeper peace of mind.”—His Holiness the Dalai Lama

From the bestselling author of The Art of Stillness, a revelatory exploration of the abiding clarity and calm to be found in quiet retreat

Pico Iyer has made more than one hundred retreats over the past three decades to a small Benedictine hermitage high above the sea in Big Sur, California. He’s not a Christian—or a member of any religious group—but his life has been transformed by these periods of time spent in silence. That silence reminds him of what is essential and awakens a joy that nothing can efface. It’s not just freedom from distraction and noise and rush: it’s a reminder of some deeper truths he misplaced along the way.

In Aflame, Iyer connects with inner stillness and joy in his many seasons at the monastery, even as his life is going through constant change: a house burns down, a parent dies, a daughter is diagnosed with cancer. He shares the revelations he experiences, alongside wisdom from other nonmonastics who have learned from adversity and inwardness. And most profoundly, he shows how solitude can be a training in community and companionship. In so doing, he offers a unique outsider’s view of monastic life—and of a group of selfless souls who have dedicated their days to ensuring there’s a space for quiet and recollection that’s open to us all.

Radiant, intimate, and gripping, Aflame offers ageless counsel about the power of silence and what it can teach us about how to live, how to love, and, ultimately, how to die.

©2025 Pico Iyer (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Luminous...the author brilliantly illuminates philosophical insights about the nature of the self, the world, and how silence serves as a conduit between the two, often in elegant, evocative prose... This is stunning.”–Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Beautiful… Iyer masterfully and lyrically shows us how we may need to find a new home–one far more solemn, communal and silent than our present one–in order to return properly to ourselves.”–Alain de Botton

“Luminous and exquisitely simple, it is astonishing how Iyer transports you into the joy of the mystery. And then, lit with love, he shows you how to find it everywhere.”–Jack Kornfield

Lessons for a community suffering from fires

The life lessons one can learn from suffering through a fire and losing material items that were meaningful. The author demonstrated doing this with grace. Very timely in light of the fires in SOCAL. I highly recommend this book.

The peace I feel listening to Pico

Pico gently guides the listener through his life touched by both fire and enlightenment. A treasure to listen to.

Explores the poetry of fire and being

Love everything . Have never enjoyed Iyers work as much . Brings a small window of his life and mind and consciousness into a view of an illuminated spaciousness .

silence aflame

Beautifully book..", There is nothing to think but oak tree and the ocean"
this book is a balm to our wounded soul. in time of incessant schooling and breaking news we are all confused and lost. we have to step back and" smell the Flowers. and Pick shows or this in his special way the book is read buy Pico and his melodious voice contributes to the quality of the book. I do highly recommend the book.
zeljko Zic

The beauty of silence through his words

My third listen, each time a new discovery , as I sit on my back porch in the rain with my dog. We are both enjoying our own silence

Gratitude for Pico Iyer

Iyer's gentle, brilliant insights, his weaving of inner and external fires, I will listen to this again. Thank you.

To find something you cannot doubt may be as much as some need to get to faith

It may take a few times circling back around in this fairy ring of a book to get to God’s Gold in the fungus cup. But it’s there.

The title is misleading. The book doesn't explore "silence" but only talks about being on tge periphery of monasteries.

I thought it would explore the practice and experience of silence, but it doesn’t. I kept waiting for the book to get there, but it never does.