looking at the characters that are used to write mokusou, you get:
"moku", meaning "silence; to become silent"
"sou", meaning "to imagine; to turn thoughts over in one's mind"
in that sense, "silent mokusou" is a good example of redundancy. it also sounds rather strange to discuss talking during mokusou, since such a thing represents a contradiction.
Mr. Scott, i'm afraid i don't have any direct knowledge of various spoken rituals during martial arts training, but i have certainly read about them here at E-Budo (e.g. i'm pretty sure Toby Threadgill has made mention of this practice in his dojo). is it your impression that such rituals replace the practice of mokusou, or that both practices are followed in conjunction? it would be interesting to hear from you and others on this point.
warning: nitpicking thread drift dead ahead!
Yamantaka-sama, i think you raise a very important point as well, but i think that your claim that mokusou is not "meditation" might sooner be applied to the practice of zazen. my little exercise in etymology suggests that one may think of anything that one likes during mokusou, in fact turn those thoughts over in one's head quite actively. your "focus on one thought" seems very similar to what i've heard about Rinzai sect zazen. perhaps Mr. Kondek's prayers have something in common with this. in either case, the practitioner is actively manipulating their own thoughts, and as Mr. Scott says we might as well call this meditation.
on the other hand, Mr. Gillespie's description is pretty much my (very limited) experience with Soto sect zazen: in essence, not thinking of anything in particular. Soto zazen really does differ from meditation in that way; it is "sitting for the sake of sitting". like Mr. Gillespie, i tend to use my mokusou (we do it at beginning and end of jo class) for this purpose of allowing myself to become calm. much like dust suspended in a glass of water, you can do nothing to the glass to move the dust to the bottom. you can only wait for the dust to settle as the water and gravity allow.
my apologies, Mr. Scott, for dragging this thread way off topic. for what it's worth, i hope to hear more information regarding your original question.
Jeff Hamacher
Those who speak do not know,
Those who know will not speak ...
So I guess that means I don't know a thing!