Category Archives: Deep Listening

Listen: in calligraphy

Posted on by

In our last class, Carole mentioned she had been looking at Chinese characters for listening, ting in Chinese. kiku in Japanese. Here is one character for the sort of deep, embodied listening that we have been discussing in class:

screenshot.png

 

As Carole mentioned, there are several characters for listening, and each carries an inflection of meaning. In Japanese kanji, for instance, the word kiku means both listening and hearing, and there are different characters to express different meanings. Continue reading →

Some Help with those Impossible Conversations

Posted on by

As the nation has grown more polarized, so have—for many of us—our families and friendship circles. Just broaching the question of whether or not to wear a mask in the local Walmart can start the next Civil War. Maybe it’s for the better than we couldn’t all sit down together for that big Memorial Day dinner …

Last Thanksgiving, The New York Times had some fun around the very serious challenge of dining with difficult family members through an interactive feature they named Angry Uncle Bot. He’s still online and he’s still angry … and interacting with him can yield some surprisingly good advice.

 

screenshot.png

Click here to start your conversation.

The Winter of Listening

Posted on by

Kabli Hands on fire

The Winter of Listening
by David Whyte


No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.

All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.

What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.

All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.

All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.

Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.

So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.

 

“The Winter of Listening” by David Whyte, from The House of Belonging. © Many Rivers Press, 1997.

Photography Credit: Detail from “Seeking Warmth”: A Kashmiri man warms his hands over a fire on a street on a cold morning in Srinagar, India,” by Fayaz Kabli/Reuters.

Poem and photograph found on A Year of Being Here: daily mindfulness poetry by wordsmiths of the here & now.

 

 

Invitations to listen deeply …

Posted on by
  1. Practice sitting or walking meditation as many times this week as you can, for at least 10 or 15 minutes at a time. You might remind yourself that learning how to be present to yourself is a beautiful foundation for being truly present for others. For support in your sitting practice, you might check out these 8 Essential Tips for Practice from Tara Brach.
  2. When you find yourself in conversation this week, invite yourself to deepen your listening. You might remind yourself before you sit down for dinner or call a friend: listening is an act of love.
  3. Enjoy this excerpt from Tara Brach’s book, True Refuge, in which she tells the story of a woman who transformed her very difficult relationship with her mother through deep listening.

The Art of Listening—a poem

Posted on by

The Art of Listening
by Jonathan Drane

I knew something of conversation, or so I thought
until I listened to another.
Knew something of the talk, the sounds the chatter,
But to listen and to speak when moments call,
that is far greater.
Of conversations past, I no longer can remember,
Since the day I silent kept- and listened to another,
There opened up a life which had ‘til then
been merely shadow
At first the life it seemed another’s, but when I was caught
and by the mirror
The face had changed, it told me of another.
Since the day I silent kept- and listened to another.

Published on poemhunter.com

 

On listening…

Posted on by

“I Happened To Be Standing” by Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t pursuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Invitations: Deep Listening and the Power of Intention

Posted on by
  1. Journal about the Love exercise we did today and consider setting an intention: for the day, for the week, even for your life. If it feels right, write it down, and carry it with you through the week, in both meditation and your daily activities. Allow yourself to revise or start over in whatever way feels most authentic for you.  You might find it helpful to read this brief essay on The Heart’s Intention by Jack Kornfield.
  2. Read Tara’s 8 Essential Tips for Practice and write out a brief plan for your practice going forward.
  3. When you find yourself in conversation this week, invite yourself to deepen your listening. If you would like to further explore deep listening, there are some resources here.