2023-09-08 Wise Listening (5 of 5) Listening as Love

3:36PM Sep 8, 2023

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

listen

hear

goodwill

intentionality

purpose

speak

person

love

appreciated

interrupt

weeks

wonderful

imc

people

beneficial

respect

stranger

worthwhile

purposeful

depth

This is the fifth talk and final talk on why's listening. That's borrowing from the Buddhist criteria for why speaking to. And then the fifth one is to speak with friendliness, to speak with speak with mettā with loving kindness or goodwill. And so if we're listening to listen, with love with goodwill with friendliness, and it might be easier to listen with goodwill, friendliness, generosity than it is to speak that way. Sometimes speaking, we don't know what words to say, sometimes speaking, maybe can feel a little bit like we're offering ourselves too much to someone else. And maybe the impact we're unsure of, if you walk up to a stranger, or you sit down with the stranger on the bus and you say, I love you, who knows what's going to happen. But if you sit there with a stranger on the bus, and listen to them, attentively with care, and with love in the listening, it could get complicated, of course, but it's probably much safer, to just listen with respect attentively as if the person is valuable and important, as if the person's worthy of being known, being heard being seen. And I suspect suspect that there's a kind of a crisis in our society of people not being seen and heard and respected enough. And, and we can do it with our capacity to listen. And it is listening is intentional, it's different than just hearing. And sometimes in meditation, it's wonderful to kind of just rest and hearing and be so simple and quiet. But in our social lives, things get enriched by our intentionality, by doing things on purpose, and to to listen to someone on purpose, as opposed to not really making any effort to listen and just hear them as if you'd hear the traffic outside or the birds outside or something. There's not much depth in that, that way of hearing others, but to really turn to someone and hear them out, to listen to them on purpose with intentionality. To engage in an intentionality can be multifaceted, part of the intentionality is to listen to them with appreciation, with a sense that it's worthy worth listening to them that what they have to say, is worthwhile to hear. And worthwhile to be a witness to this person's life. And, and so to listen, with, with goodwill, and to call mettā. Goodwill, maybe is an easier approach than say, listen with love, the love, it gets complicated sometimes with the what that means and how high it's kind of a high bar for people to always love everyone. But even people that we have trouble with, challenged by or even don't like sometimes, it might be possible to find goodwill, wishing them well. Wishing them the opportunity to be heard. We're hoping that being being heard that they in being heard, and respected and appreciated, that may be a touch of something deep inside of them that maybe is beneficial and helpful. And maybe the person as a result won't be as challenging. And so to listen with goodwill, and good listening is a form of love is a form of goodwill is a form of respect and care for others. And so how do we do this? What are their means for this? I think it's helpful to think that listening with love listening to Goodwill is not only just having an attitude of goodwill, but it's, it's what more we bring into the listening. The listening can be active. We could ask questions, as if the person's you want to know more. If the person's valuable enough to find out more what they think what their experience is like, and but you know, carrying questions and just asking questions, sometimes appreciating what they've said. And some people it's very rare, they get appreciated for what they said. And sometimes in group meetings and group situations, there's plenty of people who are not appreciated when, when they speak, some people kind of are recognized as easily by others, they have a lot bigger presence or have a status in society that maybe gets them. People focus on them. And other people don't have that. And people sometimes will overlook them. Sometimes people will even someone will say something, no one will acknowledge it. And then a little bit later, someone else's same thing. And they're acknowledged, but to pay attention to our people being appreciated, or people being listened to, in meetings in different situations, who's not being listened to? Who's being overlooked. Over You know, overheard not. Can you listen, can you fill in the places in meetings and social situations, and fill in for the lack of attention or deep listening that some people all too often experience? So this is an active, purposeful? The Yes, let's listen, let's pay attention here. The the other that went away to this active kind of loving, listening, is don't rehearse what you're gonna say. Instead, consider what the what the person is saying. Consider it and listen to what's not being said. Listen to the feelings, the emotions behind what they say. Listen to what they might be asking for, without it being a question. Listen, what the what is, what's the purpose for which they're saying something. And so to be actively involved in listening means to be considering what people are saying, more than considering what you're going to say. To listen with love is not to interrupt people, to let them speak finished. Of course, sometimes it's appropriate to interrupt Sometimes they're very gay, the playfulness of conversations, involves kind of a back and forth and interrupting. But that's in context. It's, it's the appropriate and people you're familiar with. But you know, at times, love is known interrupt. So purposeful listening. And then we consider what is the purpose by which we're listening for, and going and doing. And the so some of the purposes of these five criteria is to listen in a timely way, listen, when it's really important to listen. Know when to listen in conversation, rather than to keep speaking and saying your opinions. Maybe you don't speak all you can say every time you have something to say, some people are kind of have a strong habit of feeling to get things off their chest and get their opinions out there and to be right. So to speak, in a timely way means to give other people a chance to speak and to hear it to listen to what's really true, to purposefully look for the truth. And that has a lot to do with reviewing ourselves that we're not overlaying judgments and biases on top of what we hear, to be able to be clean listener. To listen in a way that is touches the heart, it's kind of related to this idea of listening with love. But listen in a way that that helps people feel safe or comfortable or are comfortable around you. And to listen for what's beneficial listening and beneficial way listen for a way that supports you and others. And then again, this last one, maybe it's related to that and that is to listen with goodwill. So these are all purposes that we choose to live by. And there are times when when this Buddhist practice of ours calls upon us to live an intentional life a purposeful life. And listening is one of those interesting places for that. When we appreciate the difference between listening and hearing hit we can hear without any sense of purpose at all. We enrich ourselves if we listen with purpose to provide provided it for the right purpose, provided for purpose that feels like it comes from the depth of us and supports something that's beautiful and wonderful inside of us to flow income

kind of on its own. So we're not straining and stressing to, for the purpose. It's a purpose that allows something to flower. And one of the most beautiful flowerings we can have is, is love. And to live a purposeful life, where love is at the center, what a great gift it is for our world. So listening, listening is one of the expressions of love, if let love has a language, listening is maybe the grammar for that language or something. So, thank you. And so, this Sunday, I begin teaching a three week retreat at our retreat center inside retreat center. And so I won't be here for the next three weeks. And number of the people who normally would come here to teach are not available next couple of weeks, so at least for the next week, and maybe, maybe for the next two weeks, the we're going to do a replay on 7am We'll still have the 7am period for but it'll we'll play some of the series that I did, did I think but you know, almost three years ago now or in 2020 So it's been a while and maybe it's nice to have it repeated. And so it'll it'll it'll appear as if it's a live broadcast. And but you know, so you can participate in chat and all that. But it's it's not I'll be here live and spirit and heart not that not in person. And and then in so the third week them away. Nikki Mirghafori will speak wonderful teacher here at IMC and then very happy that she's going to share herself with you for that those days. So thank you all very much and I look forward to seeing you in about three weeks.