The Sacred Art of Listening, with Tara Brach

[Music] Namaste Welcome Friends I ran across a cartoon of a man in a woman on a first date and his thought bubble is saying I can't think of anything to say she must think I'm a total bore and hers is a man who can actually listen to me I think I'm in love I know for myself one of the most always gratifying experiences is when I enter a conversation and I'm really intentional about listening and that really becomes the practice in those moments of um not planning ahead what I'm going to say not rehearsing really

taking in another person and being intentional really makes a difference so I love uh I try to do it a couple of times a year offering talks on listening because it profoundly changes our relationships with others and it comes from the capacity for an inner listening to quiet the mind and take in what is happening now what I find for myself is that the more stressed I am the less I am actually listening um you know the more I disagree with somebody the less I'm actually listening so it's really valuable to make it a whole

life practice for me to notice when I'm losing receptivity when I'm caught in my own um judgments and how watching how often I go on automatic and don't really show up it's really valuable because then it motivates me to deepen attention so I'm hoping you'll find that this talk does the same for you I'm so aware um one friend brought it up in me asked me recently said uh does it really matter what anyone is saying in this 2024 election cycle is there any real listening in our society we have less and less capacity to

listen again more stress and with the silos of dividedness the more wetted we get to views and we're not willing to take in anything other than what confirms our views so what we're exploring today is both for ourselves personally and in our larger society that listening is the Hope for bridging divides for deepening connection I I think of it as the the grounds of activism that for a more loving and understanding world we need to practice this in our daily life this this deep art of quieting enough to take each other in so the talk

that I'm going to share with you is from 10 years ago and I think you'll find the teachings and the reflections ever more relevant in today's world okay friends may this serve like to begin tonight with a story I heard from a a minister who describes giving a sermon one Sunday and hearing two teenage girls in the back giggling and disturbing people so he says I interrupted my sermon and announced Stern there are two of you here who have not heard a word I've said that quieted them down and when the service was over I

went to greet people at the front door and three adults apologized for not listening and for going to sleep in church and promised it would never happen again so uh tonight's talk is uh titled the sacred art of listening and I'd like to begin by asking you in terms of inquiry how many of you feel that you have a intention to become better listeners it's just one of those ongoing intentions can I just see for those of you that are listening to a podcast that was almost everyone um how many of you feel like you

have quite a ways to go you know that's okay it's not easy and we have strong strong habits of being distracted or preoccupied or when other people are talking planning what we're going to say or judging and um it's just like any training in presence that listening is this sacred art that comes alive when we're deliberate and we're really practicing so we need to put in the 10,000 hours you know that we have it's 10,000 hours to have some Mastery and anything it takes a commitment to bring this practice of ours of mindfulness into relationships

and really listen and without practice we don't without having some formal way of practicing we don't seem to do it we have a lot of patterning we stay in so I found that what often will motivate people is when one or more relationships start obviously deteriorating when they run into trouble and uh you know with a te with your teen or with a partner or whatever there's a misunderstanding or conf conflict and it just keeps spiraling and clearly it's happening because one or Nei neither party is able to really listen in a way to understand

what's going on listening and feeling heard are really the grounds of any mature relationship love relationship listening being able to listen and also feeling that we are heard so what happens is then we look at our culture and say well what's the what what's the water we're swimming in and uh attentional deficit all over the place some of you might have heard this this is according to the Center for biotechnology information the average attention span of a human being has dropped from 12 seconds that was in in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013 from 12

to 8 this is 1 second less than the attention span of a goldfish that amazing you know we're going in the wrong direction here so here we are uh you know losing our attention span and um Nicholas Carr wrote a book called the shallows and if anyone is interested in this kind of thing I love I thought it was a really great book and um he talks about how the effect of technology on our brain and how increasing cyber world being plugged into the internet has actually activate and improve parts of our brain the parts

that can take in a huge amount of information and very quickly process it and distribute it you know huge amount of information but what's been deactivated is the parts of our brain that can concentrate immerse and really absorb information in a deep way where we bring our own understandings and weave it to have it become new learnings shallows wide shallow so the more plugged in we are to the internet in front of the screen the less capacity to concentrate to immerse and to listen to really listen take in information a math teacher saw that little

Johnny wasn't paying attention in class she called on him and said Johnny 4 228 and 44 Little Johnny quickly replied NBC CBS HBO and the Cartoon [Laughter] Network you get the idea right blogger Corey Dro observed that the typical electronic screen is an ecosystem of interrupting Technologies I think that's an interesting concept that when we're online it's encouraging us to peek into email and then glance at Twitter and then waste the day on eBay and it's just this divided attention that so many of us are aware of that um this is another statistic the average

office worker checks their email 30 times every hour typical mobile users check their phones more than 150 times per day these are real statistics that's a fragmented attention okay that does not serve deep listening scary so um you know when we're not we're not listening to others and we certainly can't listen inwardly when our mind is just zap zipping around like that I mean let's confess a little how many when you're on the phone multitask and not only you know when you're walking around not only do you go and pee but you clean the dishes

and shop online how many of you I I mean yeah I mean how deeply can we pay attention so as we know the the the way the distracted distractions go is that when we don't have outer distractions then our mind distracts us inwardly we get preoccupied and tugged around uh you know because our mind does not want to just sit and open and be present with the moment so there's a in instead of tweeting there's this inner inner twittering going on right I mean constantly so what I'd like to do in the time we have

tonight is explore really uh what is between me and listening with an awake heart and mind and and how do we cultivate I mean if we care about it how do we cultivate this really sacred art of listening because it is sacred it's what creates intimacy okay as as you're listening you might have in mind a person or a couple of people that you in particular would like to be practicing with because anything we take is Broad and theoretical if we say okay I'm going to go out to the world and listen to everybody won't

happen but if you have two people in mind you might start practicing so we first start looking at well what really does it mean in the the moment to really be listening in the moment what's deep listening all about I was inspired by a story a friend told me he was teaching in a monu School uh teaching meditation to monu children 7 to 11 years old and what he did was he took a Gong and he he he said okay I'm going to play this and what I'd like you to do is just listen and

follow the sound just walk watch where it goes with interest and he said if you follow and watch you might get closer to God so he does it and then one child goes home and tells his mother about his experience who then relays the conversation to my friend this is what the child said well when I watched and listened to where sound went I didn't get closer to God I was God what happens when we become fully present we just become that awareness let's just explore I brought my favorite Tibetan bells for the occasion you

might close your eyes for a moment just follow the sound watch where it goes Within interest if you follow and you watch you might discover more deeply what you really are just keeping your eyes closed for a few more moments listening just listening to the changing sounds around you listening is really a template for awareness itself the qualities of receptive space when we're listening there's nothing to do it's like this Open wakeful Sky not judging and listening also has a quality of active engagement that there's a a connecting or understanding or appreciating what's actually arising

so listening to sounds can teach you the deepest Dharma or under understanding about listening to others you know meditation been likened to listening to music experience keeps changing the goals not to get to the end not to add anything not to change anything simply to be there just to be there so listening what happens when you're really listening is there any sense of yourself there what is listening when we really explore it's more like open space it's just awake opening your eyes when you'd like so with deep l listening there's a quality of presence where

there isn't a lot of selfing a lot of activity of interpreting judging reading into preparing there's just openness and receptivity there's no controlling of anything but as you know uh it's rare that we are listening in that kind of an openness there's a lot of static usually because we're somewhat in a trance where we're projecting you know what we think is being said and where we think it's going to go and we're being influenced by our wants and our fears about the conversation so i' like to do is just let's let's move in a little

closer to what goes on when we are in conversation but our listening is somewhat blocked and if you break it down to wants and fears when we're in communication and we're not conscious of it there's a whole uh layer of wanting that creates static and you might think of even you know just scan a recent for recent conversation with somebody you might have something in mind you just spent five 10 minutes with somebody and just notice were their wants there did you want that person to experience you in a certain way that's one of the

basic wants we have usually when we're talking did you want that person's approval did you want the conversation to go in a particular direction did you want to prove something did you want to fix the person or accomplish something do you see what I mean there's there's all these layers of wants we that are usually there and the truth is and it's just like any other spiritual practice that if there's a goal if we're striving for something to happen to make an impression to have something go our way to persuade whatever that striving interferes with

presence with really recognizing and hearing what's truly there some of you might remember the story of a student entering a monastery and he's really eager to experience Enlightenment and he asks the Abbot you know how long will it take me you know to experience like total Satori and uh the the abot says 10 years and then the guy says well what if I work really really hard and the the Abbot says 20 years hey wait a minute you just said 10 years for you 30 years but you get the idea that if we're in a

conversation and we're trying to make something happen uh that gets between us and listening with a awake heart and it's the same thing as when there's a version version is the flip side of wanting what happens when you're with somebody and you're talking and there's a version because they're making you feel insecure about yourself they make you feel like you're being judged or criticized I mean how many have had that experience of your partner saying to you these a magic for words we need to talk what happens you get tight are you really going to

listen it's hard to listen when we feel hurt or offended when we feel pushed away by what another's saying we we we shut down it's hard to listen when we feel insecure about having the white response we want to sound intelligent or like we know what's going on then it then we get tight it's hard to listen when the other person's not connected with themselves and they're speaking when they're not speaking from realness or we get distracted Homer Simpson great line he says Marge it takes two to lie one to lie and one to listen

Okay so aversion arises and what happens as soon as we're in a conversation and we feel in some way unpleasantness going on we try to control our experience and get away from it either by being aggressive or being defensive we might drift off internally I love the way uh postmaster Edgar uh day put it he said that when he had a long- winded person on the phone with him he would hang up while he was speaking because who would hang up on themselves you know it's great strategy there's a saying that the process of of

dying starts at Birth and accelerates at dinner parties so no wonder goldfish have more sustained attention you know we get pulled all around by this complex mix of what we're wanting to happen and what we're not wanting to happen so and just to say that sometimes the wanting and the aversion doesn't have anything to do with the other person sometimes we're in a conversation and we're not listening because we really want to go and get something else done or get some food or be talking to somebody different or we're in a conversation and it's our

aversion is not to do with that person what's going on in that moment is that uh we feel like we don't have enough time how many of you have experienced that you just can't quite listen because I don't have enough time I feel that so often so I thought I'd share with you a story that uh really impacted me on this front I've I've mentioned here a number of times a book I love called tattoos on the heart this is Gregory Bole so Gregory Bole is a Jesuit priest who works with gangs in Los Angeles

the most the most violent parts of Los Angeles and uh he create work programs for them and a whole lot a sense of community very huge amount of healing he's been responsible for so he describes one morning that he's completed mass and the next thing he has is a a baptism to do so he's got a little time between the two so he goes into his office he's got like about 10 minutes and a few minutes in a woman walks into the the room and her name's Carmen and she's a heroin addict gang member occasional

prostitute he says she's often seen defiantly storming down the street usually shouting at someone so she seats herself and and jumps right in and he's got seven minutes and so this is what he describes I need help she launches right in br rash and something of a no- sister oh she says I've been to like 50 rehabs I'm known all over Nationwide she smiles her eyes wander around my office and she studies all the photographs hanging there she multitasks and her inspection of the place doesn't derail her stream of Consciousness rambling the family will arrive

for the baptism in a few minutes I went to Catholic Church all my life she says fact I graduated from high school even fact right after graduation is when I started to use heroin Carmen enters some kind of Trance at this point and her PE speech Slows To deliberate and halting and I have been trying to stop since the moment I began then I watch as Carmen Tils her head back until it meets the wall she stares at the ceiling and in an instant her eyes become these two ponds what are rising to meet their

edges swollen Banks spelling over then for the first time really she looks at me and straightens I am a disgrace suddenly her shame meets mine for when Carmen walked through the door I had mistaken her for an interruption so you understand that when we have that that Mantra of I don't have enough time what happens to anything that comes up it becomes an object out there that's in our way what happens to listening we're not there for it I want to name one more most basic level of Fe that interferes with listening and I alluded

to it and that's the fear of not being here that rather than listen because listening re's really letting go of our self agenda really kind of emptying out um we're preparing to reassert that I'm here it's like that that desire we keep having to say I'm here I exist we keep having to put our existence out there and listening is the opposite it's almost like saying okay let it go make space for whatever is coming through so we're preparing we're uncomfortable and we don't know who we are when we're not planning our response there's a

strong tendency to want to assert a self who knows somebody this is this is the fundamental self sense holding on to itself this is why listening is so profound that when we read really begin this practice it goes right to the heart of a li of a path of Liberation it's no different than when we're just sitting and practicing and listening to what's going on inside us it requires putting down our evaluations of what we're experiencing our judgments our interpretations which means we're putting down our self sense and just letting life be as it is

liberating and challenging so the key to this uh very sacred art of listening is to not control or direct what's going on not to pursue our wants not to avoid our fears to recognize what's going on inside us but to stay and we're not trying to control another person here's my pretty much my favorite description this is Mark nepo to listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear to listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear take a moment if

you will just to pause and close your eyes and perhaps bring to mind one person that you'd like to deepen your capacity for listening with you might bring to mind a recent occasion of conversing and without judging yourself just to notice if you were asking the question well what's between me and listening with an awake heart what might have been stopping you was there an agenda where you wanted something maybe approval or cooperation or their understanding was there aversion in some way some fear of judgment a feeling of not enough time how did you control

the experience if you weren't just simply listening did you get distracted Ed into your own thoughts you try to steer the conversation plan a response imagine for a moment if you are redoing what would your intention be how would you sense your own intention around listening just using your own [Music] words what do you wish to listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear here the willingness to discover to understand more deeply yeah so when you're ready feel free to open your eyes so the gift of this

path of really deliberately deepening our capacity for listening is that we spend more moments we're resting in our true nature in a full awareness that's that's not centralized around self that's open sensitive engaged and for the other it creates an atmosphere of love and listening offering our presence is the deepest expression of love it's such an invitation for another person it makes it safe for the other person to unfold and to Blossom and when somebody listens to us without judgment with that openness and that sensitivity we unfold in that presence one of my favorite descriptions

of the power of listening is to imagine that our Essence this creative spirit that all of us have is like a fountain and that um it's the source of the fountain it's for all of us that same pure awareness intelligence love it's all the same for all of us but when we haven't been listened to that Creative Source that Fountain kind of dries it shrivels it's like when it's listened to it thrives it it really flows so but but when we haven't been listened to and when we don't listen to oursel it kind of dries

up and get gets clogged and then what we express is kind of murky or vague or confused sometimes you'll talk to people or you'll find yourself speaking in a way where you're really Speedy or nervous and there's no silences and there's no real connection with what's there and that's because you haven't had that much of that atmosphere of real listening presence given to you or given to you or you haven't given it to yourself so happens for a lot of us and sometimes all that'll come out when there's that clogged upness when we haven't really

been listened to or when we don't listen to ourselves all that'll come up out is more superficial talk kind of nervous prepackaged stuff I think we all know about that we know when we're in that state when we're stressed and not in touch with ourselves when we can sense it for others those are the times when instead of being connected there's kind of hijacked by the part of us that's wanting to prove or protect or defend and so we're living from externals really what's expected what we should be saying not communing from the depths so

listening when we offer that to each other is it invites that that creative Fountain to begin to flow again it offers a space for inner truth to to unfold itself and really shine through but just to say it takes patience both offering listening Inward and to others because sometimes initially there's kind of Muddy Waters and and we need to kind of include that and give space for that so something pure and clear come forth does that make sense that it would take time so I want to give you share a story uh that really moved

me about one woman's uh efforts in this Direction in offering that kind of atmosphere of loving and listening and uh this is a story you can find in true Refuge I I wrote it up there and uh in this particular situation this there's a this woman was had gone to workshop and done some training and deep listening and she decided she was going to try it with her mother now her mother Audrey was a well-known writer she was very wealthy she was cessful brilliant incredibly narcissistic some of her friends even referred to her as the

center of the known universe so it was like anyway and she treated people as kind of orbiting satellites and so on as an audience to she could Regale with stories and she was a great story teller um but their role was to Let Her Shine and and so her oldest daughter had gone to the West Coast and decid she never want to come home again and this woman was you know not quite as alienated and uh when a professional training was offered in the area where her mother lived she decided she'd stay with at with

her mother stay on a little bit and just practice this deep listening so that was her very intentional project and it was going to be for 10 days which is the longest visit with her mother since she left for college now during the time together uh her name was Kate by the way when she when she started uh she found tremendous am resistance going on in her a lot of judgment her mother made her feel unimportant and she felt like she was going to get suffocated by all her mother taking up so all the air

and that she just was barely existing and it was really uh challenging for her so her first process was to inwardly listen and just acknowledge and be kind towards her own resistances so I often teach forgiven forgiven not to make herself wrong for the reactivity so she did that she just noticed her own judgments and reactions and on some level was with them and that created a little more space uh for her to begin to uh be with her mother and she would coach herself and she would say now what is happening my mother is

talking I'm quiet there's endless time I hear every word and what is beyond the word I hear who she is she use those kind of phrases to keep herself right here there's enough time I'm listening I'm listening to what's behind the words I'm listening to who she is you understand like this really it got easier for her to hear what was behind her mother's word she began to hear desperation as if her mother was insisting over and over again I'm here and I matter her I'm here and I matter which is you know what the

narcissistic you know there's an emptiness a ho so there like I'm here and I'm at her and as she took in the pain of that desperation that's when she got she started really caring started really feeling her own compassion and so somehow for her through her presence she was able to communicate you're here and you matter you're here and you matter and her mother started to relax and and she knew it because there were longer pauses between the stories and the commentary and her mother sat back in her chair more and looked out the window

and seemed more reflective slowed down some several days before she was going to leave her mother began to tell her that she felt alone and unappreciated and this is when Kate responded in a really sincere way a very gentle and honest way and she said Mom it's because you don't listen to people her mother froze but she didn't get defensive because Kate had been so many moments offering this uncritical Symphony sympathy that a trust had been established so um it wasn't attack it was a caring reflection of Truth her mother wanted to know more she

said please tell me I need to know and Kate told her she explained how it been for her sister and for their dad and now for her stepdad when you don't listen people feel like they don't matter like they're not known and it's true you you can't know them if you don't listen you can't be close Audrey looked at her daughter with a sorrow and understanding that pierced Kate's heart and something changed now maybe it was the pain of alienation that broke through her defenses or it was simply her time but she knew something needed

to change somehow or rather this this creative Fountain was getting unclogged and others noticed her after her sister's visit they all got together for the holiday she told Kate for the first time in my life I felt like I was a real person to her that I existed but the change was most poignant with uh her mom's new husband her stepfather they started doing things together again the long dinners and evening walks that had ended shortly after their marriage Kate's mother was no longer speaking to demand the world's attention she was speaking and listening in

order to belong with other other people to share their lives so her Fountain was unclogging and she was becoming more real it's an amazing gift that we can offer even just a little bit even with somebody that we don't know we're not going to spend much time with just offering that space something begins to happen this is tikat Han he says deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person you can call it compassionate listening you listen with only one purpose to help him or her to empty his

heart even if he says things that are full of wrong perceptions full of bitterness you're still capable of continuing to listen with compassion you just listen with compassion and help him to suffer less one hour like that can bring transformation and healing so what are the basics in this training it's really the same as when we meditate how we set Our intention okay when I go back home and I'm with my partner or with my teenage son or with my father or whatever it is um I plan to listen to really see if I can

let go of all the interrupting static and just be there and then it's very helpful to have an anchor to have something to keep coming back to your physical Sensations in your body or um your breath something just to say I'm here I'm here and a commitment to being willing to notice whatever the resistances are so as you're listening you notice you're judging or as you're listening you're noticing unpleasantness and not wanting to be there so part of you just names it and forgives it it's okay you have to be open to recognizing what's going

on inside you or you can't truly be listening to another and then I find the self- coaching is it's a really brilliant approach if there's sometimes a just a few words that you remind yourself of like sometimes I'll just say there's plenty of time even even if I don't believe it really just saying it because some deep part of me knows it's true you know my neurotic egoic self that wants to always get more done doesn't believe it but there's a deeper place that knows that if I can really pause that there's some Timeless presence

there that that's where everything that I cherish is possible and I'm really pausing when the ideas of a future and a past just start dissolving so we train to listen we we coach ourselves we say what is happening right now what's behind those words who's there that I'm really listening to so I began by really describing the the power of listening and also of being heard in bonding and intimacy and healing in our personal relationships it's equally so as a society as a culture that the only way to heal conflict is to listen how will

Waring religions or races or ethnic groups or governments ever come to understanding of Peace if they can't listen to each other if they can't seek to understand the other's values needs and concerns so it's the only way to end the cycles of violence somebody's got to begin to listen it's the only way to peace I want to read you uh just a paragraph This is musim akid Nash who uh has done a lot of work in terms of uh healing racism in American uh spiritual communities and she describes this she says we were sitting quietly

on his living room couch when Dad without Preamble said when I was sworn into the army we all sat in a big room together and everyone was sworn in as a group everyone except me because I was the only Japanese American they made me wait until the end after everyone else had left and then they took me into a little office at the back of the room and swore me in separately he paused and added in a mild even light-hearted tone of voice you know that always kind of pissed me off my father had been

sitting on that story for 50 years or so slowly letting it and other racist injustices he had suffered eat him alive no wonder entire body had been taught with rage as long as I could remember the amazing thing was after entrusting me with his story dad looked like a different person altogether totally relaxed and content the next day he went to sleep before dinner and died quietly before midnight there is tremendous healing when a person has the safety and space to share their story we know this South Africa what a what a an incredible model

with the peace with the Truth and Reconciliation hearings that many who testified to atrocities they had endured under apartheid talked about how by giving their testimony how much healing they experienced one young man who had been blinded when a policeman shot him in the face at at close range he said this he said I feel what has brought my eyesight back is to come here and tell the story I feel what has been making me sick all the time is the fact that I couldn't tell my story so listening creates relationship nothing exists in isolation

yet our pain is when we perceive oursel as separate so listening connects connects it creates intimacy GNA share with you a poem written by Nick Penna waiting in line when you listen you reach into dark corners and pull out your wonders when you listen your ideas come in and out like they were waiting in line your ears don't always listen it can be your brain your fingers your toes you can listen anywhere your mind might not want to go you can listen you can if you can listen you can find answers to questions you didn't

know if you have listened truly listened you don't find yourself alone if you have listened truly listened you don't find yourself alone Nick's in fifth grade yeah so we'll we'll practice just a little bit together and I'll close by saying uh that the sacred art of listening like any meditation takes a committed practice and we each have the potential it's the greatest gift and what it reveals is non-separation our our connection so take a moment again to come into sitting still and let this be a pause for you see what is possible to relax what

part of your bodies might let go a little and begin to listen to the life within and around you the space in the room to what's beyond the space in the room just sense the openness of awareness that's listening you can feel the breath come in and with the out breath just follow the out breath as if you could dissolve outward into the space around you listening in breath just feel your embodiment the aliveness of your body the out breath space sound so that you're listening to and feeling the life that's here and as we

did a bit earlier bringing to mind someone that you'd like to be exploring listening with listening with an awake heart imagine you together whatever the setting is but imagine the room or if it's outside out where you are imagine that person talking again just feel your intention might let the breath help you to really be right here feeling with the INB breath the connection with the Body Sensations maybe use your hands to really feel yourself here soft live hands and with the out breath sensing space and sound and then taking in the sounds and the

realness of the person you're with now right here listening you might say to yourself what is happening happening my friend is talking I am quiet there's endless time I hear the words I hear what's beyond the words I hear who this person is you might sense the possibility of that fountain that creative Spirit coming through just sense when you're listening really listening who are you or what are you can you sense The Emptiness and fullness of presence the openness and sensitivity letting go of any thought of conversations and just closing by simply listening again just

to the sounds right this moment listening to your own heart whatever mood or weather systems here sensing the intimacy when you begin to really listen to the life within and around you no [Music] namaste