Relationship and Listening

So this morning I want to start with a little story.

There was once a family who went on vacation to a Buddhist country and they were there for a couple of weeks and to give you some context this was before the internet.

And in the family there was a teenaged girl and she noticed that their vacation spot was close to a Buddhist monastery.

So the first week she just kind of noticed that it seemed to be a particularly calm and peaceful place and that kind of struck her as unique.

And the second week she decided to venture in and see what was going on there.

And fortunate for her she met the abbess of the monastery pretty soon after she came in.

And they struck up a friendship and she went back to see the abbess every day.

And the abbess taught her a little bit about meditation in the three weeks that they were there.

And as she was preparing to go back to her home country which was not a Buddhist country and meditation was not as popular as it is now,

She asked the abbess,

When I go back to my country how can I continue this and learn what this meditation is all about?

So the abbess said when you go back to your country ask around for different people who you think are wise people and ask them.

And if they can point you to the person that they think is wise,

Then go to this wise person who really knows how to listen and learn how to listen from that person.

That was the instruction.

That was the alternative to meditation.

Learn how to listen.

So this week we're going to explore relationships.

And our life is dependent on relationship.

You know we're always in relationship.

Even those of us who identify as introverts,

We're in relationship also.

It's as simple as we're in relationship to the people who stock our grocery store shelves,

Bring our mail,

The services that we have in our life.

We're in relationship to other humans.

So learning how to listen,

This is our practice.

And if there's one capacity that we have to listen,

It's our capacity that is central to spiritual life.

It's our human capacity to listen.

When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree on the night of his enlightenment,

It wasn't so much to do with or get making something happen,

Like making something happen,

But rather to listen deeply and inwardly.

Listen with all his senses to the nature of this world that we're born into.

So each time that we come to sit,

We sit as the Buddha did under the Bodhi tree.

We're here and alive with our breath,

With these sights and feelings and sounds and thoughts and feelings.

And we all have this mystery that we're a part of,

That's in front of us.

And we start off,

You know,

Feeling the breath,

And then we're off thinking about a hundred other things.

And we come back and we come back and we come back.

And by taking this short time to be still and to pay attention,

Our life arises.

Physical tensions can arise,

Fear arises,

Pain arises,

Plans and imaginings,

Hopes and memories,

Things that are unfinished and within all of us.

All kinds of layers begin arising as we sit here,

As we listen.

To meditate involves kind of this reclaiming our capacity to sense and to feel.

It's the cultivation of intimacy with our senses to actually listen and be present with that which is alive.

And listening is a true vehicle for intimacy.

And we're starting with developing this listening and intimacy with ourselves.

To learn to listen,

The art of listening,

It takes a kind of humility,

Kind of the humility of not knowing so much.

You know,

To embrace that quality of not knowing.

There's a level of courage because what shows up maybe we've been avoiding.

And it's an act of compassion for the very same reason because what shows up may not be parts of ourselves that we like,

Parts of ourselves we maybe have been pushing away.

To listen is what the Buddha called mindfulness,

Mindfulness,

A fullness of attention to the present moment.

But too often we're listening or perceiving for certain things.

We have our agendas and our concerns and our biases that we bring along and how we perceive the world and what we're listening for.

So for some people,

They might be primed to listen to the truth and to the truth itself.

But we're not listening to the tone of the other person's voice because the tone tells them whether they're safe or not.

And so that's what they're listening for,

To feel safe.

So as we explore relationships and listening,

We start seeing that we're standing at this junction of listening to the external world and the internal world.

And we find the Dharma when we start seeing these two things.

We find the Dharma when we start seeing the external world and the Dharma when we start seeing these two worlds,

The internal listening and the external listening.

So the Dharma is not coming from someone else teaching it.

The Dharma can be found in every place that we go,

Every experience that we have,

Because that's where we can see,

Are we resisting?

What are we bringing with us?

What are we adding to the situation?

The purpose of the Dharma is to have just enough peace in the body and mind so that we can see what takes us away from it.

That's where we see the Dharma.

And that's where we see the Dharma.

That's where we hear the Dharma.

And one important hindrance to practice is being stuck in our views,

Being stuck in our opinions.

And part of being a Dharma practitioner is to begin to think Dharmically,

Not just to go along with our thinking,

Being dragged around by our thoughts,

Acting impulsively in them,

But to have a little different view,

Perhaps a new way of thinking,

A new way of addressing and looking at your life.

And that's a good way to begin to think.

And one of those ways is to look at your life without being stuck in your views and your opinions and your stories of how things are.

And so how do we think in that way?

One way is this simple and old slogan that comes from the Buddha the Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi,

Who summarized Buddhism in three words.

So it's very convenient.

You can kind of put it in your pocket and take it with you.

It's very portable.

And those three words are not always so.

Not always so.

So other perspectives we can bring to our lives.

Not always so.

So this is one of the ways to think Dharmically.

What other ways can we see the situation in front of us?

Maybe it's not just the one way that we perceive,

The one perspective.

What else is going on here?

So Buddhism says that one of the primary hindrances to freedom is having these fixed views,

Fixed opinions and stories.

And one of the ways to overcome it is to practice a form of thinking that maybe you haven't used before.

Like a Dharmic way of thinking,

A liberated way of thinking.

And then you can use this to open yourself up to a conversation,

A listening practice.

Can you use this to open yourself up?

And see if even asking it,

Not always so,

You can open yourself up to a conversation.

So this is one of the ways to think Dharmically.

And then the other way is to practice a form of thinking that maybe you haven't used before.

Like a Dharmic way of thinking.

And then you can use this to open yourself up to a conversation,

A listening practice.

So this is one of the ways to open yourself up to a conversation.

And then the other way is to practice a form of thinking that maybe you haven't used before.

So this is one of the ways to open yourself up to a conversation.

And then the other way is to practice a form of thinking that maybe you haven't used before.

So this is one of the ways to open yourself up to a conversation.

And then the other way is to practice a form of thinking that maybe you haven't used before.

So this is one of the ways to open yourself up to a conversation.

So he goes back and he spends another week listening and listening with the intent to listen for what's behind the words.

And he came back to the therapist and he said,

Well that made all the difference.

It made all the difference.

Now there's peace in our home.

Because he realized what was behind the words,

His spot,

Like behind the anger,

Behind the anger that he was receiving.

For him,

He felt attacked.

And he kind of assumed an attack back position that we have to fight.

And it was a form of protecting himself.

But he said,

I was listening for what was behind the words.

And I realized that my spouse was afraid.

And when I realized that fear was there,

And I asked if we could talk about it,

That changed everything.

There was no more fights.

And we had a whole different conversation.

So as we learn to listen deeply to ourselves that way,

We can open ourselves up to others.

And we learn to listen deeply to others in that way.

What's behind the words?

So now I'm going to turn this to you.

Do you have any fixed views that you want to present the group?

And we can explore it together and think about it dharmically in the frame of not always so.

Or if this brings up any other questions,

Now is your time to bring it forward.

So thank you for your attention.