Art by Magda Cabrero
Monday, April 29, we will meet online.
Dear friends,
This week: we will meet Monday from 7-8:30PM EDT online, Wednesday morning from 7-8AM EDT in person at our meditation space (3812 Northampton Street NW), and Friday 12-1PM EDT online.
This Monday night, we will read the Five Mindfulness Trainings and focus our attention on the Fourth Training. Annie and Camille will co-facilitate.
“When people use violent words with us there is a way for us to be able to listen and respond so that the violence can come to an end – the violence can be transformed.” – Sister True Virtue
Annie writes:
The Fourth Mindfulness training suggests that one of the ways we create more suffering is by our “inability to listen to others.”
My husband and I have been married for nearly 37 years. And over those years, our mindful speech and compassionate listening has been improving, albeit slowly. One very helpful practice has been to stop imagining what he must be thinking while he is talking and instead to simply listen to what he is saying.
To do that, I had to learn how to take care of my own inner child who can very easily get triggered by the things that he says or the way that he says them. This is the practice of taking care of our strong emotions.
Brother Phap Linh is a monk living in Plum Village, and also a very excellent cellist and composer. During a talk he gave last week, he said that we might consider listening to other people as if we were listening to music. I think he meant that we can choose to really hear the words, the tones, and the feelings without adding our own interpretation to what we hear.
The Sufi poet, Hafiz wrote this line about deep listening: How Do I Listen to others? As if everyone were my Master Speaking to me His Cherished Last Words. If my grandma, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King Jr., or bell hooks were sharing their last words with me, what kind of energy would I bring to my listening?
Thich Nhat Hanh has also said that when we are caught up in trying to prove or disprove what we are hearing when we listen to a dharma talk, then we will not be able to hear the dharma. We think, “Does this align with what I already know, or can I find an argument against it?” I think it’s the same with listening to our beloveds. Can we turn off our own non-stop thinking and appreciate their message as if it were a favorite song?
Consider this practice when listening to people with different political views about the upcoming U.S. election or the war in Gaza. What can we learn if we pause our own mind and opinions and listen deeply instead?
We might also apply this practice to listening to ourselves. When a thought or feeling arises, we can listen and appreciate the causes and conditions that caused that thought or feeling to arise. We don’t have to push it away or fight against it. And simply by listening, we can transform a lot of our unhelpful ruminations.
On Monday after our meditation period, we can share about our own experiences with listening to others and the difficulties and delights we have experienced in the process.
With love,
Annie.
Camille writes:
The Fourth Mindfulness Training also suggests that words or unmindful speech can also create suffering. At the same time, words can also “inspire confidence, joy, and hope.”
When my siblings and I were little and we were fighting or arguing, my father used to say to us, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” While he meant well and this may have helped in that moment, I wish he would have spent more time helping us learn to speak lovingly and communicate better so that healing might also happen.
In Thay’s book The Art of Communicating, he shares the four elements of right or loving speech so that we can bring more joy and peace to all:
Tell the truth. Don’t lie or turn the truth upside down.
Don’t exaggerate.
Be consistent.
Use peaceful language.
My practice as of late has been to speak with words that express understanding, love, and support so that I can bring more joy and peace to others. Sometimes the easiest place (when things are going well) and sometimes the most difficult place (when things are not in harmony) to do this work is with family. One of our daughters has had a lot of challenges in the past few years. While my husband and I try to support her, we have difficulty in communicating with one another on the best ways to do this. He made a decision on how to support her without sharing that with me. I was pretty angry for not being included and riddled him with many accusatory questions. He was reactive and then his speech was also accusatory and unmindful.
When I took time to concentrate on my anger, I recognized I was really suffering and my husband was as well. We didn’t have anything “nice to say” to one another, but if we didn’t say “anything at all” (as my dad might have suggested), we would have suffered even more. It turns out we hadn’t really spoken the truth about how worried we both were about our daughter’s safety, health, and happiness. Once we were able to speak our truth with more understanding and compassion, we had a more open and loving conversation. We were able to begin to share what our deepest wishes are for her well being. Hopefully more practice in loving speech will lead to more healing for us and will radiate out to our daughter and others as well.
In The Art of Communicating, Thay shares that “[r]ight speech or loving speech is what nourishes us and nourishes those around us.”
In love and light,
Camille
Loving Speech and Deep Listening
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to speaking truthfully using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope. When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I will practice mindful breathing and walking in order to recognize and to look deeply into my anger. I know that the roots of anger can be found in my wrong perceptions and lack of understanding of the suffering in myself and in the other person. I will speak and listen in a way that can help myself and the other person to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to utter words that can cause division or discord. I will practice Right Diligence to nourish my capacity for understanding, love, joy, and inclusiveness, and gradually transform anger, violence, and fear that lie deep in my consciousness.