This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Med: Embodied Deep Listening; Dharma Talk: Listening non-judgmentally internally & externally

Greetings, sangha^[1]. Wonderful to be with you in this moment in time. Warm greetings—rather hot greetings—from California. I'm in Mountain View, California, and it's supposed to be 103 degrees Fahrenheit today. For those in Europe, that's almost 40 degrees centigrade. So there might be rolling blackouts. I hope there won't be a rolling blackout or power outage while we are practicing together, but just in case that happens and this YouTube stream disappears, I just wanted to say that's probably the reason. I hope it doesn't happen, but if it does, it is what it is.

These are the conditions that we are practicing with: a health pandemic, social justice issues, political issues, economic injustice. Just so many issues in this broken, beautiful—beautiful and broken—world of ours that we sit and practice in. So it is wonderful to practice with you.

For today's practice, the theme I wanted to invite us to practice with, both in the guided meditation that I will lead and in the short dharma^[2] talk afterwards, is the practice of deep listening. Deep listening is really a wonderful practice for internal deep listening. Internal listening to this body, this heart, this mind, with spaciousness, without judgment, with interest, with curiosity, with kindness, with compassion. To both do that internally, but also to practice listening—deep listening externally—to others. To people in our lives, to our loved ones, to people whom we don't agree with. The issues of social justice, restorative justice—deep listening is applicable in all of these cases. It's a very intense and deep practice to take on, both for our own sake and for the sake of the world.

Whether you practice internally or externally, we'll start with the internal practice as a ground, as the support. The internal practice is the support for the external practice. Unless we can actually listen to ourselves deeply, without judgment, with openness and curiosity, it's harder to do that for others if we haven't done that for ourselves. So as a service to the world, we're going to start in this practice that will guide us through this morning: deep listening, internally.

Guided Meditation: Embodied Deep Listening

With that introduction, I'd like to invite all of us to get into our meditation posture. Whatever might be appropriate for you in this moment. If you need to shift and move to sit up more straight, or if you need to lie down. Whatever it is that this body needs in this moment.

Landing. Arriving. Arriving in this body, arriving in this moment. And turning your awareness, turning your gaze inwards. Allowing yourself to feel safe where you are sitting, where you're lying. Having a sense of safety and protection so that you can let your body relax and soften. Allowing yourself to feel as safe as possible, as safe as is available, as you turn the gaze inwards. Softening, relaxing each and every part of the body deeply.

[Music]

Listening. Listening deeply. Listening to your feet. Using listening metaphorically, of course. It's a way of becoming aware in a receptive way.

In fact, let's start with landing with sounds so we get more rooted in the act of listening receptively. As you land in the body, firmly rooted with your feet and the ground, the underside of your legs if you're sitting on the floor, allowing yourself to open up to sounds with a stance of receptivity. Not penetrative, not going out to try to really dissect the sounds, but relaxing, receiving the sounds. There could be the sound of the fan where you are, maybe sounds outside, maybe the hum of the refrigerator or some other sounds, or the sound of my voice. Allowing the act of listening, receiving sounds, to feel relaxing, softening, expansive. As if you were listening to your favorite music in a symphony hall, or whatever venue is your preferred venue. Listening to your beloved music. These sounds.

Listening to the sound of your breath. Receiving. Deeply listening to the sound of your breath and to the sensations of the breath now. Again: expansive, non-judgmental, interested, soft, relaxed body. Whether the breath is short or long, deep or shallow, it doesn't matter.

Now, as the breath is received, imagine that your abdomen is an organ of perception. An organ of hearing, organ of seeing, organ of feeling. And your abdomen is deeply listening—using listening metaphorically here—deeply receiving sensations of the breath. Not in your head, but your abdomen itself is an organ of perception. And if this invitation seems confusing, don't push it. Just drop it in and see what unfolds on its own. Allow it to unfold without trying too hard.

Now I'd like to invite you to allow your abdomen and your chest, your whole trunk, as well as your lower back and upper back, to receive. To listen to the breath just as it's flowing. It doesn't have to be any deeper or shallower, just natural breath. Relaxed, soft. Not breathing any harder or more forcefully, just shifting your awareness, your stance, to a receptive one in your body. Your body being an organ of perception. Receiving, listening.

Now I'd like to invite your neck, shoulders, your arms, your face—soft and relaxed. Your entire upper body to be receiving, listening to the breath with your whole upper body. And now with your sit bones. The area that connects to the cushion, to the chair. Listening with your bottom, with your legs, with your feet. Receiving the breath, receiving sensation. Now the whole body. The bottom added to the top. The entire body relaxed, soft, open. An organ of perception. The breath received in your toes, in your fingertips, in your forehead, in your ears, listened to by your neck and shoulders, your lower back. Relaxed, soft.

The breath like the ocean breeze. Just as if you were lying in the sand, and the ocean breeze gently blowing over your whole body, and perhaps through your whole body, the breath. The same sense of ease, relaxation, openness. Receiving. Deeply receiving.

And if other sensations arise in the body, receiving them with the same openness, same curiosity, same interest, without any judgment. And if emotions arise, if thoughts arise, this receptive, deep listening stance—not in this case entangled in the content, but so much more spaciously—allowing them to arise, present themselves, and be held. Held without getting entangled, trying to judge them, respond to them, solve them, or fix them. Non-reactive listening. Non-reactive receiving to whatever is arising in this moment.

And if nothing is arising, receiving the breath in the body with the whole body. The whole body an organ of listening, an organ of perception. The whole body receiving, listening internally.

As the body is now an organ of perception, listening deeply internally, it can open up also to include sounds. With the whole body now listening, receiving sounds and the soundscape all around you, above and beyond the boundary of your body.

Can there be non-reactive deep listening internally to your own heart? Compassionately listening to whatever is arising. Holding with care. Not trying to make it go away, judge it, fix it, compare it. Just non-reactive deep listening spaciously to whatever there is. There might be sadness, grief. There might be joy, gratitude. There could be a mix of many different voices. Just listening.

And for the last moments of this practice period, holding yourself with care, with appreciation for having sat, having tried without attachment to outcome. And may our practice in non-reactive, embodied deep listening be of service. May it support both our awakening in this world, living with more compassion, more wisdom, more ease, and be of service to others. An act of service, a gift to others, in our non-reactive, open-hearted, embodied listening.

[Music]

Dharma Talk: Listening Non-judgmentally Internally & Externally

Thank you all for your practice. I'd like to say a few words about this practice of deep listening: non-reactive, embodied, spacious listening.

As we explored together in the guided meditation, it's a practice of both listening internally as well as listening externally. Listening internally to the body, to the breath, to sensations, to thoughts, to emotions. This sense of non-judgmental listening. Again, I'm using listening here internally as a metaphor, because the actual listening that we do in the world can be receptive listening, non-reactive. When I start talking about listening externally to other people in our lives, you'll see how this metaphor of listening internally and externally can make more sense.

But internally, listening deeply—for example, as I was guiding all of us in this meditation, there's a sense of listening with my whole body in an embodied way. Listening to my breath, receiving my breath. There is a fuller sense of embodied full-body listening, full-body awareness, full-body perception. A lot of times with guided meditations especially, there are skillful means to use the know-how that we already have in our hearts, in our bodies, and our minds. We know these things; we know how to do them. By evoking through metaphor and the use of language, we actually tap into things that we know how to do. We know they're there already, but we invite them to come forth. It's an invitation to tune the mind to a sense of open listening.

For example, when we go to a music performance that we love, we're just immersed. We're not judging, we're just openly, completely receiving this receptive sense of the music and the sounds. We take that same sense of receptivity, with whole body engagement, and turn that inward, turn that awareness. Knowing, observing in an embodied way. The keys here are to be non-judgmental, to be embodied, and to have a sense of openness, spaciousness, and interest.

This nuance of interest is sometimes put in Zen as a "grandmotherly mind." The grandmotherly mind is an archetype. If in your experience your grandmother was aloof and did not have this way, I invite you to please imagine the archetype, because we all have amazing powers of imagination. Do not let that block you. Allow yourself to tap into this power of the archetype of the grandmotherly mind, which is interested and caring, compassionate and curious. Tell me everything. Tell me, my child, tell me. Curious, interested, non-judgmental.

That sense of listening, that sense of perceiving internally, means that when thoughts arise, they are held in a compassionate, non-judgmental sense. Like, ah. And then they can arrive and pass, or be, but we don't get entangled in them. It is the sense of the grandmotherly mind, with the sense of interest, which has compassion in it.

The embodiment also in this case, as I kept emphasizing during the guided meditation, is really important—to listen with your whole body. In fact, one practice that I love teaching a lot is embodied listening to others. As you are practicing right now, as you're sitting and listening to my words, see if you can continue to be embodied. See if you can feel your feet on the ground, your bottom on the cushion, your belly and abdomen receiving the breath. Maybe feel your hands if they're available. Maybe listen with your whole body if that's available to you. If just the hands and feet are available, great, feel them as you're listening. If you can feel your abdomen also as you're listening, even better. Or perhaps you can feel your entire body as an organ of listening. You might not quite know what that means, but drop that in as an invitation to listen. To listen with your whole body. A sense of interest, openness, curiosity, and non-judgment.

So the first part of this practice is practicing this non-judgmental embodied listening, turning it inward, listening to our body and breath as the anchor. Or to emotions even when they arise, as well as thoughts. There is a sense of non-entanglement, but curiosity and interest. In this metaphor of the grandmotherly mind, the grandmother is listening and realizes that the child is like, Oh, this is terrible! I didn't get the toy I wanted! I'm exaggerating, but grandmother knows that whatever entanglement the child is having, grandmother's holding it in a bigger, spacious care. She cares for the pain and the hurt of the child, but realizes that whatever is happening right now arises and passes. There's impermanence^[3], and the grandmother has a larger perspective.

So evoke that sense with whatever thoughts and emotions arise, holding them with care. Holding them with love, with affection, with compassion, and with a bigger perspective of arising and passing. Yes, the pain is real, it needs to be cared for and held, but not to be entangled in. Of course, being entangled can happen; don't judge yourself if that happens. This is a training. This is a practice that we are cultivating—the practice of embodied, compassionate, non-judgmental deep listening. It may not be sustained for every second of the practice; it might come and go. If it's gone, don't judge yourself that it's gone. Entanglement can arise, but it's the practice that we're aspiring to. We are practicing so that it becomes more readily available for us to turn into—listening to ourselves compassionately, non-judgmentally, deeply, in an embodied way. Not just listening with our ears and our head, but an embodied way. That's one thing that I really want to emphasize. Embodied, non-reactive, interested, and compassionate.

This idea of embodied deep listening is also in other traditions. We don't have hegemony over the capacities of the human mind and heart. There is a wonderful quote that I love from Mother Teresa. She was once asked by an interviewer what she said to God when she prayed. Her answer was, "I don't say much. Mostly I just listen." And the interviewer asked, "And what does God say to you?" And Mother Teresa replies, "He doesn't say much. Mostly he just listens. And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it to you."

I love this quote. There's this sense of just listening. Deeply listening to ourselves, deeply listening to others. This act of deep listening, holding presence.

We can turn this also external to our loved ones, to our friends. So many times I've seen people having conversations, but it seems like they are just waiting to interject their own opinion after the other person's opinion. Or in fact, not even waiting, but just interrupting and interjecting opinions. But what if we actually listened? Just held space and listened with this embodied presence, without judgment, and just listen really deeply to what's underneath it. The same way that it would be listening to ourselves, to our own emotions. Like, oh, what's underneath this thought that's arising? Instead of getting entangled in it, let's kind of get a sense of the shape of it, the arc of it. Similarly, with people that we care about and love, to just hold presence, to just listen. As Mother Teresa is saying.

I had an example of this recently. There is a very dear family member to me, and we usually have similar political opinions, but in some ways actually they differ. In the past when we got to the areas where we have different opinions—especially nowadays in the US where it's so heated and emotional for so many people and families—I used to wildly change the topic so that I wouldn't engage in this political discussion that could potentially be causing friction between myself and this beloved family member. Then recently when we got to this area, there was a pause. I decided to ask them, "I would really like to know, why do you feel this way?"

There was a sense of me really expressing appreciation for them and respect for them. "Thoughtful as you are, I'm really curious, why are you feeling this way? Why do you think this way?" With this kind of invitation for me to just listen—really, just listen—I actually learned a lot about why it was that they were feeling the way they did. It was very enlightening for me. They opened up because they had the sense that I was trusting and I was not going to judge or interrupt them, and they told me all the reasons why. They really opened up and talked, and I felt that that conversation actually brought us closer. For me, it really gave an appreciation for why they were thinking or believing the way they were doing. It was an act of non-judgmental, embodied deep listening. Just listening.

Not only is this deep listening a gift to ourselves, and a gift to loved ones and friends, but non-judgmental listening is a gift to those with whom we have a broken relationship. Recently I served as an interviewer in a program at CIIS, the California Institute of Integral Studies, for an author who wrote a book called A Good Apology: Four Steps to Make Things Right^[4]. It's about when a relationship has gone wrong, and you've caused harm, or they've caused harm. The author, Molly Howes, lays out four steps to repairing relationships. It's so interesting, so much of it is dharmic, really. But the first step that she lays out is fascinatingly the hardest step: the step of non-judgmental listening.

Reaching out to the person when you're ready—and this doesn't have to be pushed or pressed. When there is readiness to reach out to the person with whom you've had a broken relationship, inviting them. Of course they can say no, it's their prerogative, and you shouldn't push it just because you're supposed to. But when there is readiness, there is a sense of invitation that "I just want to listen." With the intention of really, really just listening. Not trying to educate, but really deeply listening to the other person. And the idea in this first step of repairing a broken relationship is putting them first. Whatever story you have in your mind, you put that aside. That is the recommendation of the psychologist, you put that story aside and you really deeply listen to their side of the story.

There is a difference between intention and impact. You may not have intended at all, or even been aware of hurting this other person, but the impact has been there. To acknowledge, to really listen. And the chances are that when you really listen with a compassionate, open, non-judgmental stance of interest—this grandmotherly mind—when you hear about how the other person was hurt, your apology will be genuine. Instead of, "Okay, now I've listened to you. Now step two is I have to apologize." Not that, but really deep listening, and putting the narrative that you have aside. After this is all done, the round of apologizing and making amends, then maybe asking them whether they would be interested in listening to you, again as an invitation. But in the process of apologizing and mending a relationship, really the most important part is listening. This grandmotherly mind, this non-judgmental listening with care, putting your own perspective and your interjections aside for a moment.

Aside from interpersonal relationships, this embodied deep listening is also quite relevant and applicable to restorative justice. Restorative justice being a way of making the community whole. It's not about making someone right or wrong, but restoring the whole community, as has been done in South Africa and other countries successfully. It's an act of deep, deep listening.

In our divided world right now, and especially in this country with so many people shouting at each other and not listening, maybe one thing that we can do is to take a step and just listen. Holding our own interjections, our own cherished views and opinions, holding them back and just deeply listening to another person with whom perhaps we don't necessarily agree. Just listening. Deeply listening. If we each took some time to deeply listen to each other—either in close relationships, in broken relationships, or to others whom we disagree with and we don't know at all—learning to listen to ourselves and our own hearts non-judgmentally with care, may the world be a safer, more harmonious place to live.

I'd like to thank you for your wise and kind attention this morning, this evening, whatever the time zone might be where you are. Thank you for your practice. Thank you for your kind and wise attention to this teaching. May we all practice and cultivate deep, non-judgmental, embodied, grandmotherly mind listening to ourselves and others. May all beings be well. May all beings be free. Thank you so very much. May you be well. Take care.