This week Andy will facilitate. We will read the Five Mindfulness Trainings from Thich Nhat Hanh, and we will review the 4th training.
This training focuses on Loving Speech and Deep Listening.
When we think about this training and the words “Speech” and “Listening” I imagine that what is conjured in your mind is sitting/standing and talking directly to another person. And yet this type of 1-2-1 in person communication is increasingly rare. Although the pandemic has made this situation worse it was already trending in this direction.
Never in the history of humankind have we had so many means of communication — email, SMS, iMessage, Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Slack…. the list goes on and on and that’s not even including the old-fashioned phone. Each morning I have a ritual to check these various channels and at several points each day. At other times there are pings and dings there to distract me from what I am trying to focus on.
And yet at the same time there is so little communication between the members of the same family, between individuals in society, and between nations. I know in my own house the easiest way to get my kids attention is to message them, even when I am sitting in another room – “don’t forget to clean your room”, “don’t forget to not leave the car with no gas”, etc.
I also know that on a frequent basis I will be having a perfectly nice day and then something will either land in my email inbox or a Whatsapp message pings, which will within 2-seconds of reading it have completely changed my mood and have me: frustrated / angry / upset / anxious / concerned or take your pick of other strong emotions. There goes my equanimity…
At other times I will be taking a few mins out of my day to read an article a friend shared on social media and wham -- I am totally enraged and my mood has totally shifted. Just this last week someone I am “friends with” on social media (as well as in the “real world”) I decided to silence (halt his posts) for the next 30-days using the feature on Facebook. What he was sharing daily, no doubt to get a rise out of people like me, was driving me NUTS. Yet, when we see each other despite our very different political views we really enjoy each other’s company and talk about the things we do have in common – such as his love of British comedy, our shared taste in books, movies and cooking and he is so funny.
Over the next few months there is going to be a lot of “speech” and we will no doubt have to hear / listen to things which upset us and which we view in strongly positive or negative ways. Practicing deep listening at such times is challenging and I know my tendency when I do not like what I hear is to put my fingers in my ears and say “la la la la la la” loudly or to throw a tantrum and “turn them off for 30-days” or simply just walk away.
I think we would all agree that more deep listening would help us all and yet how well do we practice this when we do not like what we hear? Do we use our own mental “la la la’s” even if we do not say them aloud?
Tonight I would be interested to learn from the sangha ways in which we can all practice this important training in our lives to benefit our own well being and those of our families and communities in which we live.
I look forward to seeing you on zoom.
Andy