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This Monday, Mary will facilitate and you can join us online or in person.
Three Day Challenge
Dear Thay, dear sangha,
Monday night we have the gift and opportunity to recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings together. We will explore more deeply the 4th training on Loving Speech & Compassionate Listening. Of the five trainings, this one gives me the most challenges, day after day, year after year. The current times are as deeply divided and as toxic as any we have witnessed. After last year, I didn’t think it could get worse. I was encouraged after listening to Thich Nhat Hanh/Thay’s short teaching on Loving Speech & Compassion. He shares a three day practice challenge aimed to expand our capacity to begin the healing process through deep listening.
I find I try to shield myself from taking in too much news, too often, as it seems to reinforce all the great divides and suffering in the world. And it spills over into all aspects of my life. I lack the patience to listen deeply to others, even those who are closest to me. I have to stop and remind myself that deep listening requires me to first be ‘mindful of compassion’. I am listening to try to help, to try to relieve the suffering of the person who stands in front of me or who may be on the phone. I have to push aside my other agendas and projects and focus on how I can help. And the help that is needed is not my advice, or pointing out errors, or staging a debate. So much healing starts just by listening to what is on someone’s heart, without interruption. I find it particularly challenging to listen deeply (or at all) when what I hear sounds full of blaming, criticism and misperceptions, not even to mention lies.
Fourth Mindfulness Training: 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.
During dharma sharing, we will have time to share our reflections. I offer a few queries to consider before we meet together:
What has been your experience in helping others to heal through listening deeply to their suffering?
What are your struggles and successes with loving speech and deep listening?
What has helped you to stop and not speak when anger arises?
Looking forward to learning from you as we join in sangha on Monday night!
In compassion & peace,
Mary