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Guided Meditation: Hearing and Listening; Dharmette: Practicing Off the Cushion, On Purpose (5/5): Listening - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 31, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Hearing and Listening

Welcome. Today is the last day in our exploration of "Practicing Off the Cushion, On Purpose," where I have been introducing things that we can do in our daily life that are a support for our meditation life. We could even say they are an extension of our meditation life—things that we can do when we are not formally in a meditation posture that can really be a support for our mindfulness, our concentration, and our practice in general. These are practices we can do without adding extra time or extra duties, but instead, they get folded into our life, whatever way our life shows up.

Today we are going to explore this topic of listening. We could say so much about practice is about listening: listening to others, listening to ourselves, and listening to our inner life.

So, let's take a meditation posture. Find a steady, comfortable posture and let the body register support. That is the contact with the sitting surface. It could be with our back if we are using a backrest or lying down. Feel the contact. It could be with the backside, feeling the chair or cushion that we are sitting on. Getting that place of contact, the back of the legs, the feet.

We are here, and we can feel into areas of the body that sometimes hold tension: the eyes, the jaw, the shoulders. We can feel into those areas of the body in which there is receptivity, or places where our emotions often show up: the throat, the chest, the belly.

Then, resting attention on the sensations of breathing. Feeling the body move as it breathes. We will hang out here for a little bit with the sensations of breathing, letting the attention gather and collect here.

If the mind wanders, as it is about to do, we just very simply, gently begin again with the sensations of breathing.

Now let's open awareness to sounds. Nothing to do. Just letting the ears receive sound. Letting sounds come and go without looking for them. Just hearing happening by itself.

Now let's shift to listening. Choose one sound, any sound, and gently lean attention towards it. Stay with this one sound for a few breaths. Notice how it changes. It fades.

Then let that sound go. And we turn to just hearing, just a passive receptivity to sounds.

And then we will do this again. Choose one sound and intentionally listen to that one sound, noticing its changing nature. Sense this difference between passively hearing and actively listening. It is a subtle shift that we do all the time.

Then coming back to the sensations of breathing. Noticing how hearing and listening—more passive, more active—are just naturally happening. Maybe in the same way that we can control the breath or sometimes let the breath be doing its own thing. And that sometimes with sounds we can actively be listening versus just letting hearing happen. Just notice this shift back and forth between hearing and listening.

What would it be like to listen to the gaps, the silence between the sounds?

Okay. Bringing some movement back into the body. I am not ringing a bell. I guess this is the bell. Maybe wiggling the fingers and toes, the shoulders. Thank you for your practice.

Dharmette: Practicing Off the Cushion, On Purpose (5/5): Listening

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome. I am continuing this series on "Practicing Off the Cushion, On Purpose." Today is the last, the fifth one of this series.

We are going to talk about listening. I would say that listening is one of the unsung gems of the path. Listening is both a practice and a gift. Mark Nepo, a poet and a philosopher, writes:

"To listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear."

I just love this gentle way of pointing to what we mean when we talk about this idea of listening.

I would say that both being heard and hearing others are part of this path of practice. Many of us come to this practice seeking a way through difficulty, and along the way, we meet spiritual friends, community, or teachers where we feel like we are heard. Or maybe with books, we feel like we are seen in some kind of way too. So literally or figuratively, we feel like we are being heard, but in a way that helps us relax and understand our dukkha¹, understand our suffering, and help us find our way forward from within our own experience.

In this way, being heard is a tremendous support for our practice. But if we don't hear others, then we can get stuck in isolation. We think that we are right, and then we can cling to views and ideas, and we miss so much of the good that the Dharma offers—the good of opening up some of our clinging that we don't even know that we are doing. So both to be heard and to hear others is a way to help us loosen up some of these ways in which we are holding on to ideas.

In the guided meditation that I offered earlier, I highlighted this difference between listening and hearing. Hearing is just this passive reception. We don't really have a choice in it. If our hearing apparatus works, then we just passively hear things. Whereas listening is more of this active, deliberate activity—a way of placing the heart and attention intentionally.

We could even say that being sensitive to this difference between hearing and listening is itself a mindfulness practice. It helps us to choose this way that we can be present instead of just drifting. Hearing versus listening. Maybe in the same way that with the breath, it just comes naturally—we don't have to choose to do it—but we can also choose to pay attention to the experience of breathing. In the same way: hearing, listening, seeing, and looking. This could be part of our mindfulness practice, to notice how our attention goes between these different modalities.

Listening deeply to others, we could say being a witness to others, is a tremendous support not only for our practice but for other people. To be present for others helps to develop the capacity to be in skillful relationship. This way allows us to be permeable, allows us to be willing to look and listen as opposed to just quietly waiting for our turn to speak.

In this way, we can really hear what they are saying—not just what we think they are saying—but to listen in a way that we can understand what is underneath the words. What is implicit? What are some of the needs that are being expressed implicitly? What are they trying to point to, even though it might not be so explicit with their words? What are the emotions underneath?

This is part of the way in which we listen deeply: to understand what is not being said with words but maybe is being said with tone or their bodily posture. So, for example, if you are listening to somebody and you are being attentive and not distracted, but maybe your friend pauses, and then you notice within yourself, "Oh, you're wanting to jump in and craft your reply." Can you set down that impulse and stay listening?

With this attentive listening, you might discover more of what the individual has to say, allowing this space for them to maybe express something a little bit deeper than what they had said before. To choose this staying and giving attention as opposed to the distraction about what you want to say—this is a practice. This is a form of discipline. It requires us to set an intention to just stay present and not be busy crafting a reply or deciding what we want to do. Remarkable things happen when we leave space for an answer—or a non-answer—space for it to just arise within us, to emerge on its own.

Here are some things that can support this listening, this witnessing for others.

1. Respect

Just trust their inner wisdom. Trust that they can find their wisdom in its own way. For that time, let go of the need to be heard ourselves in favor of entering the world of another. I am not saying that we need to do this 100% of the time. But if we are going to deeply listen and be present for people we care about, we respect and trust their wisdom, and we are just creating the space, the container, in which their wisdom can arise.

2. Curiosity

Maybe staying in their world helps us stay with the story. This curiosity fades when we are preoccupied with our own sharing. But can we just notice the impulse we have to jump in and wait? Curiosity is this way with our words, with our posture. We can just say, "Oh, I want to understand your world before I add mine or my perspective."

3. Embodiment

Let the body listen, too. Can we have this posture of attentiveness and a way that we are checking in with our own body—our throat, our chest, our belly? There is a way we might notice some quivering, or some tightening, or some softening and opening in these areas of the body that allows us to really hear what is not being said, or for us to understand our own response to what is being said. We can recognize that some of our responses might be coloring what we want to say.

So: respecting, curiosity, embodiment. Three ways which can help us to really show up and to listen to others or what they have to say, including what is not being said with words.

Listening to Ourselves

Then, of course, listening to ourselves is part of listening practice. Noticing our intentions. There is this way we can notice, "What's already in my mind? What is my mood? What are my fears? What are my hopes that I am anticipating?" If we are in a conversation with somebody else, notice: "Am I prioritizing what I want to say or what they are saying?"

Just recognize that our intentions are rarely just 100% pure. And that's okay. But it is tremendously helpful to be listening to ourselves and to notice the usual pulls that we might be having: the wanting to help, the being right, getting our way, to be seen as a capable, kind person, to stay comfortable. These are often some of the motivations that are underneath the way in which we are often showing up. Perfectly natural, but coming to notice them allows us to maybe choose some deeper intentions: not causing harm, being part of a solution, working together, being compassionate.

We let these intentions fuel and support our interaction with others. Because when we have this "how does this affect me?" running the show, then we are more likely to interrupt or give advice. And that is not so much about deep listening. That is more just looking for an opportunity for ourselves to say something.

So there is this way in which listening to ourselves, honoring and respecting what our experience is, and as best you can, choosing a deeper intention—about not causing harm, having compassion, working together with somebody instead of trying to always get our own way. I recognize that not 100% of our conversations are going to be like this. But can we have some of our conversations be like this?

Generosity

Lastly, about listening: Can we think of it as generosity? Can we think of it as dana², a gift in which our attention is being offered to others without a lot of expectation? Because the fewer demands we place on what we get from the exchange, the more benefit there is. The more there is an opportunity for something new to arise, something unexpected, which often comes from a deeper place—something beautiful that can arise when two people are really listening to one another.

Summary of the Series

This week I have been talking about practicing off the cushion on purpose. As a little summary:

1. Curating our attention: Being sensitive to what inputs we receive throughout the day, what we want to put in our "inner gallery," so to speak.
2. Noticing transitions: Being present for the transitions that we are experiencing all throughout the day. Can we be embodied as we go from sitting to standing, for example, standing to sitting, or as we go from one room to the next? Just using these things we are doing throughout the day as little mindfulness bells to help us bring embodiment again.
3. Monotasking: This is as opposed to multitasking. Instead of doing all this task switching—which we do so often and carries a cost that often we are not even understanding or appreciating at the time—can we deliberately, intentionally choose to just do one thing at a time as best we can?
4. Waiting well: Practicing patience instead of this sense of having an idea of what should be happening and getting irritated that what we think should be happening isn't happening. Can we just be present for what is happening?
5. Listening: Being present for others, being present for ourselves in a way that allows some connection, in a way that allows something beautiful to arise.

So many of us feel disconnected. This is part of the reason why the chat here on YouTube and the 7 a.m. sitting is a beautiful thing, right? There is a little bit of connection there happening. But listening: practicing off the cushion on purpose in these five different ways.

Thank you. It has been a delight to be with you this week. Thank you for your practice and joining me on this journey. Thank you with deep bows of appreciation.

Those of you who are interested, I have a mailing list on my website, dianaclarkdharma.org. You can see what I am up to with some of the teachings. About everything I am doing is on there. I am still populating the events page and things, but it was just a delight to be with you all this week. Thank you.