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Guided Meditation: Deep Listening; Dharmette: Ten Protectors (4 of 10) Easy to Speak To - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 05, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Deep Listening

Hello everyone, and welcome. I don't know if it's not as light here on YouTube. Some of the lights are not working here at IMC today, so it's darker here for me, but there's a broad spotlight, so maybe there's a little bit more light and you can see well enough.

One of the reference words for people who were the direct disciples of the Buddha is that they are the sāvakas¹, and the word sāvaka means the ones who heard, the hearers. Back in the ancient world, there were no books, so there was only hearing. If you did any learning, you had to hear it.

But there's something I think very profound about learning the art of listening. Learning to listen means that we don't assert ourselves in the middle of the hearing. We're attentive. We clear the chatter in the mind, the static in the mind, so that we can hear well. In the ancient world, where you couldn't go back and refer to books or transcripts, if you wanted to remember and consider what was being said, you had to listen well enough to be able to memorize it or to really learn something about it. It was probably second nature in the ancient world to listen with a higher, sharper attentiveness than we do in the modern world because of this need to let it register really deeply so we can remember and have it as a reference.

This metaphor of listening can be used as a metaphor for meditation. The kind of attention we're bringing to ourselves is to listen well. To listen without the static and chatter of the words, the images that come up in the thinking mind that interfere with our ability to perceive, to sense, to feel, to hear, and to see our experience with the inner eye. To see without the interference of bias, judgments, or commentary, but to really be a good listener. To listen first, to find out what's there first. If you're listening to a friend, you really hear them out to hear what's going on. Maybe you do active listening where you ask questions to find out more; you want to really know your friend, know what's going on. The same thing applies when we sit down to meditate: we really want to know our experience, to know what it's like to be here.

Paradoxically, it can interfere with meditation if we're focusing too much on becoming calm, centered, settling our agitation, or trying to attain something. It can interfere with our ability to really listen well, to see, to really attend well, and to sense and feel more fully what is here and what's going on. So, be a listener to oneself. Really take the time to see, sense, and discover what is here. It is a little bit of a paradox that instead of focusing on becoming calm, concentrated, or settled, if we just really get to know carefully, attend carefully, and listen carefully to what's here, that movement is itself settling and calming. If we listen well—if we listen without interference, without expectation, without wanting something from the listening—just to listen, just to perceive, just to be here with what is.

For this meditation, we can use this metaphor of listening as a way of being present for oneself.

Assuming a meditation posture, either lower your gaze or close your eyes. Without doing anything more than that, notice how you are. As if you're sitting down with a friend and taking them in as they are today at this time, ready to listen to them. Sit down and just notice yourself. How are you? What's happening within you? Is there anything you can perceive about yourself?

If you read your posture, is there anything about your posture that reveals your mood, your attitude, or state of mind? Does anything about how you're breathing inform you at all about how you are? The task is just to notice—not to fix, not to judge, but to notice. So that as time goes along, you can be a better listener, a better companion for yourself as you are.

How are you emotionally? How is your thinking mind? If your thoughts were in a foreign language so you couldn't understand what you're thinking, what would you perceive about yourself as a thinker right now? What would you notice about what thinking is like?

Then, in the middle of how you are, center yourself on your breathing. As if the breathing are the words that you listen to when you are listening to a friend. Open, clear, attentive. At the center of all things is breathing. Breathing in, and breathing out.

Perhaps listening through a deep listening. Listening from a deep place, without commentary, judgments, or agendas—just what's here. Listening with a quiet mind, or if the mind is not quiet, listening deeply to what is thinking.

If you were to listen deeply to how you are, is there something about how you are that you normally don't acknowledge? Is there some truth about the situation, about yourself, that you can listen to, acknowledge, and attend to kindly, without any reactivity? An acknowledgment and deep listening. What is this that you might normally overlook or avoid?

As we come to the end of this sitting, maybe reflect on the value of listening well to others. To listen before offering our own opinions, our own stories. To listen not only for what is being said, but to listen to where people's speaking comes from inside of them. What's the emotional source, the motivational source? What's behind the words? To listen with respect. To listen with respect for what is behind the words, even if you might not agree with it or find it pleasant.

To listen well. To listen as a way of bringing kindness, love, and respect. To listen well to bring people a sense of safety, that you're a safe person for them. To listen well so that you can better enjoy and appreciate something good about people.

May our practice of mindfulness support us in bringing non-conflict into this world. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free. Thank you.

Dharmette: Ten Protectors (4 of 10) Easy to Speak To

Good day, everyone. Continuing with the tenfold list the Buddha gave on the ten protectors—and it might be just as useful, maybe more useful, to call these ten supports. Life can be quite challenging, and the challenges can be unexpected. Our inner life can be challenging and unexpected in all the ways it shifts and changes, sometimes seemingly for no reason. So it's good to have supports. It's good to have supports to find our way and not be overwhelmed or excessively challenged. It is good to have supports that keep us balanced, centered, and attentive in a clear and wise way.

So far, it's been having virtuous conduct, behaving in such a way that our behavior doesn't challenge us and doesn't make things more difficult than they need to be. Second is to learn—to learn the Dharma, to learn good skills in life, to be studied and prepared for what we're doing, and to understand the bigger context. And the third is having good spiritual friends [kalyāṇa-mitta]². Surrounding ourselves or having reference to friends that bring out the best in us, who have our best wishes in mind, who want to support us, who care about our well-being, and who do so from a place of freedom—a place of not demanding, expecting, or judging us for who we are.

Today, the fourth support is being easy to speak to. Be someone who it's easy for people to say things to. In Bhikkhu Bodhi's³ translation of this particular sutta, he translates it as "easy to correct." In the Buddha's discussion about this point, he describes it as being easy to receive instructions and respectful of the instructions we receive. Sometimes instruction might be feedback, people telling us difficult things that are hard for us to hear, but maybe we need to hear them. Sometimes people have criticism of us, or have critiques of us. So, to be easy to speak to.

It's an act of generosity towards others if they want to come and speak to us about something, that we're generous to them. We are willing to receive it. We'll take it in and be available for it. Not to be defensive automatically. Not to be offensive because we don't like what we're hearing. Not to immediately meet criticism with criticism, shutting down, or anger. But to have the ability to be open, to hear what's being said in an open, relaxed way. So we can really know what's going on, track what's going on in ourselves, and track others and what they're saying well, in such a way that we're actually safer.

There is a way of protecting ourselves by being angry, and then people just want to go away, shut up, or stop what they're doing. But the relationship is damaged that way, and long-term safety is not attained. Long-term safety comes from really knowing what people are thinking and feeling, and processing and working with it. Getting angry and getting someone to shut up so they never talk about difficult things again, I think, makes the situation much more difficult and challenging because then we don't know what's underneath, what people are thinking, and what's driving them. So we need to have the capacity, the wisdom, and the skill to listen first, and to be easy to speak to.

It can be very challenging to do this. It can threaten our sense of self—that we're capable, that we know everything, and that there's nothing anyone needs to tell us. The fact that someone needs to tell us anything feels like a sign that somehow they think we're wrong or bad, or they're challenging our self-image of being quite capable and knowledgeable, and that we're more the person to be talking than the person to be receiving. The idea that what they're saying is feedback about us can touch some very difficult, sore places inside.

We can interpret it in ways that make it a much bigger deal than what is actually being said. We can interpret it to mean that we're fundamentally flawed and this is the proof of it. We can interpret it to mean that people are being mean and unfairly critical. Of course, sometimes they are. But even if they are, do we have to take it personally? Is there any need to reply?

There's an art to receiving criticism where we don't believe it, we don't accept it, but we also don't fight it. We might listen carefully and then we might say, "I'll think about it, but I don't think I agree with you," or "Well, that's interesting what you're saying, and I'll have to think about it because it doesn't seem quite right to me." That's a gentle way of saying you're not behind it exactly, but you are respectful of what's being said.

And maybe some little piece of it is true. Or what is true is the fact that someone has critiques of you. Maybe what's true is not the words, but what's behind the words. Why are they doing this? Maybe they feel challenged in the relationship. Maybe they're afraid. Maybe something has happened that created a rupture in the relationship, and this is their way of trying to establish a connection.

So with this idea of being easy to speak to, people are comfortable speaking to us. People don't have to be afraid of us when they speak to us. This is a tremendous support and protection, because then if there is something we need to hear about ourselves, some way that we're off, people are comfortable coming and telling us.

In the Buddhist tradition, people like that are considered a treasure. It's a phenomenal gift and tremendously valuable to have people come to us and say, "You know, you said something and that didn't quite work," or "That was challenging," or "I think what you did hurt the other person," or "What you said there has been difficult for me to listen to. I feel hurt, I feel afraid. Can we talk about it?"

I've known people who are so reactive, tense, and immediately attacking toward anybody who says anything to them personally, that no one wants to talk to them. As a teacher, I've known people that way whom I've known for years and years. It was very difficult as a teacher to get through the barrier, the wall that was there.

At some point, when it felt really important to say something to one person, I finally spoke up. I knew it would be difficult, and in fact, the person became very angry and upset for about a minute. But then they quieted down, thought about it, and came back and said, "Oh, now I understand what's happening with me and other people. I didn't understand." That was a turning point in this person's life. Within a few years, the person ended up dying, and I think that conversation we had was such a big turning point that it contributed to their ability to die peacefully. All kinds of people came to sit with them because it was so wonderful and pleasant to be with a person who no longer had that reactivity, defensiveness, and anger.

I think she was quite lucky to have someone finally be able to speak to her and say something. It's unfortunate if we have to wait until a crisis before we're willing to hear feedback from people. There are some people who actually invite feedback and say, "Please, if you see anything I say or do that is not right, please speak up. I welcome it. Maybe just do it at the right time—don't do it when I feel grumpy or under the weather—but I want to hear."

So, be easy to speak to. Be available for the community to say anything. Have the inner resources and inner strength to not take it personally, and to be able to stand up for oneself when necessary. This is not being a pushover for what other people have to say, but it's also not being in conflict with what they're saying. This is a protection because then we don't end up in conflict.

It's a protection because we can learn what we need to learn about ourselves. Even if it's not about ourselves, we're learning something about the relationship we have with the other person, and maybe that is where work needs to be done. If we take it personally and attack back, the relationship stays ruptured. But if we hear it, acknowledge what we've heard, and maybe even repeat back, "Is this accurate, what I've heard?" then it settles people. They know they've been understood. Then you can say, "Well, you know, I don't think that's right, and here's my understanding of it." Or, "I don't think that's right, but before talking about what you're saying, I just want to say that I care about you. We're friends, and I want to find a way to have this conversation to maintain our friendship."

Because sometimes what's going on underneath the person's criticism is something different that needs to be addressed—some challenge in the relationship. To be able to listen and hear what's underneath it is sometimes invaluable, and that supports everyone. It is a protection for oneself and for others.

Being easy to speak to is not a lightweight thing to do. I believe it's a phenomenally significant, powerful thing to do. I like to think of it as one of the fruits of doing mindfulness practice in a deep way: being able to monitor ourselves, know ourselves, and track what's happening as things are happening. This supports us in having the capacity to be willing to hear even difficult things.

If you want to be well protected, if you want to be well supported, be easy to speak to. Become a good listener. Listen both to the people around you and to yourself. Listen not only to the words, but to where the words are coming from. Not only to the words, but to where those words land inside of us. This will make us easy to speak to, and we will find support and protection in being this way.

Thank you. I would encourage you to look for opportunities—even the smallest opportunities, even when people say things that are relatively mild criticism or feedback, or something difficult to hear. Experiment with not closing down, but instead turning towards the person. You don't have to do this physically, but as if you're stepping forward and being available with open arms to hear, "Tell me more." Turn towards the person rather than away.

This expression, "Tell me more," is a powerful and effective way of disarming people when necessary, and a powerful way of learning more fully what we might need to hear.

So thank you, and may we all be good listeners today.