Listening is a Hard & Radical Thing (in which I talk about my experiences)

[untonuggan]

Confession time: when I'm depressed or upset, I read a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh and Ajahn Chah and other Buddhist teachers. I don't know if "enjoy" is the right word, but I obviously get something out of it because I keep coming back to books like Being Peace and Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? However, I know that topics like Meditation and Buddhism are triggery for some folks, so I'm just going to add a disclaimer here that I may talk about those things here in a positive light, but I'm talking about them for me as a good thing and I'm not saying you have to rush out and join a Buddhist Monastery or something, or even adopt this as a general practice in your everyday life. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. Brains are different things.

Now that's out of the way, here's a quote from one of the piles of books about Buddhism about listening I thought is relevant to yesterday's post about my boundaries (note: not everyone's boundaries) and the listening/advice line:

In everyday life, deep listening, attentive listening, is a meditation. If you know the practice of mindful breathing, if you wish to maintain calm and living compassion within you, then deep listening will be possible.

Through the practice of walking meditation, through mindful breathing, we can cultivate calm, we can cultivate awareness, and we can cultivate compassion -- and that way we will be able to sit there and listen to the other. The other suffers as long as [she] is in need of someone to listen to [her]; and you -- you are [a] person who can do it....

If we love someone we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.

Hanh, Thich Nhat, True Love, Shambhala Publications (2004) 36-37.

 

 

When I read this quote the first time, and several others like it, I got *very uncomfortable*. My desire and urge, upon hearing that someone has a problem - particularly a problem that I Know Something About - is to rush in and Fix Things. Because surely there are things that can be fixed, yes? And fixing things makes things better, which means the person wouldn't have a problem anymore, which means that then Ta Da! I would both be a wonderful problem-solver person and also there would be no more problems that I would have to listen to.

That realization, along with a couple of advice/sympathy comments from friends and having them set rather firm boundaries, helped me reexamine some of my own decisions about whether nor not I was going to offer advice unasked for. (True confessions: I still do sometimes. It just slips out. More often this is face-to-face when I don't have a moment to think before I hit "post" or "send", but sometimes, Dear Dreamwidth, lizcommotion is just not perfect and that is okay too.)

You know what? In our society, it is frelling hard work and radical to just sit and listen to someone who is upset and not try to fix it. To not suggest a yoga class for depression (how many times have I heard this zomg?) or some magazine article in Vogue for a chronic health problem. Or even - and this one is the toughest - to not offer what is actually probably really actually good advice because I might have a degree in something or actual expertise, because someone is not ready to hear it.

It is really hard to sit with someone's suffering. To just offer love and compassion and understanding instead of solutions, whether real or imagined. But you know what? My friends and family are pretty frelling awesome. This is a thing I can do. So I offer it, however imperfectly, with an open heart.

Comments

[ofearthandstars]

What a beautiful post. I think I have been practicing in the last few months how to pause and really listen. I deal with a certain level of in-head distractedness that frequently invades my conversations (and other work), and I found that I was often trying to come up with answers and advice when I should have been... absorbing. Sometimes, it really just is about hearing and listening and letting those words and emotions bubble to the surface.

(FWIW, I have shelves of Buddhist books that I read, not so much because I am a practicing Buddhist and/or that I meditate regularly, but Buddhism has helped me to grope with a lot of the struggles in my life.)

[untonuggan]

Glad you liked the post!

I have trouble with the in-head distraction as well. It's like suddenly, "Wait, did I leave the kettle on???"

(Makes total sense to me.)

[zcat_abroad]

Oh, that's so me! I get distracted by the first thing that passes...

[untonuggan]

Sorry, what?

;)