Webster’s dictionary defines ‘listen’ as “to pay attention to sound” and “to hear with thoughtful attention.” Yet effective listening means paying attention to more than just sound, and therefore requires that we use more than just our ears. As we are increasingly able to bring mindfulness to ordinary human interaction, we find that listening means attending to our physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions, as well as to the voice, facial expressions, gestures, pauses, underlying meanings, and rich nuances that accompany the spoken words of others. This type of listening is what Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh calls “deep listening.” It is what physician Rachel Naomi Remen calls “generous listening,” what Buddhist teacher and Hospice trainer Joan Halifax calls “listening from the heart,” and what the Quakers call “Devout Listening.” Like any other mindfulness practice, Right Listening is both a skill and a way of being. In her book The Zen of Listening, Rebecca Sharif writes, “Listening is one of our greatest personal natural resources, yet it is by far one of our most undeveloped abilities.”
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 03:49:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015