A Life-Changing Insight Into Listening

[Someone here]

@UnbornTao OK whatever.  Not sure why I'm feeling a bit of arrogance Vibes from you ..as if you are the only person in this world who is construct aware 

[UnbornTao]

16 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@UnbornTao OK whatever.  Not sure why I'm feeling a bit of arrogance Vibes from you ..as if you are the only person in this world who is construct aware 

Think what you want, but do the exercise (if you want). 

[UnbornTao]

30 minutes ago, Sincerity said:

Nice post. Thanks. Listening is indeed essential, especially to Oneself.

I was contemplating listening a while ago. I thought how LISTEN can actually be a better pointer towards awakening than LOOK. It’s powerful.

My trips and meditations are essentially extreme listening sessions. Listening to Now, to Nothing, to Me. These pointers arise after listening to ???.

The Krishnamurti quote is good too.

Sounds good. For some reason I get the feeling it might not be quite landing, though. I might elaborate in a new post, as I struggle with this. Thank you. I'm going to take a shower. 

[Sincerity]

2 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Sounds good. For some reason I get the feeling it might not be quite landing, though. I might elaborate in a new post, as I struggle with this. Thank you. I'm going to take a shower. 

It's funny. I just realized I've actually been practicing listening every day in the last 2 months. Exactly 61 days.

I have a practice every day at 8PM. Basically I sit in silence and listen, and anytime a genuine voice "from the soul" arises (I don't know what else to call it) I write it down in a notebook. Then I go back into listening again. And so on and so forth, until I feel there's nothing more to be said.

I call it Trips on the Couch. It came to me during an LSD trip. 

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

By necessity, listening precedes understanding. The first danger is automatically assuming you know what is being said - because you understand the language, it fits your view, and so on. 

The problem with putting your focus on 'understanding' is that it feeds into your assumption that listening is restricted to the conceptual. Since we take words to be symbols, we think this is merely a conceptual endeavor. But there is a deeper kind.

There is no such limitation to understanding.

Listening does not precede understanding. Understanding is an intention. The intention to understand precedes all things if it is put into place. It is not enough to listen, you have to want to understand.

Understanding is not limited to conceptual. Anything you can listen to you can understand.

And, understanding does not need to assume anything. If you understood a thing, then you understood it. Nothing has been missed. If something has been missed then you haven't fully understood it.

Listening is just a means to an end. The end is understanding. You are listening to hopefully understand something.

There are many degrees of understanding.

Understanding goes far beyond listening because whatever you are listening to may not tell you everything you need to understand what's really going on. If all you do is listen, your understanding will be quite limited because rarely is a situation fully articulated and words and people often mislead or don't themselves know what they are trying to say.

Edited February 24 by Leo Gura

[Breakingthewall]

There's nothing to reflect on, no exercises to do; understanding is direct, unfiltered. It's what happens when there are no barriers and your mind grasps without being filtered by any projection or learned formula.

Understanding is, for example, talking to someone and grasping their inner reality and the underlying intention of their discourse. It's seeing the dynamic structures of the processes that occur, without projecting your self onto them. The self, or rather, the need to maintain a self-image, is the great obstacle to understanding, since it filters everything through that need and corrupts true comprehension. It turns you into what they call an idiot, which isn't uncommon.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

I do not think there is such a thing as neutral listening.

We each bring our own context (bias) to any listening activity.

Some of this nuance in skill comes down to unconscious contextual listening vs aware contextual listening. I find when I am aware of my own loaded listening patterns (bias), context (or bias) becomes part of awareness instead of secretly steering interpretation. The average person who listens doesn't ever just receive meaning or understanding, it is co-created.

It probably doesn't help words do not carry inherent meaning in isolation.

[Ramasta9]

Listening and Feeling for me are very similar. 

[CARDOZZO]

20 minutes ago, Ramasta9 said:

Listening and Feeling for me are very similar. 

Discover in your experience where/how feeling becomes listening. 

Why/How is awareness becoming listening? Why/How is feeling becoming listening?

[cetus]

Timely topic. This afternoon I was talking to a friend on the phone about spirituality and he's all about reading the bible. So, whenever I would talk, he would get ahead of what I was saying and not really listen and even talking over me with his preconceived ideas. On the other hand, when he was talking, I would be silent and listen to what he was saying. But here's the funny part. When I would just listen and not say a word, he would have to pause and ask, "Are you still there??" And I'd say, "Yes, I'm still here.  I'm listening to what you're saying". 

What is the rule of thumb for a conversation? 70% listening and 30% talking. That wasn't the case here.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, cetus said:

What is the rule of thumb for a conversation? 70% listening and 30% talking.

There is no rule. It all depends.

[cetus]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There is no rule. It all depends.

He proved that by not hearing one word I said. And on the other had I heard every word he said.

[cetus]

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

We each bring our own context (bias) to any listening activity.

 

[cetus]

@Leo Gura On second thought, he may have become silent for just moment when I said; "I do agree that the Kingdom of Heaven is found within".

Edited February 24 by cetus

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, cetus said:

He proved that by not hearing one word I said. And on the other had I heard every word he said.

Well, a Christian is a low bar. Haha 

[cetus]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Well, a Christian is a low bar. Haha 

He's an old friend I haven't seen for years. He may have been through some rough patches in life and now trying to find comfort in reading the bible. What message would you suggest?

-If it's not too late 

Edited February 24 by cetus

[cetus]

"For those who have ears, let them hear"

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, cetus said:

What message would you suggest?

I don't have a cure for Christianity.

[cetus]

@Leo Gura Lol -I guess he went from one vice to another.

Edited February 24 by cetus

[UnbornTao]

13 hours ago, Sincerity said:

It's funny. I just realized I've actually been practicing listening every day in the last 2 months. Exactly 61 days.

I have a practice every day at 8PM. Basically I sit in silence and listen, and anytime a genuine voice "from the soul" arises (I don't know what else to call it) I write it down in a notebook. Then I go back into listening again. And so on and so forth, until I feel there's nothing more to be said.

I call it Trips on the Couch. It came to me during an LSD trip. 

Yeah, but this is in the context of listening to another. The risk of interacting within your own bubble is that it can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy with no real feedback.