Playing with Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

What is experiential listening?

How often do you feel truly heard--as in, having someone actually get your experience? It doesn't always have to be a profound or life-altering exchange. Still, it's rare, isn't it? 

I've been paying close attention to this dynamic lately. Someone tells me something, but it's as if there's a wall between us. You hear their words and understand them but that's not the whole story, is it?

Listening requires grasping another's experience as it is, without filtering it through your own agenda. It's about their experience, not yours. This point bears repeating. Moreover, this act prioritizes the experience being conveyed rather than the persona behind the expression. 

So ask yourself: Am I interacting with my own interpretations, beliefs, desires, and opinions in response to what someone said, or am I truly listening to them?

Edited 18 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

Becoming “awake” involves seeing our confusion more clearly. - Chogyam Trungpa

 

Edited Sunday at 12:22 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Trying to define power:

1. Capacity.
2. The ability to consistently produce results non-randomly.
3. Effective manipulation (handling) of yourself, your circumstances, and others.

Edited Sunday at 02:29 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What is desire? Can you detect a subtle sense of pain accompanying the activity?

Desire implies a separation between you and the thing desired. This comparison between your current experience and an imagined one generates suffering. Moreover, when the object of desire is attained, you soon begin searching for the next one. The content of desire may change, but the activity remains constant.

Edited Thursday at 09:18 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

As humans, we live within conceptually-invented worlds yet generally fail to notice that they are fabricated; we take them to be objective and real. We don’t recognize them as such, just as a fish doesn’t realize it has always been swimming in water. For example, we live as though our particular culture were "true."

Additionally, on a personal level, you may implicitly believe that your experience and worldview are true--perhaps even universally shared. They are yours, and that seems to be your main concern, not whether they’re accurate.

For example, do you currently assume that (live as) the way you experience "reality" is the same way for others?

Edited 18 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Boredom could be seen as arrogance--thinking that the way you think reality works is reality.

Edited 22 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What comes to mind when you reflect on yourself? What prevents you from behaving differently? Has some aspect of your self-makeup changed over the years?

Your persona isn’t etched in stone. Transforming as a person--even though it involves a kind of death--doesn’t mean you cease to exist. We tend to find the work of transformation threatening because we think that way.

Edited Thursday at 09:53 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Can you find mind  in your experience?

Edited 17 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Perception is indirect by nature; it is about something, not that thing itself. Whatever the thing is for itself is unknown. Perceiving is a process mediated by biological inventions--the senses, in this case. 

Edited Sunday at 12:29 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What are the differences between being smart, being clever, and being intelligent?

Edited Sunday at 12:30 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

The difference between the student and the master is that the master has made more mistakes than the student can count.

How do you relate to failure? It is integral to the process of learning and to succeeding in any pursuit. Failures are stepping stones to success--don’t try to avoid them but use them as feedback. Fail faster and intelligently.

Correct as you go. The moment an opportunity for correction arises, take it.

Edited 21 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Attachment may be fundamentally motivated by the fear of groundlessness.

Edited Sunday at 12:37 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Being open-minded is an antidote to dogma and ideology.

Edited May 23 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

You may not be able to fully appreciate highly skillful people unless you pay attention to where the person is coming from. How do they see reality? How do they use their mind? What do they focus on? You might even need to be reasonably skillful yourself at that particular craft in order to begin to truly appreciate mastery in others. Among other things, this would require leveling up your observational abilities.

Adopt a beginner's mindset. Remain humble and embrace the vulnerability that accompanies this state. 

Edited 22 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

In what ways are you empowering your own life and the lives of others? And what are you doing that goes against this principle?

Edited 21 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What do you habitually apply* yourself to? What are you giving life to? Notice where you put your attention, time, and effort on. What do you usually focus on throughout the day? Is what you're doing serving your goals? 

Have you noticed that the bodies of those who sit all day long accommodate to that lifestyle? What do you want your body and mind to accommodate to? As some Tibetan masters say: You become what you meditate on.

1. Apply: think, do, feel, focus on, create, invest, consume.

Edited 19 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

The great majority of readers and hearers are the same all over the world. I have no doubt that the people of your country... are like those I have met in China and India, and these latter were just like Tibetans. If you speak to them of profound Truths they yawn, and, if they dare, they leave you, but if you tell them absurd fables they are all eyes and ears. They wish the doctrines preached to them, whether religious, philosophic, or social, to be agreeable, to be consistent with their conceptions, to satisfy their inclinations, in fact that they find themselves in them, and that they feel themselves approved by them.

– Tibetan Lama

 

Edited Sunday at 12:22 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Principles are real and profound "rules" of existence. For a principle to truly work for you, it must be deeply experienced, not just thought about. You need to see it operating live, in your own experience.

Edited 17 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Contemplate the cost of procrastination. You may gain instant gratification, but what happens in the long term? Do you feel satisfied? Can you finish what you start? Are you happy with the outcomes that result from constant evasion?

Edited Thursday at 10:07 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

A dynamic to balance:

1. Zooming in — Immersing yourself in something; paying close attention to its components and inner workings.
2. Zooming out — Stepping back; dissolving distinctions to focus on the big picture or overall direction. Reflecting on where something is headed.

Edited Thursday at 10:08 PM by UnbornTao