The Power of Deep Listening (Part 1)

namaste welcome again friends it really is good to be together and i thought i'd start by just naming a compelling question that so many people i know around the globe are reflecting on right now and that is what will bridge the divides and and i know you know what i mean what will bridge the divides i mean what will help us humans evolve beyond our separate cocooned realities that end up creating so much distrust and fear and violence so in this talk what i'd like to do is focus on one key way each of us can contribute to evolving consciousness to evolving our own consciousness and our species consciousness and that's cultivating our capacity for deep listening i mean just imagine if people from different political parties and groups and nations in conflict actually did a little bit of training and practice so that they could a little bit more listen to each other to get some sense of being able to look through another's eyes which henry david throw described as the greatest miracle possible really to look through each other's eyes it is possible though and we have this built-in capacity to listen and we can cultivate listening and of course it is difficult so for starters i thought i'd give you a couple of examples of the kind of challenges we face the first cartoon that i'll tell you about there's a couple sitting together watching tv and she's saying to him you know you only hear the things you want to hear and he responds a beer sounds lovely thank you second cartoon job interview the employer's asking well mr jeffers where do you see yourself five years from now response i'd say my biggest weakness is my listening skills know you get the idea it's kind of like uh i think calvin coolidge said it best that no one has ever listened themselves out of a job so by extension we don't listen ourselves out of relationships so this theme i'm imagining many of you it's not only something you're aware of it's something you're consciously working on i know for myself it's a life process and it's so interesting that now and then i get more conscious of oh this is really really important this matters and then i re-dedicate um and it's actually it's really energizing to rededicate i love that so if you feel like this is the right time for you to deepen your commitment to how you listen right close in with the people right around you it creates a group energy to do that together and it helps our world so a key understanding is that the capacity to listen is not just another sign a skill on the checklist of good personhood you know it's really a dimension of presence being able to listen is a dimension of presence it's a intrinsic facet of evolving consciousness and it impacts all dimensions of living and you might just consider inner listening you know how are we going to be intimate with our own being how are we going to attune to the state of our heart and acknowledge when there's loneliness or when there's fear or longings you know so inner listening is how we become more at home with ourselves and then of course listening to each other there's no way to have real intimacy connection and understanding unless we can listen and then in our contemporary society i really do believe that trainings to listen ringing people from conflicting sides together to practice listening will give a gateway for more collaboration more understanding then of course in terms of if we want to call it the spiritual path it's really those moments where we stop all doings and we become profoundly receptive quiet open it's that listening presence that really those are the moments that we touch and taste the mystery that we that we receive beauty that we start to perceive and intuit that formless timeless awareness that's really home so it really gives us a sense of the sacred so i'm naming the different levels and we'll be exploring primarily how do we listen more deeply with those we're engaged with whoever you spend time talking with the most and maybe we'll just pause here for a moment i'll do several reflections through our time on this first reflection and when we do them if it helps you to close your eyes please do it always helps me it's just to take a moment and bring to mind someone you know who is a really good listener someone you know who's a good listener and take a moment to consider this and some of you might notice when i asked that that it's there aren't many that come to mind it's a very select handful but whoever comes to mind and therapists count just kind of close in a little and sense okay so what characterizes good listening what are the qualities of heart and mind that are there with someone when they're really being a good listener and for those of you that want to you can share share a word on chat you know what's what's the main word for you that really characterized as a good listener present interested curious compassionate patient empathy presence giving honoring listening beneath the words never interrupts curious inquisitive truly seeing quietness authenticity silence unconditional positive regard selfless open you are naming so many you're naming the constellation uh and i thank you for it you know in in buddhism the archetype of uh the bodhisattva of compassion kuan yin is described as the bodhisattvas described as listening to the cries of the world and responding with compassion and the bodhisattva embodies that the words you describe that openness that intimate presence that tenderness that acceptance so there's a reason that that's an archetype for our human species because that's really what is possible that is possible that we can learn to bring that receptive presence engaging with others okay a bit of information now that i find interesting which is some from some of the research on listening okay 85 of what we know we learned from listening okay 75 percent of the time we're distracted preoccupied or forgetful 75 of the time one hour hour after listening we recall 20 of what we heard the average person listens at only 25 efficiency 25 efficiency okay so now test i want to know how many we're listening can you repeat those stats you can do it on chat no i'm totally joking because i can't numbers don't stay with me so but anyway the point that i'm trying to make is that we aren't meeting our potential for listening we've got huge potential and we don't come nearer to it and not only that it's getting worse as a species and many of you probably know this that our human attention span has now dropped to just eight seconds and that's down from 12 seconds in 2000 so the last 20 years have not been like you know stellar years in terms of how well we're doing it's pointed out regularly also that our um attention span is one second lower than that of a goldfish so what to me is really compelling is that there's the research that shows the effect of technology on our brain and we all know there's huge amount of information and too little time to process so what does the brain do well the brain gets habituated to dividing attention mostly we have very divided attention and it also gets habituated to shifting very quickly from one thing to the next to the next to the next and what that develops is this addiction to novelty it's like it's very hard to restrain from checking out what's popped up on the screen because we get hooked on new things the upshot though is with this divided attention and hopping around is that we have a much less efficient brain and we're not able to filter information in a deep absorbent way and the research on teen brains is very it's scary more screen time more attention deficits and for all of us the more we're plugged into the internet the more we're in front of a screen the less capacity to concentrate to immerse to slow down to open and clear which are all the kind of elements that we together were describing for that authentic presence and listening so let's pause again and and reflect together let's take a pause and this is a scan just a little bit of a scan of of your own listening and i might invite you to not uh continue sharing on chat or looking at chat for a little bit because it actually does exactly what we're talking about it divides us so let's all get here and and deepen our attention now so the inquiry is with real curiosity without any judgment just to notice what you can see about your own listening and start with it inwardly this inquiry do i listen to my body do you listen to your body would you really attend kind of from the inside out so you can sense well what what nourishment do i need you know do i need more exercise less exercise what kind of movement really would would be restorative or balancing do i need rest and do and then the question do you listen to your heart do you listen to your heart and sense wow there's some loneliness here or some sadness i need to replenish in some way i need quiet even though i'm not wanting to discipline myself to find some quiet i need some quiet do we listen to our heart do we listen to the yearnings are you listening to the yearnings of your soul what some might call soul or spirit your deepest aspirations you know rumi says do you make regular visits to yourself do you listen in deeply to sense what is it i really really yearn for is it peace is it connection am i yearning to love without holding back so much am i yearning to realize truth to really really see reality directly what's that yearning and if we're scanning still how am i listening with others and you might just send someone your family or friend do i attend do i seek to understand is there that inquiry what's it like being you am i curious do we wonder what matters to another person you know how do we listen to sense how our words and actions are impacting someone else so part of what we're exploring together is just to honestly look at at listening as this precious capacity we can cultivate and without judging ourselves just sense okay so this is the habits that i'm in if your eyes are closed please feel free to open [Music] and i found --- ply to take in others to really feel with and to understand and to feel compassion it's really our potential and we also know that our primitive brain our survival brain runs interference daily every day for most of us uh that in some way stress makes us contract and it cuts off that listening so here's the thing if you can if you want to commit to deep listening and you can become mindful of when that's happening you can be in a conversation and get it okay there's stress i'm right now caught and wanting something or fearing something and i'm not paying attention if you can catch that you can actually shift your patterning in a way that's profoundly healing so that's where we're going to pay attention right now becoming aware of how we cut off from listening and it happens whenever there's any agenda of wanting something or fearing something that's the lens that's really really helpful that if there's some agenda when you're with somebody where you're wanting something we'll start with that it narrows the aperture of your attention so you're not receptive now the my favorite classic example is if a pickpocket sees a saint they see the saints pocket right and we know that so this is you know you're wanting and you just focus on what you're really wanting and you don't see what's really there and science shows us how this works many are familiar familiar with heisenberg observer effect which goes like this it basically says you we can't see reality as it is because the very act of observing distorts and this is because the observer or the listener unless they're mindful is just is distorting what they're seeing by our wants and fears so that's the deal that what we hear is distorted by the filters of what we fear or want are what we're listening for distortion a grandma shared about a three-year-old this three-year-old totally loves finger painting okay and then he was saying the lord's prayer for the family and here's how he said the lord's prayer he said our father who does art in heaven harold is his name amen our father who does art in heaven so we have our distortions based on what we want fear or familiar with and in conversation your wants will affect how open the aperture is so consider this and i'm going to just invite you to send somebody you had a recent conversation with did you want that person to experience you in a certain way in other words did you want them to think of you as helpful as intelligent as caring as capable as interesting i mean it's so interesting to me that if i think of conversations most of the time there's some agenda of wanting the other person to have a certain impression of me that closes the aperture sum did you want the person to think you were a good listener still it closes it some do you want the person's approval did you want the conversation to go in a particular direction to get to a certain conclusion did you want to prove something did you want to get something from the person did you want to be right that's such a big one did you want to fix the person so i'm just giving you examples but whenever there's wanting and there so often is it tightens us now sometimes the wanting that will be pulling us from presence doesn't have anything to do with the person we're with it just it may be that we're wanting to get back to work or we're wanting to get something to eat some of you might know that william james who i think was about 120 years ago he wrote this he described us as in a ceaseless frenzy of always thinking we should be doing something else so again let's pause and again just a sense a recent conversation with somebody give you a little time to bring someone to mind and you might be thinking well this is covid and i'm not seeing anybody and everything's by email and so there might not have been a conversation but bring somebody to mind that you've had a conversation with and just notice if you had a wanting agenda to in some way impress to be experienced in a certain way and also notice how much there might have been pure listening with no agenda just openness seeking to understand to connect now just like wanting we also have a lot of fear and aversion and when that's part of the agenda protecting ourselves we're not able to offer a listening presence either we kind of pull away when we feel threatened by what the other person's saying there's a i read somewhere the four words that will make men run for the hills we need to talk this is another cartoon i saw but we all know it that when we feel threatened or hurt or offended we can't attend i mean think of the most recent time that you received criticism that you felt judged or blamed like it doesn't feel good how well do we continue with a receptive open presence when somebody else is judgmental or how much can we keep listening openly when another person disagrees with us and this is such a big one now for so many when people have different political views is anybody listening [Music] i love the saying that the world is divided into those who think they're right and that's the whole saying you know that we can't when there's any threat to our rightness we can't hear so when aversion arises instead of listening we try to control the experience and get away from the aversion and we might drift off internally or we might be defensive we might be aggressive postmaster edgar day had a very interesting approach when he encountered a long-winded talker his strategy was he would hang up while he was speaking as a way to get away from the experience author carol mateau writes the dying process begins the minute you are born but it accelerates during dinner parties so you get the idea that when we're aversive in some way it hijacks listening and one of the big things that happens and it's not even to do with the person we're with it's just the feeling we don't have enough time and that hijacks it that fear hijacks listening so again friends inviting you to reflect a recent conversation and the inquiry here is how much did a version close the aperture whether you felt judgment or you felt bored or intimidated or anxious about something else how much did that get in the way and you can keep reflecting if you'd like i want to name one more basic fear that gets in the way of listening and it's the fear of not being here so let's slow down for this one because it's really this is very it's sometimes subtle but it's very very real and deep that listening requires putting aside the selfing all the thoughts that keep us having a solid sense of a self that give us ground and when we get quiet and we put down our own thoughts and concerns and so on and just open to another person it feels uncomfortable unfamiliar we feel unprepared undefended there's a sense that no one's here we don't know who we are when we're not planning our response i love the way fran liebowitz put it she says the opposite of talking isn't listening the opposite of talking is waiting and isn't that familiar that instead of listening to understand we listen to reply that's where our energy goes there's this really strong tendency to want to assert a self who knows something so i'm spending a little time on this so the way is our limbic agenda of wanting and fearing and sustaining a self creates interference because if you can bring to mind a few people that you want to deepen your listening with and notice okay with that person here's how my listening gets hijacked you will be more able in the moment to choose to stay present if we can bring it into consciousness we can actually make a shift it takes courage i like the way krista tippett puts it she says to to listen deeply we have to have a willingness to be surprised because we're putting down all our expectations and our controlling mark nepo the poet says it this way he says to listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear i want to say that again because that for me is so it just kind of says it so beautifully to listen is to lean in softly with a willingness to be changed by what we hear okay let's now turn to how we train ourselves how we train ourselves to listen and i'm going to kind of go through some basic steps and give you an example and then invite you to practice a little to we'll do it together in your mind's eye with someone in your life so the training like anything else it takes the 10 000 hours plus of deliberate practice because it's really uh reworking our our old habits of trying to control things and there are three steps if you're stressed there are three steps that you'll have to take if you want to actually show up in a conversation and and deepen your listening and the first is to set your intention to do so i mean if if part of us being together as you leave and say okay it's my intention to deepen listening and here's a person i want to practice with and it gets so you're really ahead of time like setting that aspiration you'll be much more inclined to be awake in that situation so that's the first one is set your intention it's basically the intention you know for me it's can i listen to understand and to connect the second is to know you're going to keep having to do inner listening as you're listening to another so you can see what we've been describing the the kind of reactivity that shows up the the judgments the fears the self-criticisms the the wants and the tugs and the urge to fix and you just kind of have to keep on being willing to listen inwardly and sense what's going on with real kindness real presence so that's part two so we set the intention we know when we're with others there's also some inner listening going on so we know what's what's happening and then the third offering a listening presence to others we need to support that somehow because we get tugged around so much just the way in a in a sitting meditation you might set the anchor with the breath because you know you're going to get caught in thoughts and it's a way to come back right here you can use your breath and your body when you're listening t --- und him incredibly self-absorbed and opinionated and domineering whenever they were in their family gatherings and they were just approaching one of their annual gatherings at the beach and she was dreading being with them so that's why she decided she was going to practice deep listening with her brother so she set her intention you know for understanding for connection and she said and she described it that at first listening was incredibly difficult because her brother either talked incessantly about himself or went on diatribes about child rearing and world affairs and really just took up all the air and no room for conversation so typically she'd find all sorts of excuses to not be around him but she remembered her intention and she said her her breath was her anchor and she watched herself she did that inner listening and she just kept on feeling her impatience and frustration that sense of um the aversion like i don't exist that feeling and kept feeling it and and in in inwardly uh kept offering care to herself you know just it's okay it's okay so that was important she was staying intimate with her own experience acknowledging her aversion not pretending it wasn't there not bypassing it and that made it possible to listen a little bit more with him and she coached herself you know she used the there's time because she just felt like i'd much rather be with my kids right now on the beach or you know she'd ask questions can i hear who he is and as she listened she started to really feel her brother's like a very young person need for attention to feel like he mattered to in some way be confirmed or affirmed as intelligent and interesting and she could feel under that as she listened the insecurity that was there and actually as she let in that pain as she felt this kind of young insecure place in him it softened her heart and and her presence deepened she just sat with him you know she'd listened to him they went for walks on the beach one day after a few days of her listening like that on a walk he confessed to her he said he was really agitated and hurt because right before break he had received the students course feedback at his college and he got some feedback that he was not only not interesting but he was a a talking head and and no and compared to the other more popular professors you know he was way down on the list and this just really um it just hit him so hard and she was very present listening to him and then he said something she never expected she he looked at her and said you know i'm not the person i want to be and he you know his eyes were wet and so she asked the natural question who do you want to be and he said someone who can connect and engage and interest these young people and the challenges of our world and someone who can bring them alive and so they started talking about what had gotten in the way and how he could experientially engage students how we could ask them questions and with real interest draw them forward draw forward their creativity and intelligence rather than shoving his at them the day they left he really expressed gratitude he said you know i needed you you've been so here for me you helped me reconnect to purpose so what had she done you know she set her intention for understanding she was very very with herself and what she was coming up in her and she just stuck with it you know listening presents there's a metaphor i love this comes to my mind a lot about the the power of listening um that it's that lis if you just consider it that we have this creative spirit all of us have this love and wisdom in us and it kind of can it can emerge like a fountain and it's all coming from the same source of awareness but when we haven't been listened to that creative wise expression doesn't come forward it's like our fountain dies it shrivels up and then when we are listened to it starts flowing again and as it flows it can start expressing the truth of our human vulnerability like this woman's brother and in time the depth of our goodness our deep intentions it's a real human need to have spaces where we're listened to a really deep human need so we're going to practice a little and then we're going to open this to questions um just to remind you in terms of the questions if you're on zoom feel free to put your questions on chat now in the next few minutes anytime and what we're really exploring in this class and there's going to be part two because i just barely touched on i've got so much more that i wanted to walk through with you but the power of consciously rededicating to listening i know in my life when i go through my okay this is a season where i really want to pay attention to this my relationships become an adventure much more interesting because i'm just much more consciously there and that brings it alive it doesn't matter who i'm with more heart more connection so i invite you to explore that and right now we'll just let you explore it as you bring to mind one person that you would like to listen more deeply to so wherever you are if you need to adjust your posture please do then come into stillness we'll just do a little investigating and setting setting you in the direction of deepening listening with this person and you might ask yourself to begin with what is between me and listening with an awake heart what's stopping me and maybe you notice that when you're with this person the wanting agenda gets in the way you're wanting to get approval or get them to do something your way [Music] or to experience you in a certain way or maybe there's the the the aversive side of it that there's a difference as a hierarchy a difference in of power of inferior superior and that gets in the way there's a fear of being judged whatever it is just notice what gets in the way and and you might notice how do you control things instead of listening do you distract into your own thoughts do you try to steer the conversation to ignore do you plan your response now as we've been talking about the steps for deepening you might send your intention to bring more into awareness what's going on around listening with this person to be more aware and you might sense your intention to deepen your understanding to connect to listen with an awake heart feel it as a sincere earnest kind of prayer aspiration and then you might imagine a situation coming up when you might be in conversation and just imagine anchoring maybe with your breath or with your body imagine that you're listening and maybe something gets stirred up and that you really do pay attention inwardly you give yourself some care and presence inwardly as that's happening and you might imagine [Music] as you open your attention to the other in a deeper way that you coach yourself a little you know what's behind the words what does this person really need for me what do they want me to know then as you come right back into this moment this present moment just feel that willingness that intention to lean in a bit softly with a willingness to be changed by what you hear that courage to listen and feel yourself right here right now i'll share one poem to close this portion and then we'll we'll open it to questions this is by john fox when someone deeply listens to you it is like holding out a dented cup you've had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold fresh water when it balances on top of the brim you are understood when it overflows and touches your skin you are loved when someone deeply listens to you the room where you stay starts a new life and the place where you wrote your first poem begins to glow in your mind's eye it's as if gold has been discovered when someone deeply listens to you your bare feet are on the earth and a beloved land that seemed distant is now at home within you okay friends so we're going to do a little bit of a shifting here and um shannon who is moderating for us is going to give a few different instructions and then we're going to open it to your questions thank you tara to get started we're going to begin with a question from angie how do we balance the importance of listening to others with our own need to be listened to and if we are not getting this from the person we are listening to hey hi angie hello yeah now i'm glad you asked that question i have a feeling you're not alone maybe say a little more what makes you ask it i feel like i'm often the listener in situations like i'm a good listener and people you know share things with me but i feel like i don't have a lot of people that i can talk to who i really feel understand me and so i feel alone so i'm just not sure how do we balance that out yeah so um when you meditate do you feel like you listen inwardly pretty well uh i'm i don't meditate as much as i probably should um so probably not enough so and we all i mean most people feel that way you know we most of us feel like you know it's kind of it's like the elephant in the room that we're not really meditating enough so but more i was asking that because your inquiry's so poignant i think there's a lot of there's a lot of people that are the ones that other people have to listen to and there's a lot of people that are the listen you know we we go into our roles and it's ironic but it doesn't mean that we you can still if you listen in a not to be a good person but you listen in a way that truly involves presence where you're listening inwardly and listening outwardly it's actually a completely nourishing when when but i have this feeling you're skipping the inner part that's why i'm bringing it up so a few things the first is that that when you are listening to another notice what's going on in you including maybe the resentment like you know what about me and including a feeling of maybe um aversiveness like maybe i'm being taken advantage of or you know not cared about any of those things and both in the midst of listening and also on the side in your own make some time to meditate pay attention to that part as if you're literally listen offering your l --- self-centered about retelling the story of frustration and i keep listening and listening and but it's so hard for me to hear it again that sometimes i feel uh a little bit despair and i actually i confront him in like judging him like i'm requesting him to stop retelling the story again and i'm i'm i don't know if i am doing that correctly or still give some time to be telling the story and then how to manage that i hear it i hear your question and i'm really getting it that there's a there's a um a deep inquiry how long does it serve to hold a space when somebody is just repeating a pattern over and over and over and over again is that right yes yeah here's what i would encourage because it takes a lot of patience because he's obviously really a wounded person and he's caught in something and he doesn't want to be there no i mean nobody wants to be in so and you can't fix him you can explore what it would mean to listen and love him more while he's speaking just to love him but at first you're gonna have to take care of your the part of you that's frustrated and it's it's very um it can be not be very gratifying you know you just feel like you're just listening to a broken record so you need to take care of yourself but make it part of your practice to say can i hold my own being in compassion and then how pure can i bring just a tenderness like seeing the suffering behind that story and just talk and and just see it may be that it doesn't work for your body heart and mind to keep holding the space for too long but explore what would happen if you first deepened and just loved him just loved him and that that takes getting to that loving place so first tend to yourself and by the way when i say do it while the conversation's happening we need to do it on the sidelines also you know because you're offering a lot and it can bring up it can bring up the places in our own lives where we had deficits yeah okay thank you i hope that's helpful yes i keep trying because i love him dearly so i'll keep trying that's what i'm picking up that you do love him yes so tell yourself that say just for the sake of love let's see how much i can just simply just love him right now dear blessings thank you yeah our next question is from michael i seem to be good at listening to everybody else but myself how can i become better at listening to myself my own inner voice hi there hey hi michael hi thank you for taking my question well i think it's a question that a lot of us are wondering about is that we get outward focused and how to listen inwardly so tell me what you're discovering so far um i discover that i i tend to deflect attention away from myself when i try to tune inward inwardly into my own voice i think i'm i'm very good at listening to other people and hearing what's going on maybe a layer or two beneath what they're saying but then when it comes to ask to asking myself questions about well what do i really want or what do i really need in this moment or at a at a bigger level like thinking about uh plans for my life for the way forward then uh i i can't seem to hear that voice and i immediately start to shut down or distract myself with other well with distractions tell me what makes this important to you what makes inner listening important and take your time i mean what really makes this important i think one reason it's important for me is i'm looking for answers uh inside myself and having a hard time finding them or hearing what those answers might be and what would be like an example of what what you're searching about right now um well one big question um right now is relates to just life direction and where i want to go not just um career-wise but geographically spiritually what would bring me the most meaning am i am i really listening to myself and being true to myself by doing what i'm doing now where i'm doing it or um you know how it doesn't feel right so i ask myself this question well where should i be and what should i be doing but then i can't get to that that answer or i can't hear that answer because i have a hard time listening to myself when you are feeling something's meaningful when you feel a sense like oh this this is something that matters in in a moment what's usually going on like when do you feel a sense of meaning and purpose usually it's in it's in the small things for me um whether it's you know practicing music which is a hobby of mine or uh reading or spending time with my dog i can feel those brief moments of this is this is the right thing to be doing and i'm so glad i'm able to do this you know be outside on a beautiful day with my dog or um being able to just make music um it it's it's the bigger things i guess like what should i do with my life where it becomes a lot harder to listen to so let's stay slow a little bit here so if like you're at the end of your life looking back and you're going to say what would make today a day that you'd feel really mattered the ele what are the elements of today it would be that you were outside in beauty or that you're played with your pop or practice music those are the things yeah i think i think that those are certainly elements of it yeah and i think that question focusing quite that i just haven't asked myself enough so what i'm i'm asked i'm asking you questions on purpose we're actually doing the thing you don't do which is the inquiry you know and and you're and i really i'm honoring the the way you're doing it because what you've actually landed on you know so many people have these grand ideas about their life but they're not really connected with with the little moments that really make life life you know and if you ask yourself well at the end of my life if i was looking back what would matter right now like if i'm asking myself part of it is that i'm actually real with you right now that um i don't i'm not mechanical that there's actual authentic here we are and unlike you my dog if i play with my dog and go for a walk by the river and i can be real with you it doesn't really matter too much what my formal job is or what i'm doing with my life or where i'm living do you see what i'm saying right right yeah it's definitely in the small things so what i want to encourage you in your inquiry is to stay grounded in the small things they will lend insights into what some bigger trajectories or patterns might you be useful but that doesn't really matter so much it matters that each day if you or at the end of your day looking back you said yeah i lived today i touched some moments of meaning that matters a whole lot more than where you end up choosing to live our career or anything yeah that's absolutely true and a very beautiful reminder thank you very much for that thank you for being with us really nice to be with you thank you likewise yeah be well thank you okay um thank you shannon we're gonna close because i just looked at the time yeah so let's let me first of all ask you all to be on gallery view if you're not already and we can just do a very short closing for all that are listening from whatever place you're in to just as we did now as we were exploring together um start inward just close your eyes or let your gaze be down cast and just as as michael and i were doing just sense inside since how it is right now listen to your heart in the same way you might offer listening to another that's deep listening listen with unconditional tenderness invite your heart invite your heart to let you know what it wants you to know right now life is for you this moment so you're an intimate real listening connection inwardly and then you can widen the attention and again remind yourself of somebody you'd like to be listening to more deeply and you might listen to these words from tiknot han the zen master he says deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person you can call it compassionate listening you listen with only one purpose to help him or her empty their heart even if they say things that are full of wrong perceptions full of bitterness you're still capable of continuing to listen with compassion because you know that listening like that you give the person a chance to suffer less if you want them to correct their perception you wait for another time for now you don't interrupt you don't argue if you do they lose their chance you just listen with compassion and help them to suffer less time like this can bring transformation and healing so we widen and sense another person and it may be your deepening listening not just to relieve their suffering but to really deepen your relationship and it's quite natural that you would be also asking to be listened to at times but for now just to sense the intention the adventure really of can i just be there can i keep attuned to what's going on inside me and open my heart like the bodhisattva of compassion just offer that presence even a little even for a few minutes is that possible and then we widen it and begin to think of our world and know that if we can even for a few minutes with someone in our close-in circles practice this open-hearted compassionate presence that can ripple out that's what can begin to evolve our human hearts in a way that can bridge the differences in our world so we close and we're on gallery view and you might open your eyes and sense as you look and see others and you can do it without feeling self-conscious because nobody knows who you're looking at which i always like and you can just see each other and sense the goodness the intention the good hearts the wisdom and since collectively and this is for all of us what is possible of each of us in the days and weeks to come just listen a little bit more just to sense that so you might offer each other your blessings your namastes and if you want to unmute and say farewell and namaste to each other please feel free and thank you so much for being part of this i hope you join the next week okay blessings cheers [Music] thank you thank you [Music] you