Her Daughter is a What?!

On Deep Listening and Loving Speech

(When you finish this short essay, please take a few moments to check out a couple of poems by some rising stars on the Substack platform whose work I am very much enjoying.)

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“Twins” by saeed karimi on Unsplash

Recently my twin sister texted me. She’d had an awful fight with her grown daughter, who’d hit where she knew it would hurt the most, calling my sister a bad mother and grandmother. My niece is prone to erratic outbursts so the attack wasn’t necessarily shocking or unexpected but it was particularly venomous that day. I texted my sister back, “Just remember that whatever feelings R. is having are just thoughts passing through; the thoughts are not the person.” Or something like that.

My sister wrote her thanks but I could tell my advice had not landed well, and I realized right away that advice was not what she’d asked for. I had shared a technique I’ve learned in my meditation practice that is helpful to me: remembering that feelings are impermanent; they arise, they abide for a while, and they subside. And that those feelings are not me, mine, or myself. (I wrote about this in “Jealousy and Other Visitors.”)

But that is my practice. I neglected to think about what my sister was experiencing in that moment. She was deeply wounded and in no position to implement some intellectual mind technique that her brother thought would be helpful. What she needed at that moment was to have her painful feelings acknowledged. That is all.

So, I quickly followed up with another text: “Oh, and by the way.... How dare that bitch treat you that way!”

And my sister wrote back immediately, “Thanks for making me smile.” And then I knew I’d said the right thing.

The lesson is that the clever or wise response is not necessarily the right response.

Discovering the benefits of mindfulness has put me at risk of being a poor listener because in my enthusiasm I want to share my learning, I want to help the world, and I may forget that others are not on the same path as I am. And that’s really the key to the art of communicating; looking into the heart of the other, taking the time to understand who I am speaking to before I speak.

It’s worth asking, what is the message my listener is able to hear at this time? It may not be the one I think they need or might benefit from. Perhaps what they really need is to simply be heard and seen, to release their pain. Or maybe they just want to feel safe in some quiet company, without talking at all. In the words of the poet

Paul Wittenberger

, “There are moments not made for words because words cannot say what the moment is, cannot trap the moment in symbols no matter their beauty or gravity.“*

Paying attention, really listening without preconceptions, without judgement, without planning your next response, must always be the first step in any healthy communication. In Buddhism, the fourth of the five mindfulness trainings, or precepts, is about loving speech and deep listening:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and to relieve others of suffering.*  

Thich Nhat Hanh, in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, tells us that deep listening is the foundation of Right Speech. In addition to always telling the truth and never using words to manipulate or hurt others, if we don’t practice compassionate listening, then “no matter what we say, it will not be mindful, because we’ll be speaking only our own ideas and not in response to the other person.”

It’s so easy to assume we know everything there is to know about a friend or spouse or child. We’ve heard it all before, we may believe, if unconsciously, and a half-hearted attention is quite enough to catch the gist of what they are saying. I often catch myself drifting into my own thoughts when my wife is telling me about her day. My mind has been busy with its own problems and is not ready to turn off completely and listen to someone else’s. This is where my meditation practice really does help. I’m creating a new habit in my brain, one of paying attention to the moment, to how things are right now, and that results in catching myself a little sooner than I used to when I find myself not being a good listener.

It will do me well to remember that I don’t know everything there is to know, about my wife, my sister, my friends. The thoughts and feelings they are having right now are new ones. No matter how familiar or repetitive those thoughts, ideas, or opinions may seem to me, this person has never had this particular thought in quite this way before. Now is a brand-new moment; pain is always fresh, as is joy, confusion, hope, anxiety, etc.  

An open heart, an open mind, and my undivided attention are the gifts I have to offer the people in my life.

Who would have thought calling my niece a bitch was the one gift I could give to my sister in her time of need?

____________

*From a poem I hope will be published soon. In the meantime, please enjoy the prolific, sage work of Paul Wittenberger here.

*Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching

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As a bonus this week, In addition to the work of

Paul Wittenberger

, quoted above, I want to share the work of two more poets I am really enjoying on the Substack platform:

Mike Speriosu

and

Jefferdman

. I meant to include the full poems here but it seems a link is my best option. (Besides, Mike’s poem really needs to be experienced in both form and content.) Please take a moment to enjoy these unique creative voices!

Shame

Evergreen

My dear twin sister and me.