UnbornTao

It's your job to have it - whatever it turns out to be. For one week, contemplate what listening is and what it requires. Try to set aside your own baggage - especially what you think you already 'know' - and question what this act really is. Other related questions: What is the act of paying attention? Why am I listening (hearing or reading) to this communication - or manipulation? What am I trying to get out of it? How can I step out of my own intellectual world so that I can better hear? Where is this person coming from, and what is their experience? Or simply: What is actually going on in the other person's experience?

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.

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

The point is learning rather than simply going through the motions. There's a difference between mechanical repetition and applying intelligence and creative correction as you practice - it's not simply about doing the same thing over and over again. That said, it depends on the particulars, too. With chess, it may require a different approach, I don't know. For example, if you're going to cook an omelette, approach it as if you're cooking an excellent omelette. And then: How does what you do contrast with your image of "an excellent omelette"? Something like that. Don't use your failure to live up to it to beat yourself up, though - that's not needed. Just learn to see what you are not seeing, and refine that process. Felt compelled to share that - for whatever reason.

Sure. The difference is that I've been contemplating this for awhile.

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. Read Krishnamurti's quote and see how what he says applies to you. He's describing the process as it occurs for most people.

Maybe - to you.

That's a lot of time to practice, thanks.

Ahh, got it. Though I should have clarified that in this case it specifically referred to direct experience - my bad. But it also applies to what you're saying.

The purpose of this journal is to share questions, humor, miscellaneous creative content, and raw reflections on personal empowerment and consciousness. My goals are to deepen my experiential understanding of these topics, improve my communication skills, have fun, and help others see things in a new light.

This better not be delayed this time.

What do you mean?

You believe that a practice can and will do it.

It was entertaining.

No, but taking some time with it helps to reveal everything that tends to get in the way.

@Someone here You're invited to do the exercise. Notice the baggage that tends to immediately come up. Krishnamurti alludes to this above.

It depends on why you're claiming it, and especially on what you're actually claiming. It seems to me that nobody deliberately claims falsehood, so that's some sort of feedback. Which is to say, we don't like being wrong, and when we recognize that we might be, we quickly adapt so that we're positioned on the "right" side of things again. But I digress. Vanity is about you, and the truth does not care about you. These are totally different motivations. What you think telling the truth is is different from actually knowing and telling the truth, so this is a gap to bridge for oneself.

To the Ground and beyond, then.

It's tricky to discern, especially when evaluating how something is expressed. Many people may confuse bluntness or straightforwardness with vanity, but these serve different purposes.

Couple of quotes: It's likely that many of you will overlook or even outright ignore this topic, which partly explains the issue of poor listening.

Masturbation Awakening™

What is this referring to? Anyway, do the exercise: