THE SPEAKING TREE: Listening As Spiritual Practice

Marguerite Theophil

If we can tell our story to someone who listens,really listens,we find it easier to deal with our circumstances.Anton Chekov brings home this message poignantly in his short story Misery.Iona Potapov earns his living driving a horse-drawn cab.First to some passengers,then to someone he passes on the street,and finally to a fellow cab driver,this pained man repeatedly attempts to tell the story of his son who died just a week before,but no one wants to listen.

Potapov,we learn,has not really talked to anybody yet.He yearns to tell someone,anyone,about it;how his son suffered,what he said before he died,how he died;the father wants to describe little details of the funeral,of how he went to the hospital to collect his sons clothes.But there is no fellow human being who would listen to his story.

Finally,Iona goes to the stable to feed his mare and begins narrating his story.Chekhov writes,The little mare munches,listens,and breathes on her masters hands, and we feel the desperate sadness in the last words: Iona is carried away,and tells her all about it.

Chekov doesnt lecture us about how sad this is,how wrong;just lays out the story.And we are touched;perhaps shamed.

Listening appears such an easy thing to do,but we know from trying to really listen and trying to be listened to,that it isnt always so.Even those of us who imagine ourselves to be good listeners fall short.If your listening strategy is to launch into commiseration,expressions of sympathy or support,or,heaven help us advising,then you may need to review this.Even telling people Oh yes,that happened to me,too... even if we mean well,may not be the best thing to do.We cut their flow,perhaps through our own need to fix things,our need to get out of the discomfort of anothers pain,our need to appear understanding.And sadly,our needs make us ignore or marginalise the others needs.We need to learn that the greatest gift we can bring to the listening process is ourselves.Yet paradoxically the most important thing to do in order to listen well is to keep ourselves out of the way.

Often children understand better than we do.I once heard a delightful story about a little boy who was late getting home one day.When his mother asked why he was late,he explained that he had stopped to help a friend whose bicycle had broken down.
But you dont know how to fix a bicycle, his mother said.No, the little boy said,But I stopped to be with him while he cried.

Margaret Wheatley,who wrote Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future,has talked about this as an enduring truth: great healing is available when we listen to each other.Listening is such a simple act.It requires us to be present ... we don't have to do anything else.We don't have to advise,or coach,or sound wise.We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.If we can do that,we create moments in which real healing is available.

Real,deep,healing listening can be likened to a spiritual practice that involves developing awareness,some serious un-learning and adopting new practices.Three practices are essential to cultivate for this spiritual discipline : a comfort with silence,non-verbal empathy,and being wholly present to another.

Courtesy: Times of India