From Mark Brady’s Book “The Wisdom of Listening”:
PART ONE . . . . The Promise of Listening
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.
Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity; wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. ~e.e. cummings
We ourselves are actually the most significant factor in any human exchange. More specifically: the quality of heart, wisdom, attention, and intention that we bring with us significantly impacts every exchange we conduct. In this contribution, hospice founder and longtime trainer of hospice workers, Christine Longaker provides ample evidence for the power of such heartfelt and attentive presence. In addition, she offers extensive possibilities for the way that regular meditation can shape, influence and guide both in the short term, and equally important, in the long term. As will quickly become evident, such presence, cultivated wisely can produce transformative effects in virtually every area of our lives
Everything Depends on How We Are ~ Christine Longaker
When a friend is in tremendous emotional or physical pain, sometimes we’re afraid to go and be with him or her, or afraid of communicating honestly when we visit. We think we should know how to relieve our friend’s pain, or have just the right things to say. Yet what a person who’s suffering most needs is our presence. The Greek word for one who comforts is paraclete, meaning “one who comes to walk alongside.” What we bring to support a loving friend is our presence, with perspective. More than anything, we do not say, what helps a person who is suffering is how we are.
“How we are” is a reflection of the unified perspective we have on the whole of life, which includes experiences of joy and adversity. Our presence is also an expression of our confidence, the profound love over and unqualified respect for others we have come to embody through our spiritual practice. “How we are” is also connected to our awareness of our own suffering and the extent to which we have worked through our grief. And finally, our loving presence depends upon our ability to acknowledge and then release our fears and expectations, remaining compassionate and receptive toward the other person.
Cultivating a daily practice of meditation, and then training ourselves to integrate the mindfulness of meditation whenever we communicate, helps us develop these qualities of loving presence, authentically and with confidence.
Meditation: Connecting with Our True Nature
Meditation is more than a relaxation exercise; it is a practice to connect us to our innermost essence of wisdom. When our mind settles deeply in meditation, the conceptual mind and ordinary sense of self may temporarily dissolve. Then we experience a gap or space between our thoughts: a wakeful clear radiant awareness unstained by hopes, fears, or habitual projections. Pursued deeply and sincerely, spiritual practice enables us to purify and release the emotional conditioning and self grasping ego that separate us from reality. Meditation connects us ever more reliably and profoundly to a natural, effortless awareness, in which there is a deep relaxation and spaciousness, an unbounded gratitude, and an all-embracing, joyful compassion.
Inspired Openness and Pure Presence
The Buddha sat in serene and humble dignity on the ground, with the sky above him and around him, as if to show us that in meditation you sit with an open, sky-like attitude of mind, yet remain present, earthed, and grounded. The sky is our absolute nature, which has no barriers and is boundless, and the ground is our reality, our relative, ordinary condition. The posture we take when we meditate signifies that we are linking absolute and relative, sky and ground, heaven and earth, like two wings of a bird, integrating the sky-like deathless nature of mind and ground of our transient, mortal nature.1
The real meaning of “meditation” is to sustain the flow of pure awareness, free of duality—pure, simple, naked awareness—awareness without commentary or reaction, a presence of profound peace and unbiased love, free of grasping after external things and free of our sense of self, the “grasper.” And this is the ultimate relief from suffering—dissolving our habitual identification with the selfish ego and arriving at the profound peace and bliss of our true nature .
Meditation is bringing the mind home, releasing any tension or struggle, and relaxing into the clarity and peace of your true nature. In meditation you can allow all the scattered energies of your mind, to settle like sediment into a glass of muddy water. What happens when you set the glass down onto a table? The mud swirls for a while, but eventually it settles to the bottom. The clarity of the water, which was always there—only temporarily obscured—naturally begins to manifest.
To arrive at this pure state of pure presence in your practice, there are many methods of meditation which can slowly tame and settle your agitated mind, disarm your negativity and fear, and help you make friends with yourself, and thereby make friends with the world around you.
When we connect with our true nature in meditation, we are connecting with our essence, which is the union of wisdom and boundless love—and this is the inspired “presence” we can be while listening to those who are suffering or dying. As Sogyal Rinpoche wrote:
All of us need to give our love to a dying person, but if we have come in touch with the nature of our mind, stabilized through the practice of meditation, and integrated it into our lives, then the love we have to give can only be deeper, because it comes from a different source: from our innermost being, the heart of our enlightened nature. It has a special quality of freedom. This kind of love beyond our attachment, is like divine love. It is the . . . love of Christ, of God. In that state, without contriving, even without thinking, we can feel the presence of Christ. It is as if we become their ambassador, their representative, our love backed by their love, and infused with their blessing, Love that springs truly from the nature of the mind is so blessed that it has the power to dispel the fear of the unknown, to give refute from anxiety, to grant serenity and peace, and to bring inspiration in death and beyond.”3 ~ Multiple Authors. . .The Wisdom of Listening edited by Mark Brady (Wisdom Publications, Boston, Somerville, MA 02144 USA) p.1-10)
I. The Promise of Listening: . . . .with Presence, Awareness, and Love~by Christine Longaker
