Listening in the Deep
No-How No-result continued...
dear creators,
Last month, I left my letter off with:
Entering a learning institution again has been a thrilling-daunting oscillation and my first major move (rein-in, actually) to become more consistent at observing my own mind has to do with ‘deep listening’.
So I’d like to go into this idea of deep listening as it’s been introduced to me by J. Krishnamurti in the book, As One Is: To Free the Mind from all Conditioning.
Before I do that…it just occurred to me that I haven’t really shared how I’ve been considering the ‘mind’. I don’t want to pin it down, exactly, but I’ve been wondering about it as something that includes our waking consciousness and daily interactions as well as the deep layers that reside in what Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, Carl G. Jung, called the unconscious.
The unconscious mind is what we as individuals do not identify with— including dreams, beliefs, perceptions, unintentional verbal and nonverbal signals, and ideas. It’s all of the influence that we are not consciously aware of.
I’ve heard a theory that everyone’s DNA contains the entire history and evolution of all of humanity. So when it comes to liberating the mind from all conditioning…see what we’re up against?!!
[I would like to note that there are numerous cultures with their own frameworks to describe and work with these deep processes and I respect these frameworks as equally valid. I am simply not well versed in them.]
Back to the deep listening: In a variety of contexts— whether I’m listening in a conversation, a lecture, to a podcast, watching a video or film, reading a text etc.— I’ve noticed that I’m rapidly agreeing or disagreeing in my mind and, overall, I’m interpreting what is being said based on my own understanding. I can sense that my present knowledge is intervening between what is being said and my comprehension of it. I also notice a subtle (or not so subtle) tension coming out of the urge to find an answer.
So am I really listening or is this the only way I’m capable of listening? Krishnamurti draws a distinction between concentration and attention:
“Concentration implies choice, does it not? You are trying to concentrate on what I am saying, so your mind is focused, made narrow, and other thoughts intervene; so there is not an actual listening but a battle going on in the mind, a conflict between what you are hearing and your desire to translate it, to apply what I am talking about, and so on. Whereas, attention is something entirely different.
In attention there is no focusing, no choice; there is complete awareness without any interpretation. And if we can listen so attentively, completely, to what is being said, then that attention brings about the miracle of change within the mind itself.”
When concentrating, there’s constant movement of habitual thought that feels impossible to be free of. I mean, even trying to move in attempt to be free of it all is the result of my mind’s conditioning so that’s just gonna lead to more conditioning, right?! It’s like all the trains lead to the same place— so there’s no point to jumping another one. What’s left? No trains and no move at all.
“Though it has problems, innumerable urges, conflicts, ambitions, if—through self-knowledge, through watching itself without acceptance and condemnation—the mind is choicelessly aware of its own process, then out of that awareness there comes an astonishing silence, a quietness of the mind in which there is no movement of any kind.”
Without expecting any results and without being judgy, I’ve been gradually increasing a practice (we’re talkin’ real tiny baby steps, here) of watching my mind as I’m listening; I’m just noticing the intercepting thoughts and feelings as they come up (though I can’t help smiling at some of the ridiculous commentary that arises).
So far, it looks like this: shortly after I begin I lose my awareness and concentration takes over and then I realize that I’m identifying with the thoughts and feelings again— I have to reset often…but so what? (shoulder shrug).
I’m trusting this process because I’ve tasted what feels like soft vast spaciousness in my creative practice— what I could describe as deep listening and liberation.
Have you ever had a stretch of time when you didn’t really care about anything in particular? I don’t mean feeling despondent or ‘checked-out.’ I’m referring to when you may have been calmly experiencing something (or nothing in particular), forgot about everything including yourself and perhaps felt an incredible lightness of being. For me, that forgetting of the self seems to be when my mind stops moving.
Maybe this is what Krishnamurti is referring to when he says, “…the mind is free because it is no longer desiring anything; it is no longer seeking; it is no longer pursuing a goal, an ideal—which are all the projections of a conditioned mind. And if you ever come to that understanding, in which there can be no self-deception, then you will find that there is possibility of the coming into being of that extraordinary thing called creativity.”
It’s really damn tricky not to reach for this stillness, though! I’ve realized that it’s far easier to abandon the movement of my mind when I’m creating alone than when I’m directly engaging with other people and their minds.
The enormous patience required for this deep listening could be why the mind says, don’t bother… but without it we’ll probably continue to repeat history—individually and collectively.
If any of you are sincerely considering this—Good luck!
^^Wishing everyone a blessed Equinox season!^^
Keep the beat,
~Corrie
P.S. I feel like someone or something terrorized these pumpkins:
