I am indebted to Elaine Durbach who inspired this conversation.
Ordinarily when you and I are together in the world, you're over there
and I'm over here.
Except when I listen you. When I listen you, you're over there and I'm
over there.
Wait! Say whut? Isn't that a typo? No, isn't
that two typos? Shouldn't that be "when I listen
to
you, you're over there and I'm over
here"
rather than "when I
listen you,
you're over there and I'm over
there"?
The grammatically syntactically correct way to refer to
listening, the way my school marms taught me, is to say
something like "I listen to you", "you listen
to me".
The trouble with saying it this way is when I listen
to
you, you're over there and I'm over
here,
and that's not listening. It may be hearing (when I
hear you, you're over there and I'm over here) but it's not
listening (when I listen you, you're over
there and I'm over there).
Oftentimes English grammar and syntax isn't up to the task of
communicating experience. There's nothing bad or wrong about that. It's
just not up to the task of communicating experience, and it's not up to
the task of communicating the experience of listening. Language,
however, evolves over time. With the advent of internet search engines,
for example, the verb "google" is now included in the Oxford English
Dictionary. In all likelihood, with the advent of transformation, the
Oxford English Dictionary will include both distinctions "listening
to you" (a synonym for hearing you) and "listening
you" (recreating your experience).
You're speaking. I get out of your way. I open to allow you to fill
me up. You fill every single cubic micrometer of my awareness so
there's only you present for me. I'm no longer here in
my experience. For me all there is is you. My entire being
expands to include you. Then I become you as edges blur
and melt. There's only you. There's no more me looking at you
speaking in front of me. There's only you speaking. My listening
is empty awareness, a context for who you're being, which
you've occupied and taken over entirely. In my purest listening you,
I've become you. There's no more you and I. In I, there's only
you. There's onlyyou.
As I listen you this way, something else unspoken shows up along with
what you're speaking. What shows up is what's behind what
you're speaking. I hear what you're speaking, your concerns, only
secondarily. Primarily I listen what's behind what you're speaking, the
background of your concerns. I hear you speaking your
concerns. But I'm listening the background of your
concerns, the background you're not speaking.
When it's appropriate, when it's my turn to speak, I recreate ie I give
you back the background of your concerns, the background I've listened,
the background you've not spoken. I don't give my opinion about your
concerns. If I did, I'd keep you trapped in your concerns. In any case
I'm not here so there's no opinion giver. I recreate what
shows up listening the background of your concerns as what
runs you. What runs you is the background of your
concerns. It's not your concerns which run you. It's the
background of your concerns which runs you. You're not run
by your concern about the ailing economy. You're run by the background
of your concern about the ailing economy, which is: in the ailing
economy, you won't make enough
money
to impress your
parents
parents and earn their love and respect.
Something magical happens. As I listen the background of your concerns,
the background you're not speaking but which I listen anyway, there's
only love. Total love. In the space of total love, the background of
your concerns starts to break up and disappear. Nothing was fixed.
Nothing was changed. Nothing was explained. Nothing was understood
(even if it were, "understanding is the booby prize" says
Werner). Yet in the space of listening, the background of your
concerns starts to break up and disappear. As the background of your
concerns starts to break up and disappear, your concerns start to break
up and disappear.
If I hear you (you over there and me over here), you'd
have your concerns heard, you'd have your strategy for survival in
place and entrenched, you'd have empathy as a balm, or
agreement buttressing you being right, and you'd
continue doing whatever it was you were doing. Your work would be cut
out for you. It would be
business as usual.
If I listen you (you over there and me over there), you'd
have a breakthrough in the background of your concerns.
The background of your concerns would be listened, gotten,
recreated and would start to break up and disappear. Your
concerns would start to break up and disappear - in all likelihood
in spite of your concerns.
When I hear you, you're left with your concerns, and
me. When I listen you, you're left with a breakthrough
in your relationship with your concerns, and you.