Quotes About Listening

When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.

I am determined to practice deep listening. I am determined to practice loving speech.

In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.

If you do not know how to take care of yourself, and the violence in you, then you will not be able to take care of others. You must have love and patience before you can truly listen to your partner or child. If you are irritated you cannot listen. You have to know how to breath mindfully, embrace your irritation and transform it. Offer ONLY understand and compassion to your partner or child - This is the true practice of love.

You listen not for the purpose of judging, criticizing or analyzing. You listen only to help the other person to express himself and find some relief from his suffering.

The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk.

When we observe or listen to other people, we often don't see them clearly or really hear what they're saying. We see and hear our projections and prejudices instead.

If we want to reconcile with our family or with friends who have hurt us, we have to take care of ourselves first. If we're not capable of listening to ourselves, how can we listen to another person? If we don't know how to recognise our own suffering, it won't be possible to bring peace and harmony into our relationships.

When we cannot communicate, we suffer, and we spill our suffering on to other people. We can find ways to open the doors of communication again.

The greatest gift we can offer anyone is our true presence.

The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk. You have an opportunity to practice deep, compassionate listening. If you can listen to the other person with compassion, your listening is like a salve for her wound. In the practice of compassionate listening, you listen with only one purpose, which is to give the other person the chance to speak out and to suffer less.

If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing will take place.

The basic condition for us to be able to hear the call of beauty and respond to it is silence.

You may learn that your partner has many wrong perceptions about you and about the situation, but try not to interrupt. Let her speak. Let her have a chance to speak out everything in her so she can feel listened to and understood. As your partner speaks, continue to breathe mindfully. Later on you may find a way to undo her misunderstanding, little by little in a very skillful, loving way, and mutual understanding will grow.

When we look deeply and honestly at our own suffering, energies, and views, we find a peace that comes from being comfortable in our own bodies. But our true home is not only inside us. Once we have become comfortable in ourselves, then we can begin listening deeply to the suffering of our loved ones, and begin understanding their experiences and views. Then we can become a true home for each other.

In Buddhism we talk about a bodhisattva called Avalokiteshvara, the one who has the ability to listen and to understand the suffering of others. If we evoke his name, it is in order to learn to listen.

When we hear a Dharma talk or study a sutra, our only job is to remain open. Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing. If we read or listen with an open mind and an open heart, the rain of the Dharma will penetrate the soil of our consciousness.

Cuando hacemos el esfuerzo de atender y escuchar la otra versión de la historia, nuestra comprensión aumenta, al tiempo que disminuye nuestra sensación de daño.

There's a radio playing in our head, Radio Station NST: Non-Stop Thinking. Our mind is filled with noise, and that's why we can't hear the call of life, the call of love. Our heart is calling us, but we don't hear. We don't have the time to listen to our heart.

When you listen deeply to someone who suffers, you step into a zone of fire. There is a fire of suffering, of anger burning in the person you are listening to.

If, in your mind, you think, "I wish this fellow would quit talking, so I could concentrate," you have already lost your mindfulness. But if you think, instead, "If he wishes to talk, I will answer, but I will continue in mindfulness, aware of the fact that we are walking along this path together, aware of what we say, I can continue to watch my breath as well.

You can choose what to focus on, and therefore what to be. You can choose to be your in-breath and out-breath. You can choose to listen with your whole being to the sound of the rain or the wind, and in some way to be one with the rain or the wind. Listening to sounds in this way can be very joyful. When you are in touch with these refreshing and healing elements, you are being, and not thinking.

Most of the time, our head is so full of thoughts that we have no space to listen to ourselves or anyone else.

Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart.