speech from the heart - mindful listening

 

 

 

If one is to do good,
it must be done in the minute particulars.
General good is the plea of the hypocrite,
the scoundrel and the flatterer.

 

~ William Blake


Pay attention when you speak the rest of the time, the best you're able, 

and listen to your heart. See if you can begin practicing 

letting your words come from your heart.

 

 A good clue for this is if you're in a conversation that lasts more than five minutes, 

so you've been talking for awhile, pause, or wake up for a second

 in the middle of it, and ask inside, "Now, what does my heart really want to say?" 

You're having this conversation. "What's in there that really wants to be said?

 Maybe I won't see this person ever again. What do I really want to say?" 

That can begin to empower your speech, to transform it 

from automatic pilot to the place where you start to wake up.

 It's fantastic. It's really wonderful to work with.


Most of us value integrity. It really lights up the heart

 to think about living in a way that comes from inside, 

where our actions, our words, and our inner being are connected. 

It's very precious. In the Buddhist tradition they're given as training precepts,

 training precepts which we practice. It's not some God -- given law that we must follow,

 but precepts which we begin to practice -- 

to begin to learn to live our life from our hearts, 

to live our life, as I said, with an uprightness of heart.

 


Only when the inner dialogue stops

 can the hidden parts of ourselves be seen and revealed.

~ Carlos Castenada 

as Don Juan

 

 

What we call the beginning is often the end,
and to make an end is a beginning,
To make a beginning.
the end is where we start from
and every phrase and sentence that is right,
where every word is at home,
taking its place to support the others,
the word neither dissident nor ostentatious.
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
the common word exact with vulgarity,
the formal word precise but not pedantic,
the complete consort dancing together.

When every phrase and every sentence
is an end and a beginning,
every poem an epitaph,
and any action is a step to the block,
to the fire, down the sea's throat,
or to an illegible stone,
that's where we start.
We die with the dying.
See them depart and we go with them,
and we are born with the dead.
See, they're returned and bring us with them.


~ T.S. Eliot
from Four Quartets

 

 

The Buddha outlined a practice for staying mindful

 of how another person is addressing us, without getting caught up in our own reactivity, 

remaining compassionate for their welfare, with a mind of lovingkindness.

... there are five courses of speech that others may

use when they address you: their speech may be timely or

untimely, true or untrue, gentle or harsh, connected with

good or with harm, spoken with a mind of lovingkindness

or with inner hate....

 

you should train yourselves thus:

Our minds will remain unaffected, and we shall utter no

evil words; we shall abide compassionate for their welfare,

with a mind of lovingkindness...

 

 ~ Buddha

~ Joseph Goldstein

excerpts taken from various talks