Listening Without Understanding

Kyohei Mikawa

Cat wondering: "What is really happening in you when you listen to someone's emotion?"

Offering fully and gently one's attention to someone's speech through listening to their emotion and thoughts is a Buddhist practice of "generosity" (a selfless act of helping other people to be free from suffering). This generosity practice can be undertaken in our everyday conversation and can create good habit that does not make us jump on things on impulse.

Here is a conversation between a member of Rissho Kosei-kai and a minister of her dharma center. This member, Maria, who was a former head chapter-leader of her dharma center spoke about her feelings two weeks prior to her passing from a progressive disease at her bedside in front of a minister who was holding her hands and gives a silent prayer for her. Maria was in her 80s. After the prayer as she silently continued to hold her hands, Maria started to speak to the minister:

            Maria: Reverend, I am in pain. I can say this to nobody else.

            Minister: Where in your body feels painful?

As soon as the minister heard this, she gently leaned on her bedside and benignly looked into the pupil of Maria’s right eye, without thinking of anything but silently waiting for her to speak further.

Maria: No, pain is in my mind. I am hurt because my son and my grandson are often in a fight and yell at each other. My son was divorced a couple of years ago, and my grandson who is his biological son is furious about the divorce, leading him to request a lot of compensation from his own father. They argue against each other, and things only get worse. It is so painful to see that. I cannot bear with it. Not only that, I am useless for them with my current health. The only regret I have before my passing is that I won’t be able to see how it gets resolved in the future.

Minister: (She speaks no words.)

The minister slowly backchannelled in a way that attempts to align with the pace of Maria’s mind and kept silence, with her eyes still looking into the pupil of Maria’s right eye.

Maria: (Paused for 10-12 seconds, moving her eyes away from the minister’s eyes, seemingly thinking about something. Then she spoke.)

Maria: Ahhhhh. Thank you so much. The heavy feelings I was withholding in my chest for a long time is almost gone now. I am so glad that I was able to speak about this. Thank you for listening.

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Introducing the feedback of the minister who afterwards shared the following about what happened:

“I am glad that she spoke about her feelings to me before ending her journey of this lifetime. I recognized some changes in her before and after she spoke. When she said ‘Ahhhhh’ it felt to me as if the toxic pressure she used to withhold was finally released out of her, restoring a balance in her mind. But I don’t know what exactly happened to her because what I could do is only to recognize these signs without understading the nature of her experience in that moment.

[…] This conversation was eye-opening to me. Over the last several years, as a part of my Buddhist practice to become a better hoza facilitator, I focused on how I become someone who listens to people’s feelings. Understanding feelings of the other had been my long time aspiration for how to hold a hozaic space for people who speak about their feelings, and I always believed that a true act of listening always must be rooted in understanding a speaker’s feelings. However, my conversation with Maria made me question about my belief: what if someone who speaks about one’s feelings is liberated by virtue of speaking honestly about them without having a feeling of being understood?

Retrospectively speaking, it looked to me that Maria’s relief of mind clearly did not come from my understanding of her feelings because I did not understand how much painful it may feel like while I was inviting myself to imagine the pain as I listened to her. I did not show my understanding to her. She had no clue whether I understood her feelings. But what clearly happened was that I was there as her silent witness as she spoke about her feelings. This made me want to explore the meaning of being present for someone who speaks of their innermost feelings.

When a speaker feels like open up to a listener whose presence gives a full attention to the speaker, the speaker feels the worthiness of their own being facilitated by the listener’s serious and sincere presence, the speaker feels an enhanced sense of dignity of their own—the listener’s reverence toward the speaker grows the reverence in the mind of a speaker. This is the essential condition that a listener can embody for contributing toward the liberation from suffering for speakers.”

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Class questions: What changes do you recognize that happened to Maria’s feelings between before and after she spoke about her feelings? What do you think contributed toward facilitating these changes in her feelings?