Listening

[Guest guest]

Here is a bit from Jean Klein that I came across -

 

"Listening is our basic nature. We are more or less accustomed to listening

to an object, to our surroundings and to our nearest environment: body,

senses and mind. But I speak today of this listening where there is nothing

to listen to.

 

You can never think this listening, you can never objectify it, you can

never fix it; and in listening, there's not a listener, there's no place for

a listener, for a controller, for a doer, for a sufferer. Listening is free

from all furniture, from all memory. It is a non-state. In a state you go

in and out; listening is a continuum. When you are listening to your body,

senses and mind, then your listening is completely open; there's no

grasping, no taking. The perceived comes directly to your openness.

 

One can say that the object heard brings you back to your homeground, to

listening. When the perception is sustained so that the concept doesn't

arise, then the perceived brings you back to your listening. Listening in

the beginning may be understood as a brain function, but it does not belong

to a specific organ, an ear. So when the listening is sustained, then it

becomes awareness, lucidity. Listening is constant meditation, without a

meditator or object of meditation."