Right Listening | Ajahn Brahm | 8 June 2018

Are you listening to what the other person is saying, or are you listening to what you think the other person is saying? Ajahn Brahm teaches us how to listen with wisdom and compassion.

Some people are coming, some people are going,
changing their seats..

So for this evening’s talk, I know that many people
always ask for correct speech, right speech,

politically correct speech, but tonight I’m going
to talk about Right Listening, not speech.

But what you do with that speech, but anyway
I don’t know why people call it politically correct

speech, cause I have known many politicians and
I have heard some of their speeches, that something

is not something that I would like to emulate,
it’s not something which is inspiring.

So really politically correct
in other words correct by political standards

is usually not that fun, not that good.
I do remember some of the great political put downs,

what was it, I think one of the great ones was
Mr Keating who described another very small,

bald politician who was the leader of a party as
a shiver looking for a spine to go up. [laughter]

You remember that one? That’s really quite inventive.
Or poor old, not poor old, Mr Winston Churchill

who when he was fighting an election against this
fellow called Clement Attlee,

“So what do think of him?”,
“He’s a very humble man,” said Winston Churchill,

“but then he’s got much to be humble about.” [chuckles].
That’s a really great put down.

If that’s politically correct I don’t know why we
use even the word ‘politically correct’.

It should be something else, not just politically
correct but just humanly correct or

compassionately correct speech – CC.

But it’s not just the way we speak because sometimes
I’ve noticed that it’s actually wrong listening,

listening with a negative mind, with a fault-finding
mind, with a mind which sometimes doesn’t really

listen to what is truly being said.
That’s why tonight I want to talk about solving

the problem of misunderstandings, of hurt, offence,
of people not being able to communicate properly

together, not hearing each other.
That’s the word – not being heard.

Cause not being heard it means one has to speak a
little bit more articulately but also being able

to hear other people, hear another person’s pain,
difficulties and problems, so that any pain which

happens in the human discourse can actually be
overcome, let go of. I think a lot of times,

that people do say lovely things but they get
misunderstood, the instructions just do not get heard.

I do remember the occasion, anecdotal, but it was
when a nun, a Bhikkhuni, was being driven to the

airport, was not in this country, was in another
country, and her driver, she told her driver,

she gave directions “Go straight ahead at the
roundabout” and the driver had so much faith in

the nun, that that’s exactly what she did.
She didn’t veer to the left and go around the

roundabout, she was told to go straight ahead at
the roundabout so that’s what she did,

went straight ahead, over the hump in the middle,
to the other side [laughs].

So that’s why, I know that sometimes when I get a
driver, cause monks can’t drive themselves, and so

whenever I have a driver, I’d make sure I give the
correct directions. And so I say “straight ahead to

the lights”, I say “once they are red!”
No, that’s the wrong way around, you see. [laughter]

“Once they are green then you go straight ahead -
when there’s no traffic coming” but sometimes that’s

what people feel, they listen, they misunderstand.

Part of the time is because that our speech is
inaccurate, we mean one thing, we say another and

I was just looking at a few little stories mostly
jokes, a few minutes ago.

That reminded me of a story I haven’t told here,
I don’t think anyone has heard this.

There was an old, I think I saw this in
a Sri Lankan little book, a long time ago.

There was many years ago when, you know, people
would do trading, not buying things on Amazon,

where they had to have little caravans
going around one place to another,

and in this particular case, there was a merchant
and he was travelling on foot from one place to another.

And he was carrying 3 bags,
one was a bag of gold,

the other one was a bag of rice,
and the other one was a bag of salt.

This is all about Right Listening,
so listen carefully.

And as he was going, he came to a river,
there’d just been a storm and so the river was

a bit flooded and the current was going very fast.

He just started to wonder how he could cross
the swollen river carrying the three bags.

So he saw a very strong young man,
just similar to me [laughs],

sitting doing nothing and he
shouted out at him, he said

“If you carry me across, if you carry me across safely,
you can take whatever I want.”

So he said “Okay”.
So the strong man he just lifted the merchant

on his shoulders and carried him
safely across the stream.

When he got across the stream the young man said
“Okay...I want the gold. So give me the gold.”

And the merchant said “No, no, no. I said,
you should have been listening carefully,

you carry me safely across,
I’ll give you whatever I want..

So I want to give you the salt,
so you have to take that.”

“That’s unfair, I risked my life for you!”
said the young man. Said “No. That was the deal.”

And so being very upset, he took him to the
nearest village to see the headman.

And the headman said “Well that’s what he said -
whatever I want.” Not happy at all. So he said

“I want to go to the town.” They went to the town
and they saw a judge. And the judge said

“Well that’s what the deal was, he said he’d give
whatever I want, those were the words..”

So then they took him to the king. And of course,
all the kings in those days always had a wise minister.

I don’t know where those wise ministers have gone
these days, but they’re very hard to find...

And the wise minister said “Look, I can settle this.”
So the wise minister said in front of the king,

“Merchant, put your three bags down for a moment.
Now what did you say?” And the merchant said

“I promised if this gentleman would carry me
safely across I would give him one of these bags,

whichever one I want.”
And he asked the young man,

“Is that what he said?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s what he said, but, but,

I don’t think that’s what he meant!”

“Well that’s what he said so we have to settle
this case here and now.

So first of all, I will take one of the bags
as my fee for settling this case.”

So the minister took the bag of rice and he told
the merchant “You go off now and take one of the

bags and the other bag will be with the labourer.”
So the merchant started picking up the bag of gold.

And the minister said “Ah, is that the bag you want?
You told the labourer, I would give whichever bag

I want to the labourer, so that must be the bag of gold.
Give it to the labourer.” [laughs]

So that is why you must always be very
careful of what you say.

And also be very careful of what you hear,
otherwise there is always a lot of misunderstandings.

So anyway, the trouble is a lot of people think
they know how to speak. But how many of you really

know how to hear, how to listen? First of all,
if you’re in a bad mood, if you’ve just come home

from work and you’re very tired, if things haven’t
gone well for you today, then whenever you hear anything,

you’re always likely to interpret it in a bad way.
“Someone is having a go at me!”

“Someone is being upset at me!”,
“You got no right to say this!”

You always notice that if a person always adds and
interprets whatever they hear in a bad way.

For example, sometimes when you come home and,
especially if you are living with a doctor,

and you ask your husband who is not a doctor
“How are you feeling today?”

He said “Are you trying to get
more business out of me?”

Sometimes how do you listen?
Sometimes we add so much to what is being said.

If somebody comes up to us and praises us,
“Oh thank you so much for, for being you!

Thank you Mr President for looking after our
Buddhist Society for such a long time!”

And you’d think “What does he mean by that?
What does he want? Is he trying to butter me up for something?”

Because a lot of times we just misinterpret.
If we really have doubt, if we have some bad stuff

from the past, sometimes we always think
“what does he mean?” and we interpret it in a wrong way.

We have Wrong Hearing.
And a lot of times that happens with a lack of trust,

a lack of compassion, a lack of listening with a kind ear.
So we always say sometimes, we always should speak

with kindness, we should act with kindness,
but also that we should listen with kindness too.

In other words, what does this person really, really mean?

There was a story of a man, I heard this such a
long time ago, and he managed to get himself a

nice new red sports car. He’d worked so long and
so hard, saved lots of money, and now he had his

big red fast sports car. The trouble was that
driving it here in Perth meant that there were too

many speed cameras, too many cops, so he decided
to take it out into the bush.

So he’d take it out away from the metropolitan
area and he put his foot down and he started speeding.

He was enjoying every minute
of speeding until he passed,

noisy car, passed a farmer, and the farmer shouted

out to this wealthy person from
the city making all this noise,

speeding, and a place he really didn’t belong.

And he shouted out at this rich guy in his sports car
“PIG!”

And if you’re called a pig, what would you do?

The driver turned around
“Who are you calling a pig??”

At which point he hit a pig in the middle of the road.

Which is called wrong listening.

He thought, because he called him a pig,
well he was in a bad mood because he’s so arrogant,

and looking after himself and not worrying about
the neighbourhood, so he thought that they were

just abusing him. He didn’t realise the farmer was
actually being quite kind, trying to point out

there’s a pig in the middle of the road. “Pig!”
“Who are you calling a pig?” And he hit one.

So...poor old pig. But anyway, the point of the
story was that sometimes when people shout at us,

or they say something,
are we really hearing what they’re saying

or are we hearing what we think
they’re saying?

Have we really got Right Listening?
Or are we really just listening which

is already judging
before it even reaches our brain?

So this is one of the reasons why when you

learn how to listen much more wisely, not with
judgement but listening at the nice possibilities,

it’s amazing how you can turn this world.
Instead of being offended,

you can actually turn it to your advantage.

When I was in Melbourne I had to talk to some kids.
I was telling the kids some stories, and of course

one of the things which happens to people these days,
they get bullied at school.

Kids who are slightly different can get offended.
And so I remembered a story which went all around,

sort of the local area where Ajahn Chah used to live,
called Ubon, Ubon Ratchathani.

Cause even when I first went there, there was
just close, actually when I first went there,

there was still the US air force base,
just outside of Ubon, it’s now the, actually it’s

the international airport now in Ubon,
used to be the old US air force base.

But because it was the Vietnam war and there were
many soldiers and aircraft people, pilots, over in

that part of Thailand, there were, they would go
into town for food and for recreation and there was

the story of this one American soldier.

He was an Afro-American
and he got on a cycle rickshaw

to be taken from the base over into the town.
And so as he went in the cycle rickshaw,

just happily just enjoying the scenery,

the rickshaw driver just happened
to pass some of his friends.

Now rickshaw drivers, it’s usually very very hard work,
don’t get paid that much, and so maybe it’s because

of you know their difficult life that many of them
just manage to survive the day by drinking cheap whiskey.

He passed many of his friends who had been drinking
by the side of the road, and because they were

half drunk, they were quite offensive and they saw
this black African-American soldier in the back of

the taxi, and one of them shouted out very offensively
“where are you taking that dirty dog to?”

That’s really sort of bad, but this was about 35,
40 years ago, 44 years ago, when I first got there,

but this African-American soldier,
he wasn’t moved at all.

He was just looking at the scenery, just smiling,
just enjoying himself.

So the driver assumed that he could not understand

the local language because this was done in
Isan language, a dialect of Thai, Laotian mostly.

And so the driver decided to have some fun at
the soldier’s expense. And said

“See how dirty this African-American soldier is,
I’m going to take him into town and throw him in

the river for a good wash, hahahaha.”

So, the soldier being called a dog, being called dirty,
he was just looking at the scenery, smiling,

and when he got to the middle of town that is when
the soldier got out of the rickshaw

and walked away without paying.

At which point the rickshaw driver shouted out in the
best little English he’d learnt over those years,

he said, “Soldier! Fare! Pay money!”
At which point the soldier turned around and said

in perfect Thai Isan language,
“dogs don’t have money.” [laughter]

So that was used by Ajahn Chah by saying that
if someone does call you a dog,

it does mean you don’t have to pay. Yay!

So what that was, instead of allowing yourself
to get upset, the listening was “okay I can use this

to my advantage and also to teach that person the
effects of bad speech afterwards”.

It was actually learning actually how to listen
carefully instead of reacting with anger straightaway.

So when we learn how to use our ears carefully,
even compassionately, wisely, we find we can make

a very, very positive contribution to relationships.
But when we always listen pre-judging

“what does he mean by this”,
“what does she really want to say”,

“she’s just putting me down”,
“he is just having another go at me”,

that is where a lot of problems start from.

So for wise listening, whenever you listen to someone,
give them the benefit of the doubt.

One of the ways of doing that is always when you listen,
it’s like when you see something, they always say

that sometimes you see things
through rose-tinted glasses.

My glasses are not tinted rose.
Sometimes in the

bright light they go dark but that is not because
I’m trying to imitate Elvis Presley and be a cool monk,

it is just because those are the shades,
some of the lights, people gave me these,

and said maybe subject to cataracts later on,
but just to, what’s it called light-sensitive glasses

or whatever. Anyway there’s a word for it.
But anyway, so they change with the light.

Transition glasses, okay, very good, transition.
Transition means like impermanent, anicca,

very appropriate glasses for monks. [laughter]

It’s just like people ask me what airline do you
always travel on when you go to Melbourne?

It’s always Virgin airlines because Virgin is the
appropriate carrier for a monk. [laughter]

That’s what I thought anyway.

So anyway, when I was,
so there we are that sometimes instead of having

rose-tinted glasses, whatever you see, you see through
those rose-tinted glasses where everything looks

beautiful and wonderful. But instead of looking at
that with glasses, with ears, some people have

rose-tinted ears if you like. And some people have
black-tinted ears, or dark, they always hear what

is negative about people, never hear good news or
the good speech, never listen in a way which they

can accept “oh that’s wonderful,
the person is very kind.”

If you actually just notice it’s what you put between
things affects what you perceive.

If you put negativity between a relationship,

“this is what I expect”, this is a person in the office,
always a bully, he’s always trying to get at me,

always trying to really upset me and if you listen with,
you put that between you and another person, of course,

you’re going to hear and see sort-of negative stuff.
But if you put something more positive between you

and the people you live with,
then what you hear is something quite nice.

For example, just again, during the meditation
somebody started snoring.

I think you all heard that,
except one person [laughter],

and that was the person who was snoring.
But, was that pleasant or unpleasant?

Did you hear, did you listen and
Right Listening or Wrong Listening?

Because if it’s wrong listening –
“Why are they doing that?

They shouldn’t be doing that!
I could have been enlightened this evening

and they spoiled it all!”
You can listen like that or you can listen like –

“What a wonderful thing, the person was relaxing
and resting, they probably feel so much better now.”

There was a time, I said this a couple of weeks ago,
there was this lady, some years ago now,

she fell fast asleep here,
and somebody just nudged her,

woke her up, and I just,
“why did you do that for?”

She was a victim of domestic abuse, this place was
safe for her and because she felt safe here,

she managed to get her first sleep
probably in days, real sleep.

Sometimes we can hear snoring and we can just say –
“they shouldn’t snore here”

or we can have Right Listening and say

“oh they’re comfortable,
they’re having a good rest, wonderful.”

So you can see just what we hear is actually,
a lot of it is actually conditioned by what we think

should be heard, what shouldn’t be heard.

When it comes to even dogs barking,
“shut up dog!”

What do you mean? That’s what a dog does.
They bark. That’s their nature.

What do husbands do?
[inaudible, laughter]

They say “I will do it later.”
[laughter]

What do wives do?
Nag, nag, nag. [laughs]

I always remember this.
There was a man, and he said oh, his, his,

he had a job up north, for days and days
and days on end, a couple of weeks on,

three weeks or something, and he said
“Oh I’ll miss my wife when I go up. Ajahn Brahm,

can you give me some ideas of how I can cope
missing my wife, I’m very attached to her.”

I said “Yeah, very easy.”
This was a long time ago when they had these

cassette tape recorders.
I said “get out a cassette tape and just whenever

she’s angry, nagging at you, record it.
A nagging tape.

So that when you go up north somewhere,

and you miss her, just get the nagging tape out.”
[laughter]

It’s not just, it’s a balance thing,
it’s not just being negative.

But just a lot of times we hear
sometimes what we want to hear.

Which is one of the reasons why that sometimes,
I think, people are looking, you know,

they’re in a bad mood, you can understand maybe
why they’re in a bad mood,

but then sometimes they hear things
and they get very offended, very upset.

“That’s not what I meant.
My speech was okay but you had the wrong hearing.”

So I don’t know but there’s one way of hearing.
I still remember, I don’t know where they’ve gone to,

this couple, but I always thought they were
amazing couple, I often quote them.

An Australian man married to a Thai girl,
and I remember just talking to them,

and they’d been married for quite a long time,
he couldn’t speak a word of Thai,

and she couldn’t speak a word of English.
And they’re just so happy together. [laughter]

They didn’t have any trouble with right hearing
because they just couldn’t understand.

But it also brings up that point that
Right Hearing, it’s not just the words.

Don’t just listen with your ears.
This is why it’s really important to listen with

your eyes as well, because your eyes can say
a lot about what you mean.

And if you look at a person when you’re talking,
make that eye contact, a lot of times they can

get the feeling, a little twinkle in the eye,
that means you’re not really that serious.

If you really are angry, just you can see from the
body language, even the smells and the other things,

so actually real communication,
it’s not just with the ears.

Which is one of the reasons why when you’re
listening on the phone or you’re just Skyping,

sometimes you just miss too much.
Which is one of the reasons why to have real

Right Hearing, Right Histening,
it takes a lot of your senses.

Sometimes again, to have Right Listening
you have to actually be quiet inside,

because how many times especially you’ve
lived with someone a long time,

you’re trying to say something, explain something,
trying to be heard and the other person’s

not listening to you at all,
they’ve already started their counter-argument.

I know this is, because sometimes
when somebody speaks,

the other person interrupts you all the time,

“lalalalala”, which means they’re not listening at all,
they’re just waiting for their opportunity to argue.

The real listening, hehehe, real listening means
having a very peaceful quiet mind,

and you really let the other person say
what they need to say.

So actually you can actually take it in.
And you’re not just listening to the content,

not just the words they say because the words
they say is just not as important as how they feel.

And it’s from that that sometimes a person
“ra ra ra ra ra ra”,

and sometimes you think –
“you must have had a very hard day today.”

So you’re actually listening to where it’s
coming from, not just the words themselves.

Because everybody says stupid things sometimes,
they get the words the wrong way around

and sometimes they’re upset,
they’ve had a very hard day,

they’re very tired and sometimes they mean to say
one thing and it comes out another way,

and that’s happened to me many times.
When you just say the wrong word and you get

very in trouble afterwards.
I’m trying to think of one of the examples when

I've really made a big mess when I said the wrong word.
Because people just misunderstood.

Oh let’s have an example because I was actually
trying this little story out earlier

about people who don’t hear correctly.
The words they hear, but they don’t really

understand what the words really meant.
And that was the story of that man who went past

his kid’s bedroom one evening,
went past his kid’s bedroom,

his kid was actually praying by the side of the bed.
Really rare, and the kid was actually praying,

and what he was saying
‘God bless mommy, God bless daddy,

God bless grandma and goodbye grandpa.’
Which was weird, but anyway he didn’t

think twice about it, he went to bed.
But the following morning grandpa was dead.

He died in his sleep.
It was a bit spooky but he didn’t think again about it.

A couple of weeks later he passed his kid’s bedroom,
similar thing, the kid was praying by the bed

and said ‘God bless mommy, God bless daddy,
goodbye grandma.’

He thought, “weird.”
But you can imagine how he felt in the morning,

when grandma was also stone dead.
This was really freaky but he can’t do anything.

He can’t prove anything.
So, you know, a few days later,

after the funeral of grandma,
he was passing by his kid’s bedroom,

looked in the door and his heart almost froze
when he saw his little kid saying

‘God bless mommy, goodbye daddy.’ [laughter]
That’s really scary.

So he just went to bed but he couldn’t sleep at all,
so he wondered if he’s going to die tonight,

poured over what happened before,
he was really anxious,

if you think you’re anxious sometimes,
that’s real big anxiety.

“So, what can I do?”
He got up, his wife was fast asleep and he thought

‘what can I do to escape death, certain death?’
So he had this idea, you know, he dressed quickly

and he got in his car and he drove to his office
and he, he locked himself in the office, barricaded,

barricaded a desk against the office door
so no one could get in.

Anxiously he just counted every minute, just,
you know, still another minute, still alive.

The hours went past midnight, 1am, 2am, still alive,
“I’m managing to cheat the angel of death.”

And when the dawn came up he sighed
a sigh of relief, he’d escaped death.

He was, “phoa”, so relieved, a new day had come
and he was still alive.

And so then he did his work that day but he was
so exhausted, sort of did half his work,

and when he went home after the office, you know,
he saw his wife and gave her a big hug.

He said ‘I had a terrible day at work.’

And his wife said ‘You had a terrible day?!
When I got up I don’t know where you went to

this morning. When I got up in the morning,
just when I opened the door,

the postie was dead outside my door.’
[laughter]

“Goodbye daddy”

You see, he hadn’t listened carefully. [laughter]

I just roll that in because these are the only
things people remember after my talks.

Sometimes what people really mean to say and
sometimes what they do really say, we misunderstand.

And so I think it’s wonderful if you can
give more and more people,

how many times have you been misunderstood,
when you meant to say something nice,

something good, something kind,
and people just don’t get it?

And sometimes you really do need to talk to someone
and they’re not really hearing you because they are

too busy or they’re just prejudging,
they already think they know what you’re going to say.

One of the reasons that is,
that people just miss it all the time.

And those misunderstandings create a lot of problems.

One of the politicians, he was a fellow called
Dr Sanyatamasak [?],

he was a prime minister of Thailand for one year

and he was also a very devout Buddhist.
So I remember him coming up to Wat Pah Pong,

to see Ajahn Chah, and also to see the Western monks.
I remember talking to him and asked him what it’s

like to be a politician,
like a very big politician, like a Prime Minister.

And he said that, an amazing thing what he said
which I’ll always remember,

he said there was never a problem I couldn’t solve
in politics by just going to see the adversary,

just the two of us, not any other people,
just one on one.

And he said he put his hand on his adversary’s knee,
which in Thai culture was just a symbol of friendship,

and then listened to what the problem was.

Listen.
I always took that on board because even

like in a monastery, big monastery now,
Bodhinyana Monastery, or a big Buddhist Society,

it’s just amazing just how far we’ve grown.

And there’s always going to be some arguments,
differences of opinion.

Something which I know is as long as
you are heard, and you really are heard.

One of the worst things is if you have,
you know, a point of view,

if people dismiss you,
“oh you’re just a junior monk, what do you know,

you’ve got no experience,
I’m the expert, you’re hopeless.”

What does it actually feel like when
you’re not even heard, you’re not respected?

And having been there and experienced things
like that as a young monk,

that it’s really important that
when somebody has a different idea,

a different opinion than you, you stop,
you empty your mind, be peaceful and listen to them.

And even if what they say, you know,
doesn’t make any sense,

even if you disagree with it,
at least you listen.

But if you really do that honestly,
you listen to what another person says,

a lot of times you get some more information,
maybe you can adjust your point of view,

change a little bit.
But even if you totally disagree with them,

if they’re really just off the planet
in what they’re saying,

at least you’re listening to them
and you’re hearing them.

And that makes a lot of difference.

You know that the talk which I gave here
last week about “Buddhism and Cats.”

Every now and again I really like some weird subjects,
because Ajahn Sujato had been here,

I think it was him,
and he talked about aliens or other worlds,

and I decided to see if I could up the ante
and have alien abductions.

And I gave a talk because it wasn’t really sort-of
you know just being weird,

it was an example that sometimes people say
these things, you don’t even hear them.

You don’t even hear what they’re trying to tell us.
You judge straightaway –

“you must be crazy, you must be mad.”

But then you don’t even judge, you listen,
you listen very carefully.

It’s amazing when you respect people’s
different points of view,

different experiences which were
totally outside my experience.

You listen to them,
it’s amazing just how you get respect and

how you get communication
and how people feel so much better.

And who knows, I haven’t been abducted yet,
maybe I was, and brainwashed not to remember it.

Who knows.. [chuckles]

Sometimes I look at some of my fellow monks
or some of you, “oh yeaaa.” [laughter]

There’s some people I wish would be abducted
[laughter]

if anyone has a number I can call.
[laughs]

No but that’s demeaning because some people,
you know, they really feel they have,

I don’t know, maybe it’s true.

But at least I listen and respect which is
important because the Right Listening is actually

opening your mind to something which is
different, something which challenges,

something which don’t ridicule a person,
cause what they’re feeling might be true.

So a lot of times I saw that first of all in science,
people ridiculed, people who were breaking

new ground in science, or in medicine.
I remember reading this story about this doctor,

I think it was over in, could be the Czech Republic
or...around eastern Europe,

and he decided that so many people
were dying in hospitals of infections,

and that you should wash your hands
before you did an operation.

He was one of the first person who started hygiene.
And he was laughed at, he was an “idiot.”

“There are no such things as germs” and of course
later on he was proved to be such a saviour,

but I think he was even hounded out of the
hospital where he worked because they didn’t

understand him at that time.
Simple things.

How many times in science could people get
laughed at and ridiculed, they’re not really heard.

I think it’s really important, in science,
in relationships, in our world, we do listen to people.

And of course in monasteries,
when we have a meeting, or in a committee,

I think it really is important to
let a person be heard, quietly,

respectfully, without interruption,
until they’ve had what they need to say,

let other people hear,
which means a lot of times even if I haven’t been,

they haven’t appreciated my
ineffable wisdom [chuckles],

at least you’ve been heard.
And that makes you feel so much better.

Your views, your ideas,
your experience has been respected.

A lot of times that people go out from a meeting
or a conversation simply because when they feel

bad because they haven’t even been respected
enough for their ideas and opinions to be taken seriously.

And that’s one of the worst pains to experience.

So what is really nice if we have at least the
Right Listening, compassion, for the other person.

You listen to them, to hear them, respectfully,
instead of just, you know, just pushing them aside,

“that’s an idiot”
“that’s stupid.”

And where was it, I think Finland,
I saw an article on mental health about how the

system was dealing with schizophrenia
in an innovative way.

For the schizophrenia I think they described
a person who was suffering from schizophrenia,

was describing it by seeing a decapitated head
rolling in front of you and that’s

more real than anything else.
In other words what we would say is crazy,

can’t happen, it’s illogical, it’s irrational,
but for the person experiencing that state,

that was more real than anything else.
And in this therapy they were trying out,

with really good results,
they weren’t demeaning what we would call fantasies,

what we would call delusions,
they were actually respecting that person’s

description of their reality.
For a lot of us, many people think that’s crazy

but no, respect.
And when they respected that person’s

perception of their reality,
because they weren’t demeaned,

they were not thought there was something
terribly wrong with them, they opened up, relaxed,

and became far more peaceful.

It was another of those examples of the
anger-eating monster –

“get out of here, you don’t belong,
you don’t exist” - it gets worse.

A little bit of acknowledgement of difference,
something which is beyond my comfort zone,

beyond my experience, acknowledge that, listen,
respect their perception of reality

and then a sense of harmony comes.

If you say “you’re crazy, you’re wrong”,
what does that feel like?

People have said that to you?
You get defensive, more isolated,

which means that you’ve missed
the opportunity of Right Listening,

and from that Right Listening, Right Hearing.

There can be a lot of harmony, healing and peace
in our communities.

So it’s important to listen. Listen respectfully.
Don’t prejudge between you and what you’re hearing.

Put a bit of good qualities and kindness and respect,
some love, some even no-conceit,

not thinking “I’m right and they’re wrong,
or I’m wrong and they’re right”,

either way it just bends what you’re hearing
and that way, who knows,

we can have a bit more harmony
and peace and progress.

Imagine if we have Right Hearing...in Parliament?

Instead of Right Speech, politically correct listening.
That will be something.

So that’s the talk for this evening. Ta da da.

All: Sadhu! Sadhu! Saaaadhuuu!

Very good.
So any comments, questions, or complaints?

I’ve got nothing against postmen, or postwomen,
or posties, that was just a joke, that’s all, [chuckles].

Okey dokey, here we go. Very good.
So, we’ve got two questions here.

From Poland: “I thought someone was my friend
but they told me they don’t consider me as one.

I misunderstood them and now feel rejected.
How should I cope with this and understand people better?”

Again that sometimes we are listening or hearing
or seeing what we want to see,

so we’re putting something, our demands, our wants,
in front of us, so we’re not being truthful.

When they say they don’t consider me as one,
as a friend, you misunderstood and now you feel rejected,

ah, it’s always if that person is like that,
they don’t consider you as their friend,

you don’t sort-of get on together,
there’s so many other people you can find friends with,

and even if you don’t find friends, it’s wonderful,
you can actually have a nice peaceful life,

become a monk or a nun, then you feel
so much wonderful, just being alone!

Sometimes I get into big trouble,
that people don’t leave me alone.

I go over to Melbourne and people recognise me,
and again just the same old, same old,

and you can’t get time to go to the toilet because
people want to talk to you or take photographs again..

So anyway, if that person is not your friend,
don’t feel rejected, feel liberated.

You know that’s one of the things when I went
to do the ordinations of nuns, the Bhikkhunis,

and I got kicked out of Wat Pah Pong,
and I thought, “Was I rejected? Was I expelled?”

I said, “No, let's use a different word”.
You were “Liberated”.

Man from audience: Sadhu!

Ajahn: [laughs] Thank you.
So “Liberated”.

So just depends the word you mean.
You call it “rejected”, no,

don’t call it “rejected”, call it “liberated”.

So anyway, “...cope with this and
understand people better” -

understand yourself first of all, obviously.
So to understand oneself, to be a friend to oneself,

that is the most important.

So if you have a good relationship with yourself,
you’re kind to yourself,

you know what you always do if anyone feels rejected?
Stand in front of the mirror in the morning,

ten push-ups, one, two, three, four
[Ajahn pushes up corners of his mouth] [laughter].

Give yourself a nice hug in the morning if
no one else will [Ajahn hugs himself].

It’s very difficult,
especially for monks to hug anyone,

because sometimes, you know what happened
with Catholic priests, sexual abuse or whatever,

people get the wrong idea,
so at least I don’t get the wrong idea when

I hug myself [laughter].
And I don’t catch any diseases,

it’s really nice and simple,
you don’t get a letter from a lawyer.

So it’s very nice,
so it’s very nice,

so give yourself a nice hug and it’s really nice.
And then if you learn how to love yourself,

to be kind to yourself,
happy with your own company,

then you know how to be kind to others.

So learn it on yourself first of all.

If you’re a friend to yourself,
it’s easy to have a friend with others.

“If someone is talking to you about their problems,
how can you know the best question

to ask to help open them up?”

Oh don’t help open them up, that’s their…
their job, their duty, their responsibility.

If they’re talking to you about their problems,
the best thing to do is always just to

make them feel safe, let them be heard,
and that they won’t be compromised.

So the way to do that is just to be kind and then
little by little they will open themselves

up more and more and more.

So about their problems,
a lot of times people know this,

a lot of times they come and talk to a monk,
or to a nun, or come and talk to you,

you don’t have to give answers.
Sometimes there are no answers.

All you need to do is to be there to listen.

Because that listening, that really listening,
they’re talking to you but they’re also,

when they’re opening up at their own time,
in their own way, and you don’t help them,

you just allow them,
let the space happen that they can open up,

then they’re also listening to themselves as well.

So when they’re talking to you,
they’re also listening to what they’re saying,

and in a safe space,
non-judgemental,

just feeling they’re safe and cared for,
and little by little they’ll open up more and more,

and you don’t need to give answers,
a lot of time those answers they can see for themselves.

You’re just there to be the listener,
non-judgemental,

so they can understand
and feel at peace with themselves.

And lastly from Scotland,
“Is Right Listening or Right Speech more important?”

They all go together.

So Right Speech is important but also
Right Listening sometimes it’s neglected.

So learn how to speak carefully
and kindly and precisely.

You know that sometimes with the best will
in the world we make mistakes,

we don’t give the full picture of what we mean,
we misunderstood.

So Right Speech will never be perfect speech.
Right Speech will always depend upon

Right Listening as well,
and especially if you’re having a

relationship with somebody,
or working in an office or something,

so remember the Right Speech can never be perfect,
you need Right Listening to help Right Speech.

You need Right Speech to help Right Listening.
The two work together but the point was,

meaning of my whole talk,
that sometimes we focus too much on the speech,

and sometimes we need to balance that
with the Right Listening.

So have both of those together and you can
have a very peaceful, happy, harmonious, time.

Okay, any other comments, questions, complaints?

Great, because I’m not going to
listen to them anymore [laughter].

Right Listening has its use-by time and it’s 9pm
so that’s enough for my Right Speech,

too much speech,
and for your Right Listening.

I hope it went well.

So let’s now bow to Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha,
and then we can have a break.

[Chanting]
Arahan samma-sambuddho bhagava

Buddham bhagavantam abhivademi

Svakkhato bhagavata dhammo
Dhammam namassami.

Supatipanno bhagavato savakasangho
Sangham namami.

Very good