http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2003/summer/packer.html
3 Talks by Toni Packer
Toni Packer is author of The Wonder of Presence
(Shambhala) and is resident teacher of Springwater Center, in
Springwater, New York.
Before inquiring into a new way of listening, let me just share
the joy of walking through the fields and woods on this
extraordinary land. Just stepping out of the reception area,
closing the door behind me, walking away from the overhang that
shields one from the sun and rain, there isn't any enclosure
left—not even a body! All I am is the birds singing and fluttering,
bare branches swaying in the breeze, the ground partly frozen yet
melting, the pond covered with a thin layer of ice, and the blue
hills, sky and wandering clouds within close reach. There is also a
throbbing heart and the people walking on the path. Even those who
are not here—aren't we all together this one moment—beholding
everything out of stillness?
It is the stillness of not being identified with me—the
endless stories of the past and the various images that have
represented me to myself and others. Identification with
me is a living prison. In it we constantly want to be
accepted, feel important, be listened to, be encouraged, supported
and comforted in this separate life of ours. But now, here, in the
fresh air under the open sky there is the freedom of not needing
anything, not needing to be anything—just being this open
listening space where people walk, crows caw and ice cracks
underfoot.
Why do I feel that listening is so immensely important in living
alone or together? It is because listening quietly, passionately,
now, without expectation or effort, is the gateway to living in
wholeness, without the separation of you and
me.
This is our main question: Can we listen in a deep way in a
moment of silence and stillness? Or is the mind preoccupied with
the 10,000 worries of this world, of our life, of our family? Can
we realize right now that a mind that is occupied with itself
cannot listen freely? This is not said in judgment—it is a fact.
It's impossible for me to hear someone else while I'm worrying
about myself. Birdcalls and the songs of the breeze do not exist
when the mind is full of itself. This is within the experience of
all of us. So, can the mind put its problems aside for one moment
and listen freshly? This moment! Are we listening together? The caw
of the crows, the quiet hum of a plane, a dog's barking, or
whatever sounds are alive where you are listening right now.
It is relatively easy to listen happily in nature—the leaves,
grasses, flowers, trees, lakes and hills do not think and worry
like we do, and therefore do not provoke thinking. Maybe for deer
and birds there is some rudimentary thinking going on but that need
not engage us in thought (unless we are avid birdwatchers or we
worry about the plight of too many deer and too many hunters next
season). Thought can make a problem out of everything, but most of
us find the beauty of unselfconscious listening much easier to come
upon in nature than among people.
Why is it so inordinately difficult to listen to each other?
When I am present with the abundant energy of listening, I do not
find it difficult to hear what you are saying. Instead of being
busy with self-concern, the space is open to hearing, seeing, and
understanding the meaning of your words. If I don't understand,
then there is the freedom to ask you for clarification.
Without this open space of presence—energy, the inner tapes of
human conditioning press hard to be heard—they do not want to make
way for listening to others. How can I possibly hear you when I am
dying to say something myself? How can I take the time and care to
understand you when I think that I am right and you are wrong? When
I'm sure that I know better? When I sorely need attention and
resent anyone else getting it?
Can I hear you when I have fixed images about how you have been
in the past, how you have criticized or flattered me? Can I listen
freely when I would like you to be different from the way you are?
Do I have the patience to listen to you when I think I already know
what you are going to say? Am I open to listening to you when I am
judging you? Judgments and prejudices lie deeply hidden in the
recesses of the mind and require curiosity and inner transparency
in order to be discovered. Only what is discovered can end.
Do I really hear what you are saying when I take you to be holy,
to be worshipped, adored and surrendered to? Will I expect every
word you say to be infallible wisdom? Or the opposite: Can I hear
what you are saying when I am convinced that you are stupid? Am I
listening to you in the same way that I listen to someone else?
We can add more and more to this list, but the important thing
is to start fundamentally questioning our listening. The point is
not to ask, "How can I achieve pure listening?" but rather, "Where
is my listening coming from this moment, in light of all these
questions?" Is it hampered by different ideas and attitudes or does
it arise from a moment of being truly present?
Many of us sincerely desire to become better listeners and may
think that it will only happen once we are free of the me
sometime in the future. This is an erroneous assumption. Even
though the me circuit is deeply ingrained within brain and
body, a genuine desire and interest to understand you
allows energy to gather in listening attentively to what you are
saying. This attentive listening may empty out the preoccupation
with myself. Through listening to your words and truly wishing to
understand what you mean to convey, I enter you—your question, your
condition, the whole you.
When I'm not really interested in what you are saying, can I
pause and listen within? Can I take a glance at what is going on
inside? Is it resistance? Boredom? The passing by of words that are
not really heard? When there is clear seeing, that in itself is a
shift.
Listening purifies itself. It's not that there is necessarily a
new interest in what you are saying. I may prefer to dialogue
deeply while you want to relate your story or get my attention.
When listening comes out of wholeness, an appropriate response
happens. That is the wisdom of listening.
Sometimes, when I'm talking in a meeting and a flock of crows
flies by—caw, caw, caw, caw, caw—I raise my hand a bit and
ask: "Do you hear that?" The person may shake her head—the
listening space was filled up with other things. Are we here right
now?
When you hear that question, what happens? Is it simply caw,
caw, caw, or are you thinking, "Am I doing it right?" or,
"What does she want me to say?" Hear those thoughts like you hear
the wind in the trees. It's the same listening. It's different
things—the sound of wind and trees and birds is different from the
sound of thoughts—but it's the same listening. One whole
listening!
For marvelous unknown reasons, once in a while we are completely
here. For a moment we hear, see and feel all one. Then the mind
comes in to explain it, know it, compare it and store it. This is
not an intentional process—it's habit. No one is doing it. The
naming, liking and disliking, wanting to keep something and fearing
the loss of it—these are all ingrained mind processes rolling off
on their own. If we get a glimpse of that, get a feel for what is
purely habitual, then we will be much more tolerant and patient
with the so-called others and with ourselves.
When I talk about listening, I don't mean just listening with
the ear. Listening here includes the totality of
perception—all senses open and alive, and still much more than
that. The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind are receptive,
open, not controlled. A Zen saying describes it as "hearing with
one's eyes and seeing with one's ears." It refers to this wholeness
of perception. The wholeness of being!
Another Zen saying demands: "Hear the bell before it rings!" Ah,
it doesn't make any sense rationally, does it? But there is a
moment when that bell is ringing before you know it! You may never
know it! Your entire being is ringing! There's no division in
that—everything is ringing.
So can we learn more and more about ourselves, not by studying
in order to increase our store of information, but through asking
in wonderment what keeps us from hearing the bell before it
rings?
This moment of being here, what does it mean? It means not
resisting whatever is here: anxiety, discomfort, pain or
disturbance. That's much easier said than done. By not
resisting I mean resistance melting away in the awareness of
being here—not giving way to fantasy, rather seeing fantasy as
fantasy, as a veil hiding what is here in utter simplicity. To see
that! That's not just saying, "Okay, all of this is just thoughts
and fantasy." This is more thinking and it doesn't help, as we all
have found out. It may even arouse anger because things have not
changed in spite of all this work of being with them.
Have you ever experienced the difference between saying, "This
is all thought," and directly seeing the appearance of
thoughts and their effects on the body? Please hold it for a
moment; don't just say "yes" or "no" and go on reading without
stopping for a moment and wondering. Sitting quietly with energy
gathering can be of immense help in detecting what is thought and
what isn't. It allows one to experience directly how a thought
generates emotion—pleasure or pain, sorrow or fear, and the
credence given to it all—without acting on it. We assume that
thinking tells us the truth about ourselves and the world. In
thinking without seeing, everything seems so real, so true; there's
no space here for questioning. Can there be seeing without
thinking?
Wondering comes out of a moment of not going anywhere in
thought, a moment of stopping—taking a deep breath and exhaling. It
is a moment of not knowing where to go, because there is no place
to go. It's realizing that all of the places thought can go to are
fantasy. In our daily predicament of pain, of work fatigue or
boredom, there seems to be incessant thought activity, with its
restlessness, dissatisfaction, lack of fulfillment and searching
for something different. There is the strong desire to alleviate
what we don't like, to get rid of it. Can there be momentary
freedom from our consuming restlessness? From thinking, "Where
could I go next to be free?"
People frequently ask me, "Why is my mind and life so terribly
restless?" I can't answer this for you. Of course I can give
answers, but we need to realize for ourselves that the nervous
impulse to search for explanations and relief, and the impatient
thrashing about to be free, is just more brain activity. Can there
be a humble moment of being here without knowing? Can we let pain,
discomfort and uncertainty be here without knowing?
When people come to Springwater they say, "Here it's relatively
easy to be with problems. But it isn't easy at home, in the office,
with the family or in a relationship." Actually it isn't difficult
anywhere when it dawns what it truly means to be in this
moment. It may be a moment of quietly listening to a spouse,
to a partner or a boss, or carefully holding the steering wheel and
letting the landscape go by, feeling the foot on the pedal, the
touch of the upholstery and the different sounds of the motor. Or
sitting at the desk, suddenly attending to the feel of the pen in
the hand that is holding it, writing a check, experiencing the
touch of the paper, the sound of the moving pen, the amazing
appearance of ink patterns on the check, then tearing it off, the
perforations giving way to the pull, one by one. Writing the check
with loving attention is the only thing happening right now!
There's no need to slur over it, thinking of what else has to be
done. There's just full attention to what is happening right now.
When this takes place it feels like a new discovery. Everything is
taking care of itself. Not dutifully—it's not a duty to work
attentively, but rather turns out to be a delight when it happens
without force. It's freedom from the burden of the future.
Can you catch yourself as you're speeding along? Listen to the
sound of speeding? Constitutionally some of us are speedier than
others. We are different characters and body types. But both speedy
and slow body types are burdened with the thought of all that has
to be done in the future. So as we find ourselves racing with
thoughts and sensations of restlessness, can we become aware of it
as it is happening and wonder whether it has to be that way?
You don't know the answer, but the question is already a break
in the current. See if it is possible to slow down in thinking,
walking, arranging things, writing, talking to someone. This means
simply watching the speedy body-mind—just watching it!—not saying,
"I mustn't speed, I must slow down, this is no good, Toni says so."
Just watch what you're doing right now; watch it carefully,
attentively, and witness the amazing slowing down in the simple
presence of attention.
When we're here together we affect each other. Somebody walking
or doing things attentively affects us if we really see it. It is
sort of contagious, as is the speeding. This doesn't mean we have
to do things in slow motion. Just see what happens when you become
aware. How is it when there is close attention to the hands washing
a dish under the running water, scratching off the egg that has
caked on, soaking it some more and seeing it disappear in the
dishpan, lifting it out, shaking the drops off and putting it on
the drain rack, with attention? It's wonderful, and it's amazing to
realize how little attention we usually give because we're driven
by thoughts about the past or future. This is not said blamefully.
It's the natural task of the brain to anticipate the future, to
solve problems. The more problems we have, the busier the brain
gets in trying to solve them. But right now it's just giving
attention to this moment of not going anywhere other than where we
are, gently, not prescribing anything. Attention has everything in
it to illuminate everything that's here, like a moment of clouds
parting and the light coming through—and what a different world it
is! Different and yet the same.
Are we together on this? Are we looking at all this together?
It's easy to just follow words, but to look directly, that's not so
easy. I was reprimanded the other day by someone who said, "I don't
want you to teach me. I've tuned out the last ten minutes because I
don't want to be taught by you." I don't want to teach you either.
I'm looking myself, because all of these things I have described
are things I have observed in myself. I'm looking and conveying in
words what is discovered. If we all begin to look then we're not
teaching each other, we're exploring together, discovering alone
and together the incredible presence of this moment of not going
elsewhere in this mind.
Comments Toni Packer made to students following the attacks
on the World Trade Center on September 11.
Someone asked for a few words of advice for dealing with the
torrent of emotions and confusion that is coming up in the wake of
the horrendous explosions that shook many of us to the roots.
If possible, can we find a quiet moment in a quiet space in the
midst of all the noise, agitation and confusion, a quiet spot in
the eye of sadness and grief, pain, anger, and rage, the urge for
revenge, and the longing for security to end all suffering? Can we
listen silently to the contractions of fear, anger and the
throbbing of longing for safety?
Can we listen ever more silently to the constant, agitated
reactions to what we are witnessing on television or, live, in
front of our eyes, thinking frantically about what could have
happened, should have happened or ought to happen in response to it
all? Can moments of calm presence reveal the turmoil of thinking
and emoting, staying with it all without being completely taken
over by it?
Can we come back time and time again, with infinite patience, to
what is actually taking place right now, this very
moment—the sadness and grief paining heart and mind, fear knotting
the stomach and guts, anger making the heart pound faster, driving
the blood to the head, and also hear the sound of rain and motor
noises around us, see the brightness and darkness of the room, the
sky, the smell in the air? Can we come back not just to the
reactions to all of this, but simply perceive sounds and sights and
the feel of what is actually taking place?
This stillness has room for everything happening on this
earth—the good and the evil, the wounding, the helping and the
healing, the dying and living, the hating, the killing and the
inexhaustible love that transcends it all in a way too marvelous to
comprehend.