Cold night, no wind, bamboo making noises,

Noises far apart, now bunched together, 

Filtering the pine-flanked lattice. 

Listening with ears is less fine than

Listening with the mind. 

Beside the lamp I lay

Aside the half scroll of sutra

 - Hsu-t'ang Chih-yu.                Courtesy of dailyzen.com 

As a family therapist I spend my days listening with great care to what others are saying about their lives, their fears, and their dreams. Do I listen with my ears or do I listen with my mind? We are taught to listen with evenly hovering attention so that we are not limiting our understanding of what is being said. How easy it is to decide what the issue is and to find all the statements that prove it. That is probably a good example of listening with my ears. When I remain open and fully present with my client, connecting empathically with the fears and concerns, I am listening with my mind and I guess, by default,listening with my heart. Deep listening allows compassion to be truly altruistic.