Listen to or read a Dhamma talk without trying to keep it

Open the heart to a talk and let what is ready to remain stay, without straining to memorise it or to plan what you will say about it.

Perché funziona

In “Learning to Listen,” Ajahn Chah tells his listeners to “open up your heart and compose yourself in its centre,” and not to accumulate what they hear or force themselves to retain it. What is ready to be retained will remain, he says, “of its own accord.” Straining to remember turns listening into collecting, and collecting keeps the mind busy with the teaching rather than with what is happening in front of it. His warning to monks is similar: study that becomes a matter of memorising can cause a practitioner to lose the standard of their practice.

Come farlo

1. Choose one short talk, reading or chapter, and set aside a quiet time to take it in without a notebook.
2. Before you begin, settle the body and let the breath be natural for a minute, so that you are present rather than already planning.
3. Listen or read slowly, letting each sentence land without trying to hold on to it.
4. When you notice you are rehearsing what you will say about it, or grasping for a point to remember, return to the words as they arrive.
5. After the talk, sit for a few minutes and notice what has stayed without effort, and leave the rest alone.

Prove scientifiche

The instruction is Ajahn Chah’s, from the talk Learning to Listen, and his warning about studying in a way that loses the standard of practice appears in Maintaining the Standard. There is no research on this method of listening. (anecdotal)

This describes one teacher’s instruction on listening. Taking notes or studying a text carefully is not forbidden by the teaching; what it asks is that the effort to remember not become the practice itself.

Fonti

• Ajahn Chah. Learning to Listen (Dhamma talk). In The Teachings of Ajahn Chah. Wat Nong Pah Pong.
• Ajahn Chah. Maintaining the Standard (Dhamma talk). In The Teachings of Ajahn Chah. Wat Nong Pah Pong.

Errore comune

Trying so hard to remember a talk that the listening becomes collecting, which is what the teaching asks you to set aside. If you find yourself straining, come back to listening rather than to remembering.