Hearing Presence

I recently acquired a new pair of hearing aids. They are more effective than my old ones, and I am able to hear things now that I haven’t heard since before my hearing loss. I can sit in my backyard and savor the songs of birds; melodies that were beyond my auditory perception for years. And when I listen to classical music and hear the higher frequencies of violins and other instruments,I am moved to tears. What a pleasant surprise. 

I reflect about our sense of hearing—what we hear and what we do not hear. How would we know what we are missing if we can’t hear it? It seems hearing and listening are two different things. On an interpersonal level, it seems we often do not hear each other because we don’t take the time to really listen. Listening requires that we slow down and pay attention to what is being said and, perhaps, to what is not being said. The energy behind the words plus those facial expressions and other non-verbal cues, all of which are lost in a text, carry 70 to 80 percent of the message, according to those who study such things.

So we ‘listen’ with more than our ears. Our other senses are engaged. We experience interactions through our eyes, noses, skin, etc.—unless we are online, which is a problem in our digital world. What are we not hearing in social media and texting? Are we listening without hearing or vice versa? I think this has a lot to do with the divisiveness we experience these days. We do not have a clear picture of each other because of our digital deafness and blindness. 

I am not sure what it will take to bring us back home to our shared humanness and learn to get along. I think we will have to unplug from our wireless tethers for a while. It might happen. I see many people growing tired of the disconnect we experience in the name of connection. Look at all the people who are surrendering digital music in favor of vinyl albums because there is a greater ‘presence’ (and cool album covers). Presence is the key.

One translation of the Tibetan word, rigpa, the original spaciousness of our natural mind, is “pure and total presence.” Rigpa is our true nature, unfiltered by our limited habits of mind. Listening with all aspects of our being requires us to drop our ingrained assumptions and erase the boundary of self and other. This makes us more present in our relationships to everything, including ourselves. Ultimately, it is the heart that actually listens.

(On a side note, my audiologist was born deaf but now has cochlear implants. She seems to know more about listening than those of us who have decent hearing.)