Listening and learning (part two)

Over the past week I’ve been exploring what it takes to become a great learner. After experiencing the ups and downs of my own learning (or non-learning) experiences I’ve concluded that becoming a great learner involves becoming a great listener. 

Listening is a skill that you can develop, and practice. The following exercises will help develop the attentive or active listening skills I explored in the previous post. You can practice these exercises every day, whenever you are engaged in conversation: 

• Focus only on the speaker and what he or she is talking about rather than what you want to say next.  
• Try to maintain eye contact with the speaker at all times. This practice should keep you focused on what the other person has to say, and not so much on what is going on in your mind.  
• Do not interrupt. As simple as this may seem, it is very important that you abide this rule. Just this one thing, done right, represents a great exercise to improve your listening skills.  
• Ask questions at natural pause points throughout your conversations. If you ask questions, people will know that you are listening, you will prevent any possible misunderstandings and you will develop your listening skills.  
• When you do not have a question, acknowledge the other person verbally or non-verbally from time to time, to indicate that you are really listening.

Your listening can also be enhanced by developing awareness of the thoughts arising in your mind. As you notice doubts and obstacles arising, set them aside to make room for new learning. Do all that you can to adopt an open and attentive mind. Open yourself to possibilities, and loosen any preconceived ideas or structures. 

If doubts arise as you read or listen to teachings, ask yourself, can I put this idea into practice and see for myself if it works or doesn’t work? In other words, rather than letting my prejudices dictate my response to the material, I can adopt a scientist’s perspective and experiment with the idea.

To further assess our listening and learning skills we can examine how we receive teachings, whether they in a classroom or in written form. In Buddhist practice we try to abandon three faults in listening to teachings: 

1. The fault of being like a pot turned upside down: we are physically present but so profoundly distracted that no teaching can enter our mind;  
2. The fault of being like a bad smelling pot: we listen attentively but our motivation is wrong, for example we are gathering information to discredit the teacher;
3. The fault of being like a leaky pot: we listen attentively with good motivation but cannot retain what we hear or read.

There are two methods we can use to address the third fault of not remembering. The first is to attempt to recall the essential points of the teaching as soon as possible after the class or reading is finished. The second is to engage in conversation with class mates or study mates soon after a class or reading is done. 

Next I’ll explore another of the steps in becoming a great learner: seeking and relying on a guide, teacher, coach or mentor.

-David Luke, Senior Consultant at FocusFit (2007) Inc.

© 2011 D. G. Luke and FocusFit (2007) Inc.