Live meditation with Danis Bois –The various dimensions of listening

This week we began a new series of meditation guided by Danis Bois.

The theme of our first meditation today centred on listening.

Listening is often associated with hearing, but in truth, it is much bigger than that, and though we live in times of extreme communication, we do not really know how to listen.

Danis Bois

Having created the conditions to listen by establishing silence that is fundamental to listening, Danis Bois developed a meditation focused on the five dimensions of listening. The last three of which engage psychological, emotional and behavioural dimensions.

• The first type of listening that is involved in meditation is to connect with the sounds of the external world
• The second type of listening engages when the meditator moves from passively to actively listening
• The third type of listening is about the way in which we listen to ourselves
• The fourth type of listening is about the need to feel listened to

The fifth type of listening refers to be notion of a good listening experience, of listening with empathy and benevolence.

First type of listening: silence amplifies noises, and the sounds that surround us. In the silence, new sounds appear that were hidden by noise. And this includes thought that can be noise in the meditation. Full-Presence Meditation invites meditators to turn their attention away from disruptive thoughts and to redirect it more stably towards an object that is helpful for the meditation, such as the motionlessness of the body.

Second type of listening: passively listening is about being distracted without really focusing on what is being said. Actively listening is on the contrary paying attention to all the information that arises. It enables us to hear what is being said, to understand it and do something with it. Silence between the moments of guidance gives the meditator time to grasp the information and carry out the instruction.

This type of listening requires that the meditator engages and implies a resonance that touches their interiority.

Third type of listening: It is about listening to ourself and unifying heart and mind. Listening to the messages from the body and from the mind, and taken them into account in making judgements and decisions.

Do you feel that you listen to your sensations and your feelings and that you take them into considerations when making decisions? What place do you give to what you intuitively feel? Do you listen to the answers that you have within you? The questions that you carry?

Danis Bois

Fourth type of listening: The need to be listened to is very important to live harmoniously. It brings us to the very precious feeling of feeling heard in our deepest wishes, of being listened to.

Which strategies do you use when you have the feeling of not being heard ?

Danis Bois

Fifth type of listening: Do you have the feeling that you listen well to others ?

Car l’écoute implique l’être.

Écouter c’est une capacité relationnelle humaine.

Et je pense qu’on peut tous mieux faire dans l’art d’écouter l’autre, celles et ceux qu’on aime, sa famille, ses amis, ses collègues.

Cela nous conduit, c’est sûr à faire un effort d’écoute.

Cela nous invite à plus de discernement.

À accepter l’autre comme il est ou comme elle est

À accueillir les différences.

Et si on commençait à être plus à l’écoute ?

La méditation aide à tout cela.

Danis Bois

To conclude, Danis Bois proposed a kind of roadmap of how this can be applied in daily life.

First, meditating every day regularly to create the conditions for listening.

Then being mindful to listen more actively, in other words with more awareness.

Thirdly and jointly, listening to ourself, hearing the messages arising from our interiority and taken them into considerations in our daily actions and decisions.

Then training to find a good strategy with regards to the feeling of being listened to and finally striving every day to listen well to others. Here is the programme for this term.

Danis Bois