Sitting in a circle, we passed around a talking piece--in this case, a smooth rock--and first checked in with our names and one word about how we were feeling. Then we responded one at a time, as briefly but honestly as we could, to a few questions from the middle-school group: how do you tell people you are a Buddhist? Can you tell about a time when your outward actions didn't quite synchronize with your inner intentions, or a time when your outward actions did mesh with your inner intentions, and what was that like?
The ground rules were simple:
When you have the talking piece, you get to talk.
Everyone else's job at that moment is to listen from the heart, without thinking about how they want to respond. The listeners trust that when the talking piece gets to them, they'll know the right thing to say, without rehearsing it in their heads beforehand.
It was fascinating to me to notice the times when I did start to jump ahead as I listened and think about what I wanted to say. I had to make a conscious choice to in a sense empty myself to make space for the other person's words. I had to stop thinking so much about how their words might connect with my experience and instead focus my energy on trying to see what the other person's words meant to them, and what their experiences were about for them, apart from any connection to me.
At the beginning of the Council Circle, the word I used to describe myself was "Restless." By the end of it, when we checked out with a another word to sum up our state of mind, my word was "Relaxed."
I noticed ripple effects throughout the day. When I took a walk with a good friend, I caught myself leaping ahead to make some point about me instead of taking the time to delve deeper into what she was saying, ask her questions, or just stay with her ideas for a while longer. I didn't always catch myself until I was in the middle of doing it. But even noticing that gave me a new sense of all that I'm missing out on by approaching conversations this way. I found myself approaching my friend with a new curiosity as I realized all the ways I could learn more about her and hear her more deeply if I would just. . . slow. . . down.
After I got home, Brian was tired and grumpy after a challenging afternoon with the kids while I was away. He was getting pretty nitpicky and exasperated with me about the way I was doing things in the kitchen while we made supper together. For instance, he asked, "Why didn't you just put it ALL in?" after I left a trace of quinoa in the storage jar instead of going ahead and cooking it all. I have a habit of leaving just the tiniest trace of food in containers and then not using it up, leading to annoying clutter in the refrigerator and cupboard. This is so ME--I hate endings and goodbyes, I guess. I've never been much good at finishing what I start, although I'm getting better at it in my middle age.
Often when Brian gets nitpicky with me about one of my annoying habits, I get defensive and irritable and hurt, and I lash out. But tonight, I just laughed. I put my arms around him and said honestly, "It must get so annoying for you, these little food foibles of mine." And I meant it. I wasn't trying to humor him. I understood that my habits were annoying him, and for once, I didn't feel judgmental toward him for being annoyed. At the same time, and this was key, I didn't feel judgmental toward myself for being so annoying, either. I saw us both for who we were, irritating the hell out of one another, and at that moment it was OK.
"Thank you," my husband mumbled to me after we stopped hugging.
I would really love to find a way to keep cultivating the practice of deep listening that I got a small taste of today at the Zen center. It feels like an essential practice for so many aspects of life--parenting, working with City Hall (notice I didn't say fighting), being a wife, a friend, a daughter, a writer.
I feel so excited and grateful for the communities I am a part of and all that they're inviting me to learn.
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