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The Power of Water and the Open Mind

Published on 03/10/19
by randy

We seldom get training in cultivating the open mind. We cognitively like to fill in the blanks, ‘thinking’ we know what’s going on. In General Semantics, we call this the creation of our map and recognize we’ll never know the complete territory. In Buddhism, we call this the cultivation of the ‘I don’t know mind’. There’s always a curiosity to what’s being presented in the moment, filled with a respect to the Mystery of the territory. Some estimate we go through the day with about 60,000 thoughts, over 95% of them being repeating storyline thoughts. With today’s multiplicity of media outlets, it’s pretty easy to hone in on those stations that reinforce these repeating thoughts. We eventually come out with the thought that ‘we’re right’ and those who don’t agree are wrong. We do this with politics, religion, diet, legal battles, and any number of activities in human life that try to persuade another to our view. Yet, we know we can always go deeper in our understanding with the skills honed from an open mind and curiosity. We know these skills don’t just happen. So why don’t we teach this in our schools? Why don’t we look at our failures in listening skills as a pathology? As a former Speech and Language Pathologist, I’m somewhat amazed that we haven’t put Listening Pathologies into our curriculum. The current trend of narcissistic monologue that sets the norm should be studied and presented as a communication abnormality rather than the norm. The dominance of persuasion in our cultural communications could be called out for its failure to open communication that seeks deeper understanding. Just as the flexibility and curiosity of the water works its way through rock, we know the skillful listener can eventually work its way through the fixed, rigid, dogmatic mind of ‘I know that’ to ‘Maybe, maybe not. Let’s educate ourselves and go deeper.’

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