Hearing with the Ear of God

What is it to really listen? When you listen, are you listening to hear something that will confirm or reinforce your own ideas, thoughts, and beliefs? Or are you listening in a way that will allow you to see anew? Listening to discover something new, to find out what is true, is very different from listening merely to confirm your own beliefs. When you are listening only to confirm, then your effort really has very little value. When you are truly open to something new, your mind is attentive, free, and unencumbered. It is not committed to something. It is very sharp, precise, alive, inquiring, and fresh. The question is how to listen not merely with your ears but with your whole being. When you are sitting very still, silently, with your attention not fixed on anything in particular, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet and attentive, then you hear everything. You hear the sounds of the world. You hear the silence between the sounds. You hear the sounds that are close to you as well as the ones far off in the distance. You are listening to everything. Your mind is not excluding, not keeping any sounds from entering. It is not condemning or judging. It is completely open, an all- inclusive mind, without walls or barriers around it. There is no strain, no effort, no volition, no longer any separation between the sounds and the hearing. There is just hearing, with no gap between subject and object. In this state of hearing something extraordinary happens. A complete transformation takes place. You are no longer experiencing the world from a fixed position as a separate individual. Now you are hearing with the ear of God, with the ears of Kanzeon Bodhisattva. Zen Master Genpo Roshi founded the Kanzeon Sangha, an international Zen community in 1984, with groups and centers throughout Europe and the U.S., and is abbot of Big Mind Western Zen Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which he founded in 1993. He discovered the Big Mind process in 1999. His newest book is Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way. You can visit his website at: www.bigmind.org