Two lovers...listening...really listening...

By José Blanco
Look till you see nothing but what you are looking at. Not even thinking goes on. Just awareness. 

Imagine the loved one looking at you...whispering something...solemn...profound silence...

Like an exchange between lovers, where she is saying...

"...She is sharing something with him that she really wants him to hear and take to heart. If he is distracted by his own inner agenda, there will be no room in him to take in what she is sharing. He will be unable to be fully present and receptive to her self-disclosures unless he is willing to set aside whatever thoughts and concerns may be preoccupying him at the present moment.

It is in his willingness to leave behind the preoccupations with his own thoughts that he begins to enter the open field of (meditative) awareness. It is in this interior open field that she is waiting for him to be with her in her moments of self-disclosure.

Once he shows up for their rendezvous in receptive openness, he can remain there only by watching over his heart so as not to drift away from his receptive openness to her heart. Love asks him not to go dashing off but to linger in the arena of receptive openness in which love grows and deepens.  There is, it seems, nothing more painful that opening our heart to someone who is not there. Unless, of course, it is opening our heart to someone who is there, only to have that person disappear, leaving us alone in the midst of our self-disclosure.

...And so, as she lays bare her heart, he must let love teach him to set aside all of his preoccupations and concerns. He must then let love teach him to sustain his (meditative) openness to all the beloved has to share. For sustained intimacy rides the waves of deep, uninterrupted openness to all that love has to offer. 

As she learns to listen to him in this same way, they learn from each other how to read the stuff the heart is made of. ..."  quote from James Finley's, Christian Meditation.

And this is praying...

...Wonder if I will be ever able to shut my mouth up...


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