Mark Nepo – Reduced to Joy
Omtimes: In what ways has a commitment to listening changed or improved your life?
MN: I’m more easily touched by everything I meet. In a world where the great technologies enable us to record, replay, cut and paste, zoom in, and delete, listening is the crucial commitment to keep the heart touchable. Staying vulnerable in this way reminds us that life is ultimately unique and unrepeatable, that we are all connected at a deep and vibrant level.
Listening reminds me how precious it is to be here at all. And so, listening is the first step to peace, both inner peace and the compassion that connects people. Keeping a commitment to listening has led me to my own growth, beyond any imagined dreams I may have had throughout the years.
Omtimes: Why is it important to meditate, or take a moment to pause and reflect, throughout the day, and how can this teach us to act more mindfully?
MN: Meditation, in all its forms and traditions, is an invitation to listen, to open, and to quietly enlist the courage to be touched and formed by life. Just opening quietly for moments everyday can create a path by which life can reach us, the way rain carves a little stream in the earth by which the smallest flowers are watered. We each need avenues by which we can be watered and grow.
Whether you find it through mediation or sighing over tea or just turning all your devices off for five minutes, listening is an ancient lifeline by which we are awakened time and again. Once reawakened, we more easily find our way to each other, and so help each other live.
