How Compassionate Listening Resolves Anger and Restores Love
Julli and her husband had a very difficult relationship, which caused them much suffering. When the situation escalated and Julli contemplated taking a radical step, she got introduced to the ‘Art of Compassionate Listening,’ which helped them restore their relationship.
Julli1 suffered very much because she and her husband had a very difficult relationship. They were a well-educated family both had doctorate degrees. Yet the husband suffered so much. He was at war with his wife and all his children. He could not talk to his wife or his children. Everyone in the family tried to avoid him because he was like a bomb ready to explode. He believed that his wife and his children despised him because no one wanted to come near him. They were afraid of him to be close to him.
One day Julli wanted to kill herself because she could not bear it any longer. She felt she was not able to continue living under these circumstances. But before she committed suicide, she called her friend who was a Buddhist practitioner to let her know what she was planning to do.
The Buddhist friend had invited her several times to practice meditation, but she had always refused. The Buddhist woman learned that her friend was going to kill herself, she said to Julli, “You claim to be my friend, and now you are about to die. The only thing I ask of you is to listen to the talk of my teacher, but you refuse. If you are my friend, then please, take a taxi and come once and after that, you can die.”
When Julli arrived, her friend let her sit alone in the living room and listen to a talk on restoring communication. During the hour or hour and a half that she listened to the talk, she went through a very deep transformation within herself. She found out many things. She realized that she was partly responsible for her suffering and that she had also made her husband suffer a lot. She realized that she had not been able to help him at all. She had made his suffering heavier and heavier each day because she avoided him. She learned from the dharma talk that to help the other person, she should be able to listen deeply with compassion. That was something she had not been able to do in the last five years.
After listening to the dharma talk, Julli felt very inspired. She wanted to go home and practice deep listening to help her husband. But her Buddhist friend said, “No my friend, you should not do it today because compassionate listening is a very deep teaching. You have to train yourself for at least one or two weeks to be able to listen with compassion.”
Four hundred and fifty people were participating in the retreat—eating, sleeping, and practicing together for six days. During that time, all of us practiced mindful breathing, aware of our in-breath and out-breath to bring our body and mind together. We practiced mindful walking, investing one hundred percent of ourselves in each step. We practiced mindful breathing, walking, and sitting to observe and embrace the suffering within us.
Not only did the participants listen to the dharma talks, but all of us practiced the art of listening to each other, and of using loving speech. We tried to listen deeply to understand the suffering of the other person. The Catholic woman practiced very seriously, very deeply, because, for her, this was a matter of life or death.
When she returned home after the retreat, she was very calm, and her heart was full of compassion. She wanted to help her husband to remove the bomb within his heart. She moved very slowly and followed her breathing to keep calm and nourish her compassion. She practiced walking mindfully, and her husband noticed that she was different. Finally, she came close and sat quietly next to him, something that she had never done in the last five years.
She was silent for a long time, maybe ten minutes. Then she gently put her hand on his and said, “My dear, I know you have suffered a lot during the last five years, and I am very sorry. I know that I am greatly responsible for your suffering. Not only have I been unable to help you suffer less, but I have made the situation much worse. I have made many mistakes and caused you a great deal of pain. I am extremely sorry. I would like you to give me a chance to begin anew. I want to make you happy, but I do not know how to do it; that is why I have made the situation worse and worse every day. I don’t want to continue like this anymore. So my darling, please help me. I need your help to understand you better, to love you better. Please tell me what is in our hearts. I know you suffer a lot, I must know your suffering so that I will not do the wrong things again and again as in the past. Without you, I cannot do it. I need you to help me so that I will not continue to hurt you. I want only to love you.” When she spoke to him like this, he began to cry. He cried like a little boy.
For a long time, his wife had been very sour. She always shouted and her speech had been full of anger, bitterness, blaming, and judging. They had only argued with each other. She had not spoken to him like this in years, with so much love and tenderness. When she saw her husband crying, she knew that now she had a chance. The door of her husband's heart had been closed, but now it was beginning to open again. She knew that she had to be very careful, so she continued her practice of mindful breathing. She said, “Please my dear, please tell me what is in your heart. I want to learn to do better so that I won’t continue to make mistakes.”
They both suffered because neither of them knew how to practice listening to each other with compassion. But that night she was wonderful, she practiced compassionate listening successfully. It turned out to be a very healing night for both. After only a few hours together, they were able to reconcile with each other.
She took her husband to the next retreat, and he also experienced a great transformation. He spoke to his friend about how he and his family suffered “During the last five years, I have made her suffer so much, I have been so stupid. But, through her practice, she has changed everything. She has saved my life.” After that they told their story and how they came to the retreat. They shared how they were able to reconcile on a deep level and renew their love.
Source
~An excerpt from the book “Anger” by Thich Nhat Hanh (Riverhead Books, 2002)~