Do you listen with your ears or with your heart? Do you listen to the words someone uses or the emotions behind them? If you aren’t sure, take a step back with Zen teacher Cuong Lu as he looks at how compassionate listening can break down the barrier between yourself and others. “We are all interconnected. We inter-are,” he teaches. By listening with empathy, we connect more deeply with other people, gain new insights about ourselves, and dissolve our own sense of separation.
Cuong Lu offered a live meditation, dharma talk, and Q&A session on February 11, 2021; watch it here.
Cuong Lu is a Zen scholar and teacher ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh who spent sixteen years as a monk at Plum Village. A former prison chaplain, he is the author of The Buddha in Jail (2019) and Wait: A Love Letter to Those in Despair (2021). He is the founder of the Mind Only School in the Netherlands, where he teaches Buddhist philosophy and psychology.