APPLIED SAMURAI WISDOM
By, Dr. Grant Kruhly, Sensei and Founder
VITAL KEY # 6
Today’s post is an interesting one, and I hope you will benefit from my perspective. We are going to examine listening, the art of connecting to the world through sound. All day, every day our ears are picking up sounds of all kinds, from people, animals, trees, birds, insects, and traffic. And of course we filter out what is not important to us and notice that which is relevant. I think I have by now made a case for being in our body, present to the moment via our senses in order to be awake and experience our lives. If not, go back and reread the first 2 or 3 posts to clarify this all important principle. Remember, I am speaking of experience in real time, not as an afterthought.
The fundamental skill here is to be aware of listening while you’re listening. That will locate you in your body, where you are. So much for stage one. But there are 2 levels to this, and they equally apply to looking or seeing as well.
In Samurai sword culture there are the terms, Kan / Ken. Ken means to see shapes and form. For example, using Ken, when you meet someone you notice how they look, walk, dress, etc. For this lesson we will use Ken to reference hearing what someone is saying and/or listening to music. Ken is level 1, and about 95% of the population remains in that level their whole lives. There is nothing wrong with that; it is not meant as a criticism, merely a statement.
Kan is level 2 and is quite a different matter. Kan is listening or seeing with the heart. It means to penetrate beneath the surface and understand meaning and intent. Kan is directly linked with wisdom and requires a great deal of presence to be accessed and acted upon. It is our intuition, and is mostly ignored or lost in the mental noise and clutter of our rushed lives. How many times can you remember doing something which turned out badly, only to remember thinking that you knew it was going to happen. Or something told you that you should do something but you didn’t listen, thinking instead it would be fine. It’s the thinking that is the problem. Intuition is always superior; the mind is easily fooled, but intuition is totally different. That is why you can have a highly educated academic person who lives as a fool, with no more wisdom than a rock. Facts and data do not equal wisdom and never will. I will write on this in detail later, but for now, challenge yourself to begin adding level 2 awareness to your listening.
How? First, when someone is speaking to you, become aware that you are listening now. That will actualize level 1 (ken). Then, open your heart and try to feel what they are saying. This will activate level 2. Actually allow yourself to notice what feelings come up in your awareness as you look in their eyes, and connect to the tones and emphasis of their voice and message. Resist any inclination to judge what you feel or what they are saying. That is the mind in level 1 and is based in memory. To engage in level 2, you have to bypass the mental noise. Again, I will discuss how neural nets and paradigms work later on but for now just try to deepen your sense of the world via level 2. Open your heart and listen deeply with your ears and I promise you your life will become much richer and you will be more skillful.
Thank you very much. There is just one more Vital Key left to discuss and then you will have all 7 life dignities to empower yourself above the system. Use them all, whenever you can, every day, all day. It’s the most important work you can do, because it is the basis for all conscious action. The last of the 7 will be up in a couple of days. Please feel free to comment on the posts and ask any pressing questions. Let me know how I can best serve you.
Dr. Grant Kruhly, Sensei & Founder
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