Daily Mindfulness in Reading and Listening
Today, learning means being active online, for example, when we take an online course or participate in an online discussion group or book club. We read texts, listen to lecturers in videos or live online, and discuss online. Sometimes we take notes, highlight important things in texts, and perhaps write a paper.
We don’t do this just to cram facts and information into our brains. We do all this because we want to learn new things, understand things, or exchange experiences with others.
The usual way to read and listen is to focus on the content of the texts or on what the speaker says. In all these activities, we can also practice mindfulness.
When we read, write, or listen mindfully, we are not just fixated on the content; we open up a space for ourselves and others to learn something about ourselves and others with openness and curiosity. When we read, write, and listen mindfully, we transform a mere learning activity into a mindfulness or Vipassana practice.
Below you will find instructions, exercises, and tips on how you can practice mindfulness in reading, learning, and listening. This naturally applies especially to texts that are meaningful for you and your life.
Mindful Reading
Reading today is often a matter of time, a matter of speed. Online texts often indicate how many minutes are needed to read them. To be as efficient as possible, one can even take speed-reading courses. The goal is to grasp as much information as possible in the shortest time.
Mindful reading is slowed-down reading. Slower reading changes the reading experience. Mindfulness brings awareness to the text, and the accompanying openness creates the possibility to perceive, in a calm consciousness, how the meaning of the read words unfolds. Mindful reading allows for the perception of emerging thoughts, opinions, and prejudices that accompany the reading process.
In this way, we can perceive and learn how our mental processes create what we call comprehension or understanding.
Breathe-Read-Breathe
Take a few minutes before you start reading. Promote calm and concentration through a short breath meditation, focusing on your breath. Once you have started reading, pay attention to your concentration and appreciation for the text or author, compared to your “normal reading mode.”
When you are finished reading, remain seated and focus on your breath for a few minutes, and ask yourself what you have learned, what you noticed, and what unexpected feelings or thoughts may have arisen.
Mindful Understanding
We can only find the meaning in a text or conversation that we are looking for. This was essentially stated by the philosopher Gadamer (1), who explored how people understand texts, conversation partners, or life as a whole. When understanding a text, we bring everything that defines our lives: our desires, fears, experiences, culture, or worldview.
Before you start reading a text, you can pause briefly (or precede it with a short breath meditation) and clarify what question you have for the text or what kind of question the text is supposed to answer.
After mindfully reading the text, you can pause briefly and ask yourself how you understood the text and whether your understanding of the text changed while you were reading.
Mindfulness for an Important Sentence
Perhaps a particular sentence stands out to you when reading a text or a poem, either because its content is important to you or because its language or imagery appeals to you. These are often the sentences we underline or highlight.
Read the sentence again, perhaps several times, until it is present for you.
Close your eyes and stay with this sentence. You can ask yourself questions about it:
What does the sentence evoke?
What memories, feelings, images, or ideas are associated with it?
Does the sentence or some of its words have a meaning for you that goes beyond what is literally stated?
Read the sentence again in the context of the text. Has the meaning of the text changed as a result?
Take this sentence with you into the day and recall it repeatedly. What happens?
Reading Together, Understanding Together
This exercise can be performed in an online course, a book club, or even a meditation group. All participants have access to the text.
After a short breath meditation in silence, one person reads the selected text aloud, and everyone else listens. Afterwards, everyone sits together in silence for a short while.
Now the text is read again, with each sentence being read by a different person. This can be done in a specific order or spontaneously. After each sentence, there is a short period of silence, for example, five breaths.
Ask yourself if and how the text is understood or perceived differently by you, or evokes different feelings, when you hear it from various people instead of just one.
Be creative and bring mindfulness to reading in many different ways. Mindful reading is generally less hectic and slows down the reading flow, and thus also you and the way you experience reading as a process of understanding.
Mindful Listening
Many activities in in-person events or online involve listening. We hear what others say in videos or in a meeting, we listen to a lecture at university, we talk to a friend.
When we listen to a conversation without mindfulness, we are primarily focused on the content and don’t notice how we are already formulating an answer in silence before the other person has finished speaking.
When we are in a dialogue or listening to someone with mindfulness, we are fully present with what we hear. We try not to control anything and notice if and how we judge. We try to simply let our mental chatter be, without reacting to it, and listen to the other person with respect. This not only develops an open attitude while we listen but also generally cultivates an accepting and open relationship with others.
We can practice this inner attitude of mindful listening in many situations in everyday life: during lectures, in conversations with familiar and unfamiliar people, and metaphorically, also with the written word when we read.
Mindful Listening in Action
Mindful listening requires both concentration and openness. Concentration on what the other person says, how they say it, how we perceive their body language. Openness to everything we perceive, be it the content of what is said or the meaning that the spoken word has for us. Primarily, mindful listening means being fully present for another person, giving them our undivided attention.
When we do that, we breathe naturally and simply listen, without a specific intention. If thoughts and emotions arise in connection with what is being said, we briefly acknowledge them and return to our conversation partner.
If answers come to mind beforehand, wait until the other person has finished speaking before responding. Notice if you perhaps don’t have an answer and wait for what emerges. Be honest and tell your conversation partner if you don’t have an answer at the moment, or share with them what their words have triggered in you.
Remain curious and notice if the idea arises that you already know or understand everything the other person wants to tell you.
Mindful listening also means letting your conversation partner know if, from their perspective, they are not listening to you or not letting you finish speaking. Mindful listening does not mean passively letting everything happen, but rather playing the game of dialogue as equals.
Conclusion
Mindful listening and mindful reading are the basis for a better understanding of what words and their authors or conversation partners can convey to us. They also create a space where people can feel understood and are thus an act of kindness and friendliness, of Metta.
