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David C's avatar

This sounds like how Sayadaw u Tejaniya tells his students to practice while listening. He says to keep your attention gently on your body and mind while listening, and you'll naturally follow what they're saying and also notice how your mind is receiving what's being said. It's all in his book Relax and Be Aware. I think you would dig it.

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Juliette Culver's avatar

This reminds me of something Kasia Urbaniak discusses in her book Unbound. She has the interesting background of having been both a Taoist nun and a dominatrix and I found it a useful book for figuring out where I was sometimes going wrong with conversation.

One of her main ideas that is that there are dominant states of attention and submissive states of attention - yang and yin essentially.

She talks about how really great conversations are 'a beautiful dance between dominance and submission' where there is a seamless switching between the two back and forth. The key is, she says, not to be in a half-dominant and half-submissive state, but instead occupy whichever of the two states you are in completely, but to allow that switching with your conversation partner.

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