| After a person has done a lot of talking in a conversation, that person
feels refreshed but the listener needs patience and effort. In addition,
those who listen more need to have affection for the other person. Therefore, people who are truly kind-hearted naturally listen to others attentively. The more considerate a person is the more closely they will tune their ears to the heart of the speaker. The more warmly you feel about other people, the more carefully you will feel like listening to them. There are plenty of people who, while pretending to listen to others, in fact are barely listening at all. There are also those who, while other people are talking, rather than listening intently to them, are thinking only about what they are going to say next. This is because such people place more importance on their own feelings than on those of others. I even believe this is because they look down on other people. They completely lack true gentility and consideration for others. I think they only pretend to be gentle. True gentility means making a serious effort to understand what others are saying. Furthermore, I believe that it involves trying to sense what others really want to say by considering even the meanings they don't express in words. It is rather shameful for one person to talk more than other people in a conversation because the more you talk, the more difficult it is for you to understand them. Truly wise and mature people never talk a lot. With the natural humanity they possess they communicate with others quietly in non-verbal ways. This approach is more effective, because those to whom it is applied can feel and absorb more than they would when they hear moralizing lectures hundreds of times, and, thus by healing their minds and reflecting on themselves, can strengthen their humanity. The gentility through which you listen to everything that other parties wish to express, rather than saying everything you want to say, will open the doors of their hearts to you. And I believe that we can thus strengthen human relationships. |