Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
Zen & the Therapeutic Arts: A Different Species of Listener

Zen & the Therapeutic Arts: A Different Species of Listener

Last updated on: April 3, 2018 at 11:22 am by James Ford

Zen & the Therapeutic Arts: A Different Species of Listener 2018-04-03T11:22:21-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A DIFFERENT SPECIES OF LISTENER

Zen & the Therapeutic Arts

Chris Hoff

2 April 2018
Blue Cliff Zen Sangha
Costa Mesa, California

This weekend I discovered a research article on mindfulness that caught my attention for several reasons. The first being that it focused on mindfulness’s effects on therapists rather than clients. Psychotherapy research has long neglected the role of the counselor’s ‘way of being’ in therapy, in favor of techniques and models. The large majority of research out there now is all focused on the benefits mindfulness may bring to those seeking the help of counselors, rather than the possible effects on the counselors meeting with clients.

The second, and more important reason, was that the focus of the article was actually on Zen meditation rather than a secular mindfulness practice like Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) or the like. As far as I know the large majority, if not all mindfulness research, is predominately done using some form of secular mindfulness practice like MBSR. This was a very interesting development. The counselors in this piece of research studied with Soto Zen Master Fumon Nakagawa Roshi and his colleagues from the Zen Center of Eisenbruch, Germany.

And the final reason was the results of the article. This article showed a significantly higher assessment of individual therapy by patients treated during the time that the therapist’s regularly took part in Zen meditation. Following their therapy sessions, the patients experienced their progress in understanding of their own psychodynamics, difficulties, and goals as superior. They also made better assessments of their progress in overcoming their difficulties and symptoms, and in developing new behaviors and transferring them into daily life. In other words, those therapists that were practicing Zen meditation, showed significantly better results with the folks they were working with.

Now of course there were some limitations to this study’s methodology. These included the short duration of the Zen training, and probably the primary limitation is that there was no placebo group. Regardless, I found myself over the weekend reflecting on how Zen practice has influenced my work as a counselor.

As University of Washington clinical faculty Tony Rousmaniere writes, Counseling is one of the few fields were we are required to sit eye to eye with someone else’s pain and be emotionally open as we try to help, while simultaneously withholding the instinctual urge to immediately do whatever we can to make it stop.

Many a time I have found myself following my breath, struggling to stay present, while the air leaves the room as a client takes me back in time to share their powerful, devastating trauma stories. Many a time I have found myself counting breaths as a couple I am working with struggles with disappointment, despair, and heartbreak.

I know this aspect of Zen practice, following our breath, the present moment awareness this brings about, has absolutely helped me support those that seek my help. But I think there’s more to it than that.

Also this weekend I read an article by academic Arthur Frank where he writes: “The primal task of any therapist is to convince the client that the therapist is prepared to be a new and different sort of listener. [That] the initial problem of therapy is whether and how the therapist can convince the client that he or she is in the presence of a new species of listener, and that relationship enables the client to become a new narrator.”

I love that. “A new species of listener.” That is what I believe Zen practice supports. A new way of listening, a new way of being with people.

In his writing, Buddhist Teacher Gil Fronsdal illustrates the power of careful listening by sharing a famous story from the Ramayana, an epic poem in the Hindu tradition. The story tells of Rama walking in the forest with some companions. When Rama starts hearing the faint whisper of a voice, he asks his companions if they can hear it. They say, “No.” Rama begins to walk toward the whisper. As he gets closer he recognizes it is his name that is being spoken, “Rama…Rama.” As the voice becomes louder, his friends still say they can’t hear it. Finally Rama comes to a large boulder from which the sound comes. He then places his two hands gently on the boulder. At this point the rock breaks open and inside is a person who has been stuck in the rock through a magic spell. By listening to the whisper he was able to discover what was locked up and then release it.

Pretty relevant to therapeutic practice I believe.

Now I know all of you here are not counselors. Well, some of you are. Buddhist practice has a way of capturing a fair share of psychologists, therapists, and counselors. But for those that aren’t, how might all this talk about “a new species of listener” be applicable to your lives?

It is here that I point to the Bodhisattva path. Or perhaps more specifically, to the precepts. In the precepts one of our vows goes something like “Listening and speaking from the heart, I vow to take up the Way of Not Speaking Falsely.” Now for this talk I am more interested in the listening from the heart rather than the speaking from the heart.

My hope for this talk is to encourage us to consider for a moment how we might sit with those we love? What kind of listening are we capable of as we move through this world? And what might the effects of listening from the heart have on those we meet along the path?

We live in a time were arguably we can say there are more people talking than listening. Just examine your own Facebook feed. Observe the current political discourse. This weekend I also learned a new word; “Phubbing.” Phubbing it seems is the new label for ignoring someone you’re with in a social setting to concentrate on your mobile phone. Unfortunately I’m a “phubber.”

We are also in a moment where many are urged to practice vulnerability, to speak their truth. Vulnerability as a way to dissolve shame, or vulnerability and speaking your truth in the effort to step into a more ‘authentic’self. But what is the value of vulnerability, or speaking your truth, if no one is there to hear or witness you?

So this is why I believe this practice, Zen practice, is so urgent to my life, and maybe yours. To quote Zen teacher John Tarrant; To hear the world is to love the world, is to lose yourself, is to keep company with people in the world.”

I believe when we listen actively, and with an open heart, we become bodhisattvas. Easing the suffering in the world perhaps just a little. Or maybe a lot.

Since I started this talk with the therapy theme I would like to end it with a story reported by Buddhist Psychiatrist Mark Epstein in his book Thoughts Without a Thinker. In it he describes how the promise of meditation was first recognized by William James. William James for those that don’t know was an American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. He could be considered the Freud of North America. Anyway, the story goes that while lecturing at Harvard in the early 1900’s, James suddenly stopped his lecture when he noticed a visiting Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka in the audience. “Take my chair,” he is reported to have said. “You are better equipped to lecture on Psychology than I. This is the psychology everybody will be studying twenty-five years from now.”

Thank you.

Chris Hoff has been a student of Buddhism and Zen for many years. A founding member of the Blue Cliff Zen Sangha he has been authorized as a dharma teacher by James Myoun Ford, Roshi. Chris currently serves as Executive Director of the California Family Institute. He has also recently been appointed Assistant Professor of Special Education, Rehabilitation and Counseling at the California State University at San Bernardino. Chris maintains a popular podcast, the Radical Therapist.

Previous Post

April 2, 2018

A Zen Teacher Maps Out the Spiritual Path

Next Post

April 4, 2018 A Zen Priest Reflects on the Family of Things

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was thrown into a fiery furnace but survived?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Daniel Noah Joseph Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego