Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred

by Mark Nepo

Overview

MARK NEPO MOVED AND INSPIRED millions of people with his #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening, a spiritual daybook that draws on his awakening through cancer to offer life lessons from all the spiritual traditions. In his continuing exploration of the human journey, Nepo has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time,” “a consummate storyteller,” and “an eloquent spiritual teacher.” In his latest book, he inquires into the endless ways we are asked to listen. Experiencing hearing loss himself, Nepo affirms that listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous, and challenging art forms on Earth: “Whatever difficulty you face, there are time-tried ways you can listen your way through. Because listening is the doorway to everything that matters. It enlivens the heart the way breathing enlivens the lungs. We listen to awaken our heart. We do this to stay vital and alive.”

In Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, Nepo offers ancient and contemporary practices to help us stay close to what is sacred. In this beautifully written spiritual memoir, Nepo explores the transformational journey with his characteristic insight and grace. He unfolds the many gifts and challenges of deep listening as we are asked to reflect on the life we are given. A moving exploration of self and our relationship to others and the world around us, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen unpacks the many ways we are called to redefine ourselves and to name what is meaningful as we move through the changes that come from experience and aging and the challenge of surviving loss.

Filled with questions to reflect on and discuss with others and meditations on how to return to what matters throughout the day, this enlightening book teaches us how to act wholeheartedly so we can inhabit the gifts we are born with and find the language of our own wisdom. Seven Thousand Ways to Listen weaves a tapestry of deep reflection, memoir, and meditation to create a remarkable guide on how to listen to life and live more fully.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451674699
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	10/09/2012
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Mark Nepo is a poet, philosopher, and spiritual adviser who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for more than 30 years. He is the author of 12 books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Book of Awakening. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Read an Excerpt

TO MY READER

I WAS HAVING LUNCH with Olasope Oyelaran, a linguist from Nigeria. As we talked, he brought languages alive like tropical plants and spoke of them as rooted things that sprout and reach in all directions for the light. He marveled that there are seven thousand living languages on Earth. And these are only the ones we know of. The music of his African voice flowed beneath his overtones of English. Listening to him affirmed the things that come before us and which, thankfully, outlast us.

That night, as I settled under the covers, with the lights out, I heard our yellow Lab breathe as the wind announced the stars. There, in the silence that’s never quite silent, I realized that, if there are at least seven thousand ways to speak, there are at least seven thousand ways to listen. And just how few we know.

The many ways to listen have been reaching into me for years. To enter deep listening, I’ve had to learn how to keep emptying and opening, how to keep beginning. I’ve had to lean into all I don’t understand, accepting that I am changed by what I hear. In all, it’s been an exciting journey, one that’s made me more alive. I offer what I’ve learned and am still learning, not as a map or set of instructions but as one way to open our humanity.

To start with, we must honor that listening is a personal pilgrimage that takes time and a willingness to circle back. With each trouble that stalls us and each wonder that lifts us, we are asked to put down our conclusions and feel and think anew. Unpredictable as life itself, the practice of listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous, and challenging art forms on Earth. Each of us is by turns a novice and a master, until the next difficulty or joy undoes us.

In real ways, we are invited each day to slow down and listen. But why listen at all? Because listening stitches the world together. Because listening is the doorway to everything that matters. It enlivens the heart the way breathing enlivens the lungs. We listen to awaken our heart. We do this to stay vital and alive.

This is the work of reverence: to stay vital and alive by listening deeply.

The truth is we spend much of our time on Earth listening and waking. When awake, we come upon the risk to be honest and vulnerable in order to live life fully. If we get this far, we are returned, quite humbly, to the simple fate of being here. Ultimately, a devotion to deep listening remains the simple and sacred work of being here.

To awaken our heart through the reverence of listening strengthens the fabric that knits us all together. Why? Because as cells are nourished and cleansed by the bloodstream, the bloodstream depends on healthy cells. All work together to keep the body alive and whole. In just this way, the world depends on the dance between the individual awakened soul and the river of Spirit that feeds us all. The world needs healthy awakened souls to stay alive and whole.

Yet how do we inhabit these connections and find our way in the world? By listening our way into lifelong friendships with everything larger than us, with our life of experience, and with each other.

Our friendship with everything larger than us opens us to the wisdom of Source. This is the work of being. Our friendship with experience opens us to the wisdom of life on Earth. This is the work of being human. And our friendship with each other opens us to the wisdom of care. This is the work of love. While we may feel lifted or overwhelmed by each of these on any given day, they are intertwined and inseparable—three friends we need to stay connected to if we have any hope of living an awakened life. These three friendships—the work of being, the work of being human, and the work of love—frame the journey of this book.

In a daily way, listening is being present enough to hear the One in the many and the many in the One. Listening is an animating process by which we feel and understand the moment we are in: repeatedly connecting the inner world with the world around us, letting one inform the other. Listening is an ongoing way of relating to experience.

There are many interchangeable names for listening. The placeholder we call listening is merely the eyehole to the kaleidoscope; the shell we hold to our ear that somehow reveals the music of the ocean. It doesn’t matter what you call it but that you find the entry that works for you. What matters is that you keep trying and keep putting your attempts together, that you gather your own understanding.

Though this book is called Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, there is obviously no secret number, no secret math involved. This is just a way of pointing to a path that has no end. As you read and gather notions of listening, I invite you to interchange them and grow your own sense of meaning along the way. For example, “Ways of Listening” might also be understood as “Ways of Keeping What Is True Before Us” or “Ways of Receiving” or “Ways of Entering the Unspoken.”

I welcome you to this conversation between the stars, the animals, and the trees of language sprouting from the Earth. I invite you to engage in the work of reverence; in the work of staying freshly connected by entering your friendship with this mystery we call life. I invite you to listen in every way you can, for listening in all things is the first step toward friendship.

Table of Contents

To My Reader xiii

The Work of Being

Beyond Our Awareness 5

Keeping What Is True Before Us 16

The Gift in Receiving 22

A Reality That Keeps Unfolding 28

How Do We Listen to All That Is Not Said? 36

Being Lost 41

In the Presence of Sages 51

Entering Silence 61

God Blinking 65

A Conversation with the Elements 68

One Living Sense 75

Deep Listening 83

The Work of Being Human

How We Learn 97

Restoring Confidence 103

Honeycombs and Thinking-Strings 108

Going Back into the Fire 113

What Happens When You Really Listen 120

Being Articulate 127

The Call of the Soul 133

Seasons of Listening 139

Outwaiting the Clouds 150

Approaching the Dark Acre 155

Untangling the Net 160

Playing Hands with God 166

Knowing Where We Are 171

The Work of Love

The Human Garden 183

How We Injure Ourselves 190

A Steadfast Teacher 195

In the Hut We Call the Self 198

Finding Birdsong 201

The Endless Search 210

Not Getting What We Want 220

The Stilling of Our Pain 226

The Mystery of the Moment 231

A Closer Geography 234

To Endure and Endear 240

Wandering Authentically 247

No Strangers in the Heart 255

Afterword 259

Gratitudes 261

Notes 263

Interviews with Mark Nepo 281

Editorial Reviews

Oprah Winfrey has said that the writing of Mark Nepo takes her breath away. She's not alone: His Book of Awakening and The Book of Inner Courage have been word-of-mouth bestsellers in our bookstores and online. Seven Thousands Way to Listen, his latest effort, displays the deep synergy of his poetry and thought. His attentiveness to the natural lyricism of life is conveyed in language that is both memorable and profound. Both autobiographical and philosophical, this trade paperback and NOOK original teaches us to respond to the physical and spiritual challenges of life.

A meditative approach to silencing the world’s noise…. Readers receive tools necessary to slow down and learn to listen in a deep, meaningful way…. Nepo provides through methods for reaching deeper into the inner self.

Kirkus

Ninety percent of writing is listening. To receive the world and to receive ourselves. In this book Nepo has generously taught us how to listen. Do the reflective exercises he suggests to lead you deeply down the path.

Natalie Goldberg

Mark Nepo is a master of listening deeply to life’s experiences where essential messages for the soul can be found. In Seven Thousand Ways to Listen he shares his wisdom with us. Mark gives us hope that we can live more vital lives through our own careful listening to our depths. Pain excavates those depths where life is trying to awaken our authentic self. Visiting the pain in our lives is made more meaningful when we can do so with a spiritual master like Mark Nepo. I find myself wanting to keep this book near me for frequent consultation and meditation.

Rev. Ed Bacon

"Mark Nepo is a Great Soul. His resonant heart—his frank and astonishing voice—befriend us mightily on this mysterious trail."

Naomi Shihab Nye

"Thought-provoking exploration of the art of listening. Nepo’s background as a poet shines through in his writing, which can be truly beautiful."

Booklist

"This masterpiece on listening comes at a vital time when divisions in American run rampant around politics, race, and religion."

Debra Moffitt

Nepo has mastered a unique way of inviting the reader into a meditative state while reading his sublime wisdom about everyday life. I found his work a comfort—and that's a rare find these days.

Caroline Myss

This profound and lyrical book teaches us the lost art of listening. And as we learn to listen, we open to the myriad voices of life and the silent mysteries of the soul and begin to sense the truth of being alive. Mark Nepo’s words are always like choice wine for the soul, to be sipped slowly, allowing their flavor into all the secret places of our being. Beneath and between his words we can hear this greatest wonder we call life. This is the real gift of this wonderful book.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

"Mark Nepo has become one of my favorite spiritual teachers. His bestseller, The Book of Awakening, came to me by chance as a birthday present. I kept it by my bedside table for two years, dipping into it many, many times. More recently, Nepo’s book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred (Atria) has given me the opportunity to expand how I take in people, words, the world. I’ve loved being introduced, through Nepo’s spiritual memoir, to the idea of really hearing, in ways I never have before."

Oprah Winfrey

“Listening is the doorway to everything that matters,” claims Mark Nepo. In a world where we try to make ourselves known by making noise, that's a revolutionary claim. Revolutionary but true. Read this beautiful book and learn to listen anew—to those closest to you, to strangers, to nature, to your own heart, and to the great silence. Everything that matters is found on the other side of the noise, and this book, written by a master listener, can help us find our way to it.

Parker J. Palmer

"Oprah Winfrey has said that the writing of Mark Nepo takes her breath away. She's not alone: His Book of Awakening and Finding Inner Courage have been word-of-mouth bestsellers in our bookstores and online. Seven Thousands Way to Listen, his latest effort, displays the deep synergy of his poetry and thought. His attentiveness to the natural lyricism of life is conveyed in language that is both memorable and profound. Both autobiographical and philosophical, this marvelous work teaches us to respond to the physical and spiritual challenges of life."

Barnes & Noble

"Mark Nepo is… an insightful religious thinker and a decidedly credible voice of contemporary spirituality… an eloquent spiritual teacher."

Herbert Mason

If you live the questions, life will move you into the answers. Mark Nepo offers you a map to explore the sacred in your own being.

Deepak Chopra

"A consummate master of telling stories and parables about people's hopes, dreams, yearnings, fears, sorrows and triumphs... Nepo has written a masterwork on the spiritual practice of listening."

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

"Thought-provoking exploration of the art of listening. Nepo’s background as a poet shines through in his writing, which can be truly beautiful."

Booklist

“Listening is the doorway to everything that matters,” claims Mark Nepo. In a world where we try to make ourselves known by making noise, that's a revolutionary claim. Revolutionary but true. Read this beautiful book and learn to listen anew—to those closest to you, to strangers, to nature, to your own heart, and to the great silence. Everything that matters is found on the other side of the noise, and this book, written by a master listener, can help us find our way to it.” — Parker J. Palmer, author of Healing the Heart of Democracy, Let Your Life Speak, and A Hidden Wholeness

“This profound and lyrical book teaches us the lost art of listening. And as we learn to listen, we open to the myriad voices of life and the silent mysteries of the soul and begin to sense the truth of being alive. Mark Nepo’s words are always like choice wine for the soul, to be sipped slowly, allowing their flavor into all the secret places of our being. Beneath and between his words we can hear this greatest wonder we call life. This is the real gift of this wonderful book.” —Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Sufi teacher and author, Prayer of the Heart

From the Publisher

Mark Nepo is a master of listening deeply to life’s experiences where essential messages for the soul can be found. In Seven Thousand Ways to Listen he shares his wisdom with us. Mark gives us hope that we can live more vital lives through our own careful listening to our depths. Pain excavates those depths where life is trying to awaken our authentic self. Visiting the pain in our lives is made more meaningful when we can do so with a spiritual master like Mark Nepo. I find myself wanting to keep this book near me for frequent consultation and meditation.

Gov. - Ed Bacon

A meditative approach to silencing the world's noise. "[H]ow do we lean in and listen to all that is not us," writes poet and philosopher Nepo (As Far As the Heart Can See: Stories to Illuminate the Soul, 2011, etc.), "to all that is calling, to the particular angel waiting to guide us more thoroughly into who we are born to be?" Through personal examples and extensive "reflective pause" sections, in which the author provides meditation practices, journal exercises, and questions to be shared with friends and loved ones, readers receive tools necessary to slow down and learn to listen in a deep, meaningful way. Listening is more than the act of physically hearing; it is the process of stopping the chatter in the mind, diving deeper into the self so that one may be open and present to the mysterious marvels that surround us at every moment. It is connecting with one's intuition, with "the Source" (or Creator), and honoring all with love and reverence. Nepo admits that entering the silence requires courage and commitment, but each experience of entering this state brings readers into deep relaxation and the awareness of a connection with the web of life. By being authentic to the calling of one's soul, one moves closer to a sense of peace, where self-centeredness, disappointment and daily struggles dissolve into humility and wonder. By learning to truly listen, which entails hard work and the willingness to change over time, one can develop a meaningful connection with the soul. Not for skeptics of spiritualism or New-Age ideas, but Nepo provides thorough methods for reaching deeper into the inner self.

Kirkus Reviews