The Sacred Art of Listening
Tara Brach
Tara Brach
4.8 • 11.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2020
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Sacred Art of Listening - Just as presence is the heart of meditation, so deep listening is at the center of all conscious, loving relationships. This talk explores how our wants and fears block listening, ways we can deepen our capacity for listening, and the healing that unfolds when we truly feel heard by another (a special talk from the archives).
What happens when you're really listening?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. |
| 0:20.4 | I'd like to begin tonight with a story I heard from a minister who described giving a sermon |
| 0:28.1 | one Sunday and hearing two teenage girls in the back giggling and disturbing people. |
| 0:33.2 | So he says, I interrupted my sermon and announced sternly, there are two of you here who |
| 0:38.9 | have not heard a word I've said. |
| 0:41.6 | That quieted them down. |
| 0:44.1 | And when the service was over, I went to greet people at the front door and three adults |
| 0:49.4 | apologize for not listening and for going to sleep in church and promised it would never happen again. |
| 0:57.0 | So tonight's talk is titled The Sacred Art of Listening. |
| 1:06.0 | And I'd like to begin by asking you in terms of inquiry, how many of you feel that you have |
| 1:12.2 | an intention to become better listeners? |
| 1:15.5 | It's just one of those ongoing intentions. |
| 1:17.4 | Can I just see? |
| 1:18.4 | For those of you that are listening to a podcast, that was almost everyone. |
| 1:25.7 | How many of you feel like you have quite a ways to go? |
| 1:28.1 | You know what, that's okay. |
| 1:31.0 | It's not easy. |
| 1:32.9 | We have strong, strong habits of being distracted or preoccupied |
| 1:38.2 | or when other people are talking, planning what we're going to say or judging. |
| 1:42.1 | And it's just like any training in presence that listening is this sacred art that comes alive |
| 1:51.8 | when we're deliberate and we're really practicing. |
| 1:55.4 | So we need to put in the 10,000 hours. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tara Brach, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Tara Brach and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

