Chapter Thirty-seven LEARNING TO LISTEN D URING AN INFORMAL GATHERING at his residence one evening, the Ajahn said, ‘When you listen to the Dhamma, you must open up your heart and compose yourself in its centre. Don’t try and accumulate what you hear, or make painstaking efforts to retain it through your memory. Just let the Dhamma flow into your heart as it reveals itself, and keep yourself continuously open to the flow in the present moment. What is ready to be retained will remain. It will happen of its own accord, not through forced effort on your part. Similarly, when you expound the Dhamma, there must be no force involved. The Dhamma must flow spontaneously from the present moment according to circumstances. You know, it’s strange, but sometimes people come to me and really show no apparent desire to hear the Dhamma, but there it is – it just happens. The Dhamma comes flowing out with no effort whatsoever. Then at other times, people seem to be quite keen to listen. They even formally ask for a discourse, and then, nothing! It just won’t happen. What can you do? I don’t know why it is, but I know that things happen in this way. It’s as though people have different levels of receptivity, and when you are there at the same level, things just happen. 425
