Written by a  participant

I just experienced a new practice delight, a nugget of privileged environment inserted in the middle of my day-to-day life.  I am referring to a reflective listening phone call with another Sangha member who I have never met and who lives across the country.  For 30 minutes once a week we commit to supporting each other's practice by taking turns as reflective listeners.  I have been involved in these calls for a few months now and am finding them to be a favorite way to support my practice.  

Having these regularly scheduled calls sprinkled into my weekly activities helps me keep the practice more alive in real life situations.  Knowing that I have a call with 15 minutes set aside just for me to share whatever I am noticing is strong encouragement to pay closer attention and see my day through the lens of the practice.  Here I am living my life and right in the middle of whatever is going on I have the opportunity to stop and pay attention with the strong support of the privileged environment.  It is like a snapshot of awareness in the middle of life happening -- a call back to consciousness.

The value of these calls increases as I become more aware of what I am receiving from them.  I can watch my process around making the call and how my conditioning tries to take control of the call so that I will be the “right person.” As the one being facilitated, I have a chance to look at my own experience and have it reflected back to me without any interference.  It is a chance for me to hear myself.  I can notice the voices of self-hatred and say them out loud to another person and watch how they lose their power as I hear them reflected back to me.  It gives me a chance to check in and see how I am in this moment, to see who is here who might need some compassion, 

As the facilitator, it gives me a chance to get out of the way and be a mirror for someone as they experience their own life.  It is also a chance to check in and see how present I am.  As I stay with reflective listening I might notice how my conditioning resists and tries to convince me to reassure or comes up with other better ideas.   Since I am committed to reflective listening, I can have the experience of not going with conditioning's better ideas.  As I hear the practice described in the words of the speaker it often opens a door for me to see my own practice in a new way.  The more I facilitate others, the more I realize the universality of our conditioned patterns and feel less unique and alone in my struggles.  When others have the courage to share what the voices of self-hatred are saying that a part of them is believing, it inspires me to question what I am believing in my own system. 

These calls support my practice in ways I never expected.  The commitment I make to this other practitioner is also a commitment to me and my practice.  If I am lost in suffering and resisting practice in my own life, that commitment to another person helps me step back into a practice environment.  Hearing the awarenesses of other practitioners expands my practice.  As I hear someone explore their own life experience, I am encouraged to look at my experience and I might see it in a new way.  By participating in these calls, I am able to have a direct experience of Sangha while being in my own home and living my day-to-day life. 

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