Listening is being silent with another person in an active way. It is silently bearing with another person. Some people are silent, but they are not open and active. They are either asleep or dead within themselves. The true listener is one who is quiet and yet sensitive toward another person, open and active, receptive and alive. Listening is participating in another life in a most creative and powerful way. It is neither coercive nor pushy. Rather, it is bearing one another's burdens.
At first silence had seemed a deprivation, a symbol of an
unwanted isolation. I had resented the solitude of my life
and fought it. But gradually the enveloping quiet became
a positive element, almost a presence, which settled
comfortably and caressingly around me like a soft shawl.
It seemed to hum, gently but melodiously, and to
orchestrate the ideas that I was contending with, until
they started to sing too, to vibrate and reveal an
unexpected resonance. After a time I found that I could
almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of
its own...I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the
silence. Silence itself had become my teacher.
~ from THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE by Karen Armstrong