Compassionate listening is the kind of listening that has only one purpose: to listen in order to help the other person to suffer less. And that is why you have to nourish the awareness that no matter what the other person says, you will keep calm and continue to listen. Not only you do not have any judgment during that whole time of listening, but you have to maintain the compassion alive in you for the whole time of listening. Because the other person may say many wrong things, may be unjust, his speech may be full of wrong perceptions, always blaming, attacking, and judging. And yet the energy of compassion in you can be maintained alive, so that the seed of suffering in you will not be touched. And that is why practicing mindful breathing the whole time of listening is very helpful. "Breathing in, I know that I listen in order to make him suffer less. Breathing out, I remember that the person in front of me suffers so much." We have to train ourselves in order to be able to sit and listen for forty-five minutes or one hour without becoming irritated.

Avalokiteśvara is a person who has that kind of capacity of listening. Kuan Yin practices the art of deep listening. But I think this is absolutely necessary for us in order to help the other person. The person of the therapist can have a lot of suffering within. And if she does not cultivate her compassion and her mindfulness, her concentration, and then what the client is telling her may touch the seed of suffering in her and make herself suffer, and her quality of listening will be very poor. That is why she has to practice compassionate listening. She has to cultivate her mindfulness, her concentration, and of course her compassion. She knows that listening to him or to her is just to, first of all, to give her a chance to pull the things out because so far, no one has been able to do that. So I might be the first one who can do that. And I have to succeed.