Very many years past Dalai Lama advised, ‘Learn from your enemy/adversary’. What he meant was to listen to your enemy carefully, i.e. analyse and study his problem and know why he is saying or doing certain things. In another occasion he went a step further to say that we should to talk to Al-Kaida & Co., again meaning listening to them, which no security man on Globe in his proper senses would ever approve.
Listening is of two kinds: a) Aggressive Listening and b) Peaceful and peace-oriented & - intentioned Active Listening (contrasted with passive listening of a sermon or a talk). In the former, analytical intelligence is heavily employed to see what the enemy is like, with the sole intention to overcome/conquer/ruin him later. This type of listening is standard practice in politics and is no alternative to wisdom. It helps to escalate conflicts. In the latter, we use more intuitive intelligence to arrive at salutary solutions to real-time problems. Ultimately, the problem lies deeply-knotted in our Mind, which needs be cleansed of all negativities and substituted by positive thinking and that’s probably what the author has in mind. Regular Yoga & Meditation can help immensely to swing the Mind to the positive side through constant practice. That's my experience.
George Chakko, former U.N. correspondent, now retiree in Vienna, Austria. Vienna, 06/01/2019 20:41 hrs CET
ORIGINAL COMMENT
Very many years past Dalai Lama advised, ‘Learn from your enemy/adversary’. What he meant was to listen to your enemy carefully, i.e. analyse and study his problem and know why he is saying or doing certain things. In another occasion he went a step further to say that we should to talk to Al-Kaida & Co., again meaning listening to them, which no security man on Globe in his proper senses would ever approve.
Listening is of two kinds: a) Aggressive Listening and b) Peaceful and peace-oriented & - intentioned Active Listening (contrasted with passive listening of a sermon or a talk). In the former, analytical intelligence is heavily employed to see what the enemy is like, with the sole intention to overcome/conquer/ruin him later. This type of listening is standard practice in politics and is no alternative to wisdom. It helps to escalate conflicts. In the latter, we use more intuitive intelligence to arrive at salutary solutions to real-time problems. Ultimately, the problem lies deeply-knotted in our Mind, which needs be cleansed of all negativities and substituted by positive thinking and that’s probably what the author has in mind. Regular Yoga & Meditation can help immensely to swing the Mind to the positive side through constant practice. That's my experience.
George Chakko, former U.N. correspondent, now retiree in Vienna, Austria.
Vienna, 06/01/2019 20:41 hrs CET