What would you do?

Esau101

Hiya all,
The other day I was interacting with 3 people who have differing degrees of communication and spasticity issues. I found it both enlightening and frustrating, for me and for them as I didn't always pick up upon their messages/ideas:banghead:.
This got me to thinking into how lucky we are here that we are able to communicate with each other so readily. Our ideas flow, when we communicate/interact with others, they quickly understand us. Even when we engage one another over the net we use just about all our senses.
So I thought I would ask you this....How would you cope if you lost the ability to communicate your ideas successfully? By what skillful means would you use to communicate your ideas? What steps would you take and how would this impact upon your current practice, let alone your life?
Hope to "hear" from you soon....Cheers:ausflag:

Jason

Esau,

If I lost the ability to communicate my ideas effectively and skillfully, I'd probably just stop trying to communicate them to anyone. Sometimes, being an effective and skillful listener is just as good, if not better.

Jason

LesC

If you lost the ability to communicate your ideas successfully... then you would have lost that ability. Sort of like being autistic... I think you would be very frustrated at continuing to try to communicate... better to meditate and be at peace. You really only have two choices... you can to OK with it or you can be distraught... but in any event, you have lost your ability to communicate successfully.

sara

I sort of feel I have lost that ability a bit at times... Makes me feel overwhelmed. How would I cope? Do you know expressing myself is so fundemental I can't even imagine it.

texashermit

Greetings,

Since one of the measures of right speech/action is the timeliness of the behavior, I am with Elohim here...I would--hopefully--have the patience to just wait and be silent. Since active listening leads to better communication skill anyway, listening will usually solve the communication block we are experiencing. Skillfulness in many aspects of life --especially relationships--is rarely like riding a bike...we can easily forget lessons of the past unless we keep engaged with our practice.

Knowing ourselves and the tricks of our monkey minds enough to realize when to refrain from speaking or acting is a trait worth harnessing.

nomad

I’m not sure that I would be able to function. I’d probably buy a cabin somewhere in the woods and live there with a little notebook writing prophecies that nobody would ever understand because I was such a poor communicator.
<o></o>
~nomad

sara

nomad wrote: »

I’m not sure that I would be able to function. I’d probably buy a cabin somewhere in the woods and live there with a little notebook writing prophecies that nobody would ever understand because I was such a poor communicator.
<O></O>
~nomad

Nomad I just wanted to say I love the quote on your signature - I find it very moving

nomad

Thanks, Sara! I read it in Lama Surya Das' book "Awakening the Buddha Within". I felt that it was extremely relevant to my feelings about life.

I've been reading your blog for the past few weeks and I think that it's very well written and insightful. :-)

~nomad

sara

Wow thanks! I'm really touched by that.