Avid Note-Takers, Listen Up!

The main thing when listening to dharma teaching is how our mind is focused and to betaking a lot of notes isn’t good. The direction our mind takes will be mistaken because we’ll pay too much attention to the words and not the meaning. The words and the meaning are different, and if we miss the meaning, the words will become useless, just like a corpse.

If there’s a key point we don’t want to forget, to make a quick note is fine, that won’t affect the way the mind is focused. ‘The way the mind is focused’ means the manner in which we place our attention during the teaching. Receiving a dharma teaching is a one-shot affair. You only get one chance to get it, and if at that point you’re more concentrated on taking notes, you’ll miss the most important thing, which is gaining an understanding or feeling in your mind for what’s being said. It really is very detrimental to gaining understanding.

And we’re not able to write notes and think about what’s being said at the same time. When we have one thought, we can’t have another going on somewhere else. So we really need to listen as best we can. It’s even taught in the texts; “When you are receiving teachings you shouldn’t do any recitation, turn prayer wheels, or use malas. All of these should be left aside.” The reason being they’ll obstruct your listening well to the teachings. One might think that just turning a prayer wheel wouldn’t affect receiving the teachings very much, but it does, and writing takes far more attention. So writing notes is really not good. Please think about this.

The best thing we can do is to give full attention to what’s being directly said, and try to get the point. Also now with technology, there’s not a big need to take notes, because we can listen to the recordings of the teaching again, taking our time to make notes. We have more control over the situation then, being able to pause the recording and so on. In the actual teaching, if we miss something, it’s gone.

I ask though that you don’t share the recordings with others, because that will start to take the place of people receiving teachings directly from a lama. Passing recordings around can also hinder the continuation of the lineage and bring many other obstacles, so please be careful and think about what I’m saying.

So, the way we set our attention and our basic mental approach to the teaching is extremely important. And between writing and paying attention to the teachings, we’re far better off paying attention.