There are eight ways to practice the attribute of humility and each corresponds to a place on the body. (Moshe Cordovoro, Tamar Devorah)
The fourth practice focuses on our ears, as he writes:
Turn your attention to hearing good and positive things. Shut out falseness, evil gossip, judgment.
Once I went to visit my friends at Primrose Valley Farm located amidst the rolling hills of Wisconsin. They are CSA farmers (community supported agriculture) planting high quality produce, free of chemicals, using methods that sustain the earth, and uphold ethical standards as prescribed in Judaism. We go to the farm as often as we can. It is peaceful, filled with sacred intention, good company and wonderful food.
It was a hot July day and Ezra and I stopped at the local shop on the way to the farm and bought a bottle of chardonnay, gourmet red peppers bathed in olive oil and stuffed with soft cheese, and a chunk of aged sharp cheddar. Our friend David took Ezra on the tractor and they set off to the higher hills in the back of the farm. Jamie and I opened the bottle of wine and sat on their deck and chatted about our families, the farm, the latest crop to be planted.
I was staring out at the landscape. The dragonflies were clumsy as they danced around us, the hills were changing colors with the setting sun, and a great peace fell upon me. Suddenly I became aware of a noise, or many noises to be exact, calling from the wood. I stopped her mid-sentence. Listen. What are those sounds? We grew silent and we heard the birds flying in to nest upon the tree top for the night. Then we heard the song of the toads snuggled into the damp moss. We listened and heard wind brushing against the tall maples. As we listened and I heard my breath synchronized to the downbeat of the cicadas. There were so many sounds, and my ears were accustomed with the noise of civilization – cars, planes, trains, children outside playing, humming of electricity. I had a difficult time discerning the sounds of the woods, of the field, the sounds of the wind and the crops, the sounds of the earth and the breath of the air. I could barely distinguish one creature from another. In this natural wild setting, I was a stranger to the music, deaf to nuance.
How much passes us by. We hear according to our attention and focus. When we attend to senseless chatter, or focus on criticism, or engage in mundane conversation, then we are deaf to other sounds, other words, other utterances. This is a powerful teaching: Turn your attention to hearing good and positive things. Shut out falseness, evil gossip, judgment. Humility is in the sounds of compassion.