Continuity

Nellie started us on this topic yesterday: sensitive communication. Today, I’d like to continue with that theme by talking about continuity in sensitive communication.

In the Dharma, we usually place sensitive communication under the broad category of right speech. But the phrase points to something wider than speech alone. It suggests an entire orientation: how we listen, how we pause, how we sense what is happening before deciding what to add to it, and even how we adjust our communication after words have been said.

When we bring in the word sensitive, many of us may notice it carries some baggage. At one time or another, many people have been called sensitive in a critical way: too sensitive, overreactive, delicate. But I’d like to turn that a little. Rather than fragility, I want to think of sensitivity as attunement and care. It is the ability, perhaps somewhat natural but also cultivated, to register what is actually happening internally and externally before responding, and even after responding.

This sounds very close to the spirit of practice: learning to notice clearly, to be present with what is here, and not to rush past it.

Sensitivity as Attunement

This morning I want to nod to an article that was forwarded to me by a quiet Sangha member. It is called Armed with Sensitivity: A General’s Perspective on Leadership, written by Dutch General Eleanor Boholt O’Sullivan.

What struck me immediately was how unexpected her voice felt. Not because of what she was saying, but because of where she was saying it from. She wrote that her natural tendency to observe first was not always understood in her early years in the armed forces. Silence was quickly interpreted as doubt, restraint, or worse, weakness. In meetings, she felt pressure to say something, even when she knew it would be more useful to wait, to listen, to understand, and then to respond.

In many organizations, including the armed forces, visible leadership is often equated with audible leadership. Those who speak up get attention, and those who hesitate risk giving the impression that they have nothing to say.

But what she hoped to convey was that silence is not the same as passivity or absence. It is not doing nothing. It is giving space so that others have the courage to say something.

To me, she sounds like someone who might be drawn to meditation, or philosophy, or at least long walks with people and good questions. And yet here she is, carrying this way of being into a field where speed, decisiveness, and command have traditionally been prized.

What she is describing is not a lack of leadership, but a different expression of it. One that does not rush to fill space or dominate it. One that trusts that understanding can precede action, and perhaps should precede action.

Quiet Leadership and the Impulse to Speak

Interestingly, she followed this research through the Quiet Institute, inspired by Susan Cain’s work in Quiet, and organized what she called a quiet leadership symposium.

The participants, leaders from many different fields, filled out a survey before attending and were assigned a seat color: red for extrovert, green for introvert, and blue for ambivert, that flexible middle way between the two.

She did this in a simple and playful way, but the results were revealing. When people entered the room, the group was divided with more than 90% identifying as extroverts. Introverts and ambiverts made up only a very small portion of the conference.

Now, she questioned the accuracy of self-reporting. People in leadership roles often think they should be a certain way, especially in professional environments. And as she pointed out, in organizations where action, visibility, and speed are primary, it is not surprising that fewer people apply who prefer, as she put it, “to have a bit of a think first.”

That article caught my attention, and my mind wandered into Dharma spaces. What would it look like if we did a survey before a meditation retreat? It is tempting to assume that meditation attracts introverts, that meditators are quieter, less reactive, less inclined to speak. But I do not think it is such a simple divide.

People come to meditation for many reasons: stress, curiosity, discipline, insight. It seems to me that meditation draws many personality types. What may shift over time is not so much our temperament, but our relationship to communication.

Meditators often become better at noticing the urge to speak, or to act, before simply following it. And in Reflective Meditation, we also think about it afterward. We like to have a think about it. Practice does not necessarily make us quieter by nature. I think it makes us more sensitive.

The Capacity to Wait

From the outside, this may look like introversion, but I think it is really something else. It is a training in the capacity to wait. To feel the moment when communication could be helpful, how it could be best used, and when it would not.

That brings me to one of the most meaningful parts of O’Sullivan’s reflection. She says that in communication, where the strength lies is in continuity: continuing to listen, continuing with relationships, understanding what is there before saying something, and remaining related to how things unfold and what happens afterward.

This really resonates from a Reflective Meditation standpoint, where we often speak about reflection, meditation, reflection, and relationship. Sensitive communication comes from the continuity of practice. It comes from listening long enough to understand what is already there before rushing in to shape it.

Silence as Intelligent Action

There is also something important here about trust, though not blind trust. I hope those who are newer to our gathering begin to see for themselves that our time together does something with the balance between speaking and silence.

Silence matters. It organizes our practice. It also makes room for voices that might otherwise stay quiet. We want people to feel comfortable enough to speak up and talk about their experience. And we hope that capacity can grow out of being silent together in meditation.

Silence is not the opposite of communication. It is part of intelligent action.

A Capacity We Can Cultivate

I find it quietly encouraging that this understanding of sensitive communication is showing up not only in meditation halls, but also in places where the stakes are high, the tempo is fast, and the cost of misunderstanding is real.

It may seem wildly opposite to what we imagine in settings like the armed forces, and yet the seed has been planted. She planted it by writing about it, someone shared it with me, and now I am sharing it with you. I hope it bears fruit in ways none of us can yet imagine.

Because it suggests that sensitivity is not just a personal trait reserved for certain kinds of people. It is a capacity that can be cultivated. And it may be one that is increasingly necessary, both for ourselves and for others.

Join Our Daily Online Reflective Meditation

If you would like to explore these themes in practice, you are welcome to join our daily online meditation gatherings at reflectivemeditation.org/dailyonline.

We meet daily from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM PT. Each session begins with a short dharma talk, followed by a chance to meditate and reflect. In Reflective Meditation, we encourage meditators to approach practice with gentleness, kindness, and curiosity.

We keep our cameras off during the meditation so you can do your own practice. After meditation, we recommend writing down your experience in a journal. In the last 10 to 15 minutes, a few people have the opportunity to speak briefly with the teacher of the day while others observe and learn from the interaction. Occasionally, we follow a slightly modified format, as we did for this talk.

If that sounds supportive to you, we would be glad to have you join us.