I do not know if you have ever examined
how you listen,
it doesn't matter to what, whether to a bird,
to the wind in the leaves, to the rushing waters,
or how you listen in a dialogue with yourself,
to your conversation in various relationships
with your intimate friends, your wife or husband...

If we try to listen
we find it extraordinarily difficult,
because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas,
our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses;
when they dominate we hardly listen to what is being said...

In that state there is no value at all.
One listens and therefore learns,
only in a state of attention, a state of silence,
in which this whole background is in abeyance,
is quiet;
then, it seems to me,
it is possible to communicate.

-- Krishnamurti, Talks and Dialogues