On how to listen I think it is very important to know how to listen. If you know how to listen, you will get to the root of the matter immediately. If you listen to pure sound, you have immediate contact with the beauty of it. Similarly, if you knew how to listen to what is being said, there would be an immediate understanding. Listening is the complete focussing of attention. You think that attention is a tiresome thing, that to learn to concentrate is a drawn-out process. But if you really know how to listen, then attention is not difficult, and you will find that you get to the heart of the matter immediately with an extraordinary alertness. Most of us do not really listen. We are distracted by external noises, or we have some prejudice, some bias which gives a twist to the mind, and this prevents us from really listening to what is being said. This is especially so with older people, because they have a long series of achievements and failures behind them...
The ground - nameless, silence, call it what you like. It is there. And the mind wants to capture "that", to have relationship with it. Sorry, you can't. That's all!