As a teacher you might wonder why what you’re teaching seems to go in one ear and straight out the other with students. You might keep repeating the same thing again and again, wondering why it’s not sinking in.

Then occasionally a student might say “you’ve been telling me this for years, but I’ve only just realised what you’ve been trying to say.”

You might be presenting it badly, and that’s certainly worth examining, but also a student can’t understand anything until they’re ready. How can we tell when a student is ‘ready’ to understand that deeper teaching?

Firstly you need to encourage questioning, feedback and conversation as a teaching can often only be understood when the right question has formed in a student’s mind and is asked.

Body language is also a good indicator, their body is always trying to tell them what it needs, they can’t hear it, but you can. When it’s not connected, you are able to adjust it, often with a light touch and when corrected, you can feel it sigh as it drops into place and thank you.

Habitually their mind will be stuck in indoctrinated patterns, their training and meditation will bring them to a point that the existing structure doesn’t work for them anymore and they will be frustrated, it’s only then that the deeper teaching can be heard, used and understood.

When you feel that you’re shouting into the darkness or talking to a brick wall, it’s probably both of you. You need to be more sensitive. It’s not what you want to teach, it’s what the student needs at that time, you need to be more sensitive to the state of their body and mind to work out how and when to present the teaching in the best way.

Then you’ll both get more from the relationship and be a lot less frustrated.