At the beginning of all real change there is listening. Listening, as symbolized by the six individual elements of the "TING" sign:

The ear (耳)
The ear represents the idea of hearing including the message, intonation and volume. Through the combination we can encode the feelings and the constitutional state of our counterpart.

The King (王)
The King symbolizes the high esteem we (should) give to the person to whom we listen.

The number 10 (十) in connection with the eye (目)
ten eyes focus on the speaker's facial expressions and gestures in order to absorb all non-verbal information about what has been said, to understand it in context and to interpret it correctly.

Undivided attention in the form of the number 1 (一)
If we are listening to someone, we should ungedivided attention to focus on him. Often other thoughts go through our heads or we do other activities besides listening. This reduces the receptivity and leads to incomplete or incorrect understanding. Interrupting early or interrupting the word because we think we already know our answer can lead to misunderstandings. According to the Chinese element "one", active listening demands our full attention while listening.



The heart (心)

In the Chinese philosophy of language, the heart is part of listening, because without our heart we only hear part of what is meant. We need the heart to listen emphatically.