Practice Instructions for Listening Mind
Consider how the world might sound to an animal in the forest. A soft symphony of noise suggests that the world is alive with movement and change. Messages are everywhere. A gust of wind rustles some leaves; a dried branch falls from a tree; birds chirp; a squirrel leaps from one branch to another; maybe the roar of a distant, unseen airplane echoes off the hillside.
The living world speaks a language that has no beginning, which requires no grammar or translation, where the word for a stick breaking is ‘crack’; the word for a wave washing across a pebble beach has always been ‘sshusshh’; the word for a raindrop falling into a still pond, some version of ‘plop’, and so on. It tells its story in a dialect that is never written down but immediately understood, an utterance both immediate and universal regardless of era or location.
“In the beginning, was the Word” … or so it is proclaimed in the Gospel of John, an important chapter in the New Testament. Countless theologians have offered their interpretations of this phrase over the centuries, but perhaps it simply points to the primordial quality of sound. Before conscious recognition ever dawned, sound was already there, and after the last thought has evaporated, the cosmic conversation will continue. Regardless of the meanings, values, or superstitions our minds attach to whatever we hear, unceasing changes generate waves of subatomic particles that transmit the voice of reality. These actual vibrations remain agnostic. As a result, the constantly unfolding, eternal soundtrack of nowness is an honest concerto with no beginning or end.
Just as horses know how to walk the day they are born, human beings need not be taught how to use their ears. All of us have been listening since before we formed a memory. We emerged from the womb able to feel, taste, smell, see, and hear, and we have been swimming in a sea of sensory stimuli ever since. Listening is like breathing, a natural skill; not something acquired like learning to play the piano.
However, how each of us uses this amazing natural faculty varies from individual to individual. Most of us take our capacity to hear entirely for granted. It’s ordinary. We wake up in the morning and it’s there. Of course, if we were to suddenly go deaf, it would be catastrophic, but that seems unlikely. In the same way that fish are oblivious to water, we swim through our lives in an ocean of ambient sound.
However, if we chose to use listening as a meditation practice, a degree of awareness has to be applied which opens this ordinary window of perception to a panorama of profound awakening.
The meditation instruction is basically: “You already know, so just do it!” However, while ordinary listening is simple and usually effortless, the path of Listening Mind requires focus and inquisitiveness.
Before engaging in this kind of practice, we tend to view our senses through a dualistic lens, whereby everything we hear is regarded as ‘other’ to which we naturally react. The process is traditionally discussed as having three parts: the hearer, the heard, and the act of hearing. Within this triad, opportunities for distortion abound. As hearers, we don’t just hear, we spontaneously apply filters of either grasping, defensiveness, or nonchalance. In Buddhism, these are commonly referred to as passion, aggression, or ignorance. If the sounds heard are not alarming, we simply take them for granted and move on. On the other hand, if we are paranoid or passionate about something we hear, we tend to listen more intently and act accordingly. If we stand back a little and observe our minds, these patterns quickly become apparent. None of our assumptions around sound and listening are exempt from being put under the microscope of an open mind. When the magic of perception is examined with curiosity, our spiritual gears start shifting.
Because ego has usurped the power of perception, it uses hearing to confirm itself. All manner of hopes, fears, and conflicting emotions feed from the same trough. The role of ego is to distract or distort reality. So we absorb and receive sound from a subjective posture of separateness, whereby our reactive minds are marked by an eagerness to confirm or solidify a sense of ‘me’. Behind every moment of perception is the question- “What’s in it for me?” “Should I embrace, retract, or simply ignore this sound or situation?”
In mindful listening practice, we train the mind to pay attention to not only our reactions, but to the impersonal sparkle of sound, the simultaneous sincerity and emptiness of impermanent manifestation. Tuning our focus to the nowness quality of the auditory world, which is so worthy of our respect, we start to listen with humbleness. Our appreciation of the process of listening moves us, perhaps more than attending to the meanings we apply to sounds.
We can learn to notice how reactivity opens the floodgates of thought, and gradually relax back into a state of presence. We become aware of how we keep surrendering control to the thinking mind, and become more and more familiar with the process itself. Nobody needs to tell us if we are doing it right; simply by paying attention it becomes choiceless and obvious on the spot.
Over time, the call of the ‘audioverse’ becomes a gong of awakening, summoning us back from the haze of daydream, out of the clouds of speculation, and away from the temptations of distraction or solidification. This leaves us here and now, abiding in the direct, fluid, and equanimous flow of presence. When we can listen to the egoless quality of sound, resonating with the shimmering immediacy of the inexpressible, every note fuels discovery.
The term ‘primordial’ literally means ‘before time’. When we slip out of our autobiographical storylines and short-circuit the reactive thinking mind, we connect with the primordial quality of awareness, itself. Listening without reference to past or future reduces the myriad possibilities of distortion and binds us to an unfettered presence, inaccessible by dualistic thought. There is no before or after. So, the sacred or divine ‘Word’ that the Apostle John may have been referring to, with all the ‘In the beginning’ implications associated with eternity, strikes us as primordially obvious.
If the path of Listening has a goal, it is to be simply grounded in nowness, without unnecessary speed or mental effort. In other words, it is to be fundamentally sane. Such stature does not require being highly educated, pretty, wealthy, or talented, or to have undergone endless levels of training. One simply has to be present. Reality is utterly ordinary. There should be no expectation of a special parade or celebration in one’s honor marking this amazing attainment, but glimpses of transcendent simplicity have a profound effect on our state of mind. Ultimately, they remain ‘no big deal’. Mindful listening is, therefore, a beautiful example of an ordinary, simple discipline with an utterly wholesome, beneficial effect.
Effective listening practice frees us from complaint, resentment, denial, or lingering desires for an alternative now. It develops respect for the sacredness of immediacy. We are reminded that it is good to be alive, without making ourselves into a big deal. Listening Mind practice, at its core, is a deep, heartfelt bow to things as they are.
By making this gesture again and again, over time, an elegant volition evolves in the listener. Every time the gong of immediacy chimes, maybe as the songs of certain birds or as a chainsaw in the distance, one is called back to the sincere immediacy of life. Maybe one feels a little more like an innocent child, moving into a new neighborhood, discovering, for the first time, the rocks and the soft grasses, the cracks in the sidewalk, and marveling at how the morning sun strikes the roof of the building next door. The voice of the world constantly refreshes itself.
The language of this moment can be heard as natural music, or as mantra. But the phrase- ‘In the beginning was the Word’ implies that a self-existing music, a natural wisdom beyond thought or duration, fills space. The morning traffic may be composed of unexpected honks and roars, but behind every chorus is a freshness that cannot be captured by conceptual mind, yet rests within itself.
Some would claim that focusing our attention on the simultaneous arising and dissolution of sound is virtually impossible, or that trying to do so is far too advanced for anyone but the most advanced yogis and yoginis. However, I would argue that we do it all the time. Indeed, we cannot help but participate in the arising and vanishing act of experience. Rather than claiming that we are divorced from Listening Mind, we simply have to acknowledge our true nature.
It is not uncommon to wallow in the habit of tuning out, of ‘not listening’ in response to the overwhelming onslaught of sensual input constantly bombarding us. We complain that our cups are full and that it is absolutely necessary to filter out a great deal of ambient noise just to function. This active form of ignorance is neither good nor bad, but requires work and ties up subtle internal resources. We may not realize the degree and frequency with which we say ‘no’ to the present moment, but we know it is exhausting. When we cast ourselves as hopeless victims of habit, we lose confidence and succumb to laziness. Sadly, however, by not making the effort to occasionally step out of our self-oriented paradigm and fully participate in this profound dimension of experience, we are choosing to endure the devastating karmic effects that come with sowing the seeds of isolation and unnecessary depression.
Most genuine religions have come to recognize that any gesture intended as a sincere effort to connect to reality is fundamentally virtuous. However, only the most sophisticated spiritual traditions acknowledge the true value of distinguishing mental chatter from direct experience. Several truly compassionate lineages offer methods that exploit sensory perceptions as portals into presence. By instructing adherents to notice when they get lost in thought and guide their awareness back to the chosen reference point, be it the breath, sound, or sensations throughout the body, the subtle differences between immediacy and the vagueness of disconnection are highlighted and examined.
By way of summarizing meditation instruction, simply pay attention to the experience of sound as wholesomely as you can. Stay open and see what rings true! Sound is luminous. Sensory capacities should not be taken for granted. Avoid grasping at sounds or trying to chase them away. Rather, try to relax as the portal of listening opens and a new sense of freshness begins to pervade your mind.
Throughout the day, don’t forget to periodically stop and listen. Avoid getting involved in the hope of achieving some lofty state, but allow yourself to marvel at the natural abruptness, impermanence, and irregularity of the soundscape. With time, these very ordinary qualities will begin to randomly slice through egoic patterns like blades of brilliant, spontaneous light piercing the darkness.
And, of course, it never hurts to smile from time to time.