Various Forms of Listening Meditation

THE VARIOUS FORMS OF LISTENING MEDITATION

Historical Perspective

For most of evolution, life was a lot quieter than it is today. It's been a few thousand years since the first blacksmith started hammering – but recently, with motors, amplifiers, drills, bombs and beat music, we have suddenly become a very loud species.

Life has become stressful for all animals who are dependent on listening for their survival – and i think all the others (humans), have become a little deaf.

Focused Listening

There's quite a difference between listening to silence; listening to something specific, like music or bird song; listening to everything; and panoramic listening.

I think many people already know that listening to silence can bring a feeling of peace. And listening to beautiful things: rain drops or the melody in a child's voice, can be exhilarating and well worth focusing on.

So if you are lucky enough to live where there is a river, or a cacophony of bird song, then focus on that. And a classical music concert, where everyone collectively just listens, can be bliss.

Such exercises are all stimulating and good for the soul, and most humans already know this.

It is necessary to recognise that such listening exercises are a form of sensual pleasure, with all the down sides of sensual pleasure. Listening panoramically to everything which is happening. as openly as a new born baby, is an exception.

But for animals all such things are irrelevant, doing them is pointless and could even be dangerous.

Deer listening and watching out. Pre-emptive Listening
In Pre-Emptive Listening, i discussed the basic ideas and practice behind panoramic listening. It is the openness and receptivity to any and every sudden stimuli – the alertness to changes and movements – which is vital to animals.

We often start noticing sounds after they have started. With church bells we often start realising that they're ringing at the second or third chime. The point is to be ready and waiting for the first chime.

Education

Through reading, writing, and drawing, we are trained early to focus precisely with our eyes to the exclusion of everything else. And when we're tired of focusing we can close our eyes.

We can't close our ears, we have to listen all around, even through doors and double glazed windows. Listening hasn't been educated and disciplined in the same way.

Listening out into the Distance

Often in cities or in woodlands, vision is limited, but especially at night, sounds travel for miles. And at night, it is very calming and stimulating to listen to sounds all around and miles away.

I remember camping by a deserted country road, listening at night to the occasional single car winding off into the distance with the feeling that it was stretching my hearing abilities for ten miles and more, and then, the complete silence. It was beautiful, it relaxed every neuron in my brain, and if this sort of experience could always be guaranteed from focusing, then i would always advise it.

(This experience was back in the 1980s, old-fashioned cars were much louder, these days i sometimes listen to distant motor bikes or lorries.)

Ear Yoga

Do a little yoga with your hearing, stretch it, listen-out. Actively listen, searching for sounds. Check in all directions, near and far away, high and low.

Ideally, sit somewhere without walls. Walls reflect sounds in a way which distort our spacial reality. Knowing where we are in relation to the sounds around us, is part of knowing who we are.

Sit with your back to the wind and listen behind you. We can see what's happening in front, smelling and listening are the only ways to know what's going on behind us.

Children's games include... imagine a car horn is a wild-boar... the approaching helicopter is a swarm of locusts... the rustle of a bit of litter is a snake ...

What to listen-out for depends on the background noises where you are. I was once near a children's playground where i found it useful to listen-out for cars!

The Shock Wave
A curiosity i've noticed a few times among animals is that they sometimes react a fraction of a second before a sound. I've personally experienced something like this with very loud sounds, it's as though there's a shock wave which precedes the sound. I imagine someone, sometime, will give me a scientific explanation.

Industrial Sounds
Some modern sounds truly aren't good to listen to. You can try and listen over the sound, turn the motors into the background, empathise with what animals must do. But don't be too idealistic: the constant purring of electrical noise is nerve wracking – use modern earplugs and pity the animals who can't.

Motivation

For a hare or deer, it's a matter of survival, and we don't have that motive. We used our intelligence to survive and built walls to be safe. But now, we still need to use our intelligence: if we don't stop thinking for a few moments, we will all go crazy. It is urgent that we all get a bit of direct and simple peace of mind.

There is no better, simpler, cheaper, readily available, or more direct way than 'listening-out' in a panoramic way to stop thinking, or at least slow the thoughts down for a few seconds and enjoy a moments inner peace. If we empathise with animals' way of listening, we can't think. If we start thinking, we stop listening, and at that moment an animal would be vulnerable.

Panoramic listening requires and stimulates nowness like no other sense.

Listening with the entire head

There's one other thing. When i feel fully involved with listening-out, the sensation is that i'm listening through my scalp and the whole circumference of my head, rather than just the ears.

This sensation is not a scientific fact, and it can be easily disproven by using ear plugs; it is clearly 'my imagination'

But this is how it actually feels, and i want to be in touch with how life actually feels. And i suggest that this is how it feels for many animals, birds for example (with no exterior ears), and babies, (who first discover and learn to cover their ears with their hands between 6 and 12 months old).

And next consider that we experience vibrations through our entire body. I think most people have experienced this at some time with loud sounds... (remember a rock concert).

So, to enhance this sensitivity i'd suggest to any experimental young person, use the ear plugs and listen with your body, especially your trunk, (arms and legs don't seem as sensitive). (And spare a thought for the deaf drummers who feel the rythym through their feet.)

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