Day 4: Noticing Sounds

This meditation invites you to open your awareness to the sounds around you, noticing how they arise and pass away on their own. Beginning from a place of stillness, you’ll allow listening to happen naturally, without needing to focus on any one sound in particular.

By resting in this open awareness, the practice can support a sense of ease and clarity. Sounds are simply received as they are, without resistance, helping you remain present with what is unfolding moment to moment.

This meditation is part of a 30-day series designed to support a consistent daily practice, whether you are new to meditation or returning again.

Let everything be just as it is, and notice what happens when you listen.

Transcript

Welcome to day four of our 30-day meditation challenge. Today we'll be practicing with noticing sounds. I invite you to find a comfortable position for your body. Whether that's seated upright, Either in a chair with feet flat on the ground or legs crossed as I am. Or lying down. Or you could even be standing with your back resting against a wall. Any posture that allows you to remain both alert and also at ease. You can invite your eyes to close if that feels supportive. Or you can keep them a quarter of the way open, Just gazing down towards the floor. And begin by settling in. Bringing the body into stillness and really arriving. In this moment. Taking one intentional breath in through the nostrils. And letting it go. Letting that breathing just return to its natural pace. Today we'll be bringing mindfulness to sound in our practice. Often we think that meditation requires perfect silence. But luckily, It does not. Meditation actually just includes whatever is here. And that often will include various sounds. Sounds of your own body and breath. Sounds in the space that you're in and outside of the space. So beginning by noticing the sounds around you. You might notice distant sounds. Perhaps planes in the sky. Birds. Noise is coming from outside of your immediate environment. And then bringing that awareness in closer to you. So perhaps noticing the tone or the hum of the room that you're in. The sound of the space. The sound of my voice. There's no need to label the sounds or figure them out. Or really do anything about them, But. . . Instead, We're just listening. Just noticing how sound appears. And then it fades. Letting these sounds come and go naturally in the space of your awareness. Notice how sound appears on its own. And also disappears on its own. Sounds moving in and out of our awareness. And remaining grounded in this open receptivity. This knowingness. Of sound. Thank you for practicing with me today on day four of our meditation challenge, And I hope you'll join me again tomorrow. Namaste.