How long does that bell last?
Just breathing in deeply,
Preparing perhaps by closing your eyes,
Getting heavy,
Letting gravity do the work,
In a certain way just giving up and quitting,
Moving out of active life with its to-do lists into this beautiful window that you give yourself to meditate.
Slowing down and getting quiet.
You can't stop.
You can't be silent.
Your thoughts don't end because your brain is working.
That's what you want.
Just tuning in,
Noticing.
That's where we're going to go.
Not forcing,
Not emptying our heads,
Not doing anything weird or esoteric.
Just giving ourselves this time to drift,
To notice our body,
To feel a little bit on the edge of boredom or maybe into boredom.
To be and not do.
To sense and not ruminate.
And then to do it all with as little effort as possible.
We're not doing a meditation,
We're just letting ourselves meditate by removing obstacles.
Your body gets heavy,
Maybe your brain starts to feel light.
Maybe you deepen your inhale,
Extend your exhale.
Maybe you draw your breath into difficult or tight spaces in your body.
Go with whatever you need,
Whatever is right for you.
This meditation will focus on your ears,
Hearing,
And listening.
Start from the big sounds,
The macroscopic.
Planes,
Great winds,
Cars.
The interstate.
Maybe some honking.
Some of the noises you might even experience as unpleasant.
We don't need to categorize them or judge them.
Just use your ears,
Your sense of hearing and listening.
Real deep listening.
What's the biggest thing you can hear?
What's taking up the most real estate in your ears,
So to speak?
When you get distracted,
When you go down a rabbit hole of thoughts and start to spiral,
Just come back to your ears.
Hear and then listen.
Put your energy there.
What's the smallest,
Most petite sound you can hear?
Something fragile,
Delicate,
Maybe brief.
Something maybe just on the edge of your capacity to follow it,
To hear it.
Listen for that.
Something small and precise.
What do you hear?
Can you listen for it?
You find it over the bigger sounds.
Enjoying breathing,
Enjoying gravity and lightness at the same time.
Looking over yourself with a generous awareness.
Moving inward and yet listening.
What human-made or mechanical sounds do you hear?
An air conditioning unit,
A truck,
The whirring of a machine,
Toasters,
Fan.
Is the pitch consistent?
Does it have a rhythm?
Listen.
Expand your ears.
Live in that space,
Not in the space of worry.
What unique and oh-so-human sounds can you follow?
The sink dripping,
Your house creaking.
Come back to your ears whenever you're distracted,
Because we always get distracted.
As long as our brain is alive.
Breathing in deeply and out slowly.
What nature and natural sounds do you hear?
Birds and breezes.
Animals in the grass,
Maybe.
Your own heartbeat.
Air moving across your nose or lips into your lungs.
Can you hear that?
Can you listen for nature sounds?
That music.
Droplets of rain following nature into the valleys and forests and oceans.
What do you hear?
What are you listening for and to?
There's a counterpoint with the mechanical and human sounds.
Back and forth.
Deep breath in,
Slow breath out.
Which sounds are constant and consistent?
Steady.
A fan you left on in the other room.
The whir of your refrigerator,
Perhaps.
Sounds that are perpetual or regular.
Steady,
We could call them.
What do you notice?
Hearing and listening.
Which sounds are irregular?
Bird songs.
Is your breathing regular or irregular?
Sounds that are brief or clipped.
Immediate in a certain way.
A rumble of your stomach.
A notification.
What do you hear that's irregular?
Unsteady.
Listen to it.
Expect that unexpected sound.
Breathing in deeply,
Out slowly.
Relaxing into the sounds.
Going deeper into self and experiencing the world through your ears.
Coming back when you get distracted.
Now listen to all of those things at the same time.
All that counterpoint.
All that polyrhythm.
All those dynamics.
Human-made sounds.
Sounds of nature.
Quick,
Fast,
Steady.
Loud,
Very quiet.
Like a symphony.
All around you.
Coming and going.
Crescendo and decrescendo.
All at once like a symphony.
Follow it.
Hear and listen.
