And we are going to engage in the meditation practice now.
We're going to go for 20 minutes.
So that's going to take us to 24 past the hour.
Take a deep breath if that helps you relax,
And you can close your eyes now if that's something that feels safe and comfortable for you.
And sometimes what I like to do is take a big deep breath in.
And then on the exhale,
Let go of any tension in my jaw.
In my shoulders,
In my hips.
Maybe another deep breath in.
And then noticing that contact with the ground.
Noticing that feeling of gravity as a kind of calibration.
Of my mind.
As I settle into the practice.
I always like to leave a little space here just to see where I'm at.
Take this opportunity,
No need to rush into anything.
Just to notice where you're at today.
It's funny how we can.
.
.
Go through a whole day or a whole morning.
Without ever just stopping to say,
Where am I at?
How am I feeling today?
I invite you to do that now,
To just notice how your body feeling.
What's the quality of your state of mind?
Whatever comes up is okay.
And if the simplicity of this feels right for you,
I'd encourage you to continue doing this for the full practice period.
Just noticing where you're at.
Not putting too much effort into anything.
Letting it all happen.
With a sense of awareness,
Openness,
Curiosity.
Maybe even a bit of fun.
If you'd like to take a little bit more of a structured approach to developing the skill of awareness.
What I'll invite you now to do is to pay attention to the domain of sound.
Noticing anything you might be hearing.
In your external environment.
In paying particular interest.
To endings.
So that moment.
Where a sound stops.
Especially if you notice any sounds stopping abruptly.
For example,
Even these words I'm saying right now.
In a few seconds,
This flow of sound that's coming from me is going to stop abruptly.
So what we're doing here is we're practicing awareness with sound in general,
But we're taking note of any moments where we hear a sound.
Abruptly vanish from our experience.
Feels challenging to you or you notice your mind is being pulled away into thoughts or other experiences are pulling you away.
See if you can just let that happen.
There's no need to get hard on yourself.
Simply whenever you notice.
Acknowledging what's happened and return to the practice of noticing sound.
And in particular paying attention.
To the moment that a sound passes.
Away from awareness,
Passes it out of awareness.
You might notice long droning sounds,
Maybe traffic.
And then a car drives away,
And it gets quieter and quieter,
And then poof,
It's gone.
You might notice sudden sounds.
Someone slams the door.
Quickly arises and then quickly passes.
So we're really getting a heightened.
Awareness.
Of the subtle dynamics of sound here.
And we're noticing that key.
Insight.
That all things come to an end.
Or as the Bible puts it,
All things must pass.
All things must come to pass.
Everything must go.
And it's okay if you don't happen to notice anything vanishing in this moment.
Part of the practice is just maintaining that cat-like readiness for any new sound to arise and pass.
That's perfectly fine.
Or maybe there's so much sound around you.
That it's hard to keep track,
In which case you might try using a label.
And absolving yourself of the need to label every single vanishing,
But just picking whatever happens to be an awareness and labeling it.
You can use a word like End.
Or path saving.
Or gone.
And so that whenever you hear.
A sound vanish,
You can say to yourself,
Gone.
As a sort of anchor.
To keep you with that present moment awareness.
As sounds come and ultimately go.
If this feels murky.
Foggy jumbled.
You can't seem to find any traction with it.
That's perfectly fine.
It's part of the process.
I might encourage you to let go of the focus on endings and just see if you can stay with sound experience in general in this case.
On the other hand,
If you feel like you're getting the hang of this,
You're getting some momentum with it.
Take this opportunity to boost your clarity,
Maybe even reset your posture if that's helpful.
Take this next few moments to pay very heightened attention to sound experience.
For example,
Earlier I talked about how me talking would eventually come to an abrupt end.
But with a heightened sense of clarity,
You might notice there are subtle little endings between all of the syllables that I'm saying right now.
That even this process of listening to my voice is full of little gons,
Little endings.
After each word,
After each syllable,
There are these little moments of silence.
So see if you can boost that clarity.
With all the sounds in the world around you,
Noticing again all the abrupt endings,
The abrupt passings.
That seem to constitute all experience.
If you have decided to try labeling your experience.
Your inner voice might sound a little something like this.
So that was me noticing a car driving by.
And there was a little creek in my building.
And I also noticed the sound of my own breath ending on the exhale.
And if you do want to label out loud,
Sometimes that can be helpful,
Especially if you're alone and aren't going to feel embarrassed.
Sometimes that can be really helpful to help you keep track.
Again,
The labels are just an anchor.
To help you maintain your awareness with sound,
And in particular with moments where sound is ending abruptly.
Remember to be gentle with yourself.
Practice is feeling difficult or if you're feeling uncomfortable.
Anything is not working the way you want it to work.
To see if you can drop any self-criticism,
Any resistance,
Noticing what seems to be tying you up in knots,
And seeing if you can just loosen that knot,
Even if it's only 1%.
Letting this practice unfold as it may.
If you're paying close attention.
Two things you might notice as you do this.
One thing you might notice is that sometimes things partially vanish.
For example,
There might be a sound in your environment.
And the sound continues,
But maybe the high frequencies vanish all of a sudden.
Or it changes shape or it changes position.
So that's also something you can notice as a vanishing.
If you like,
If that's useful to you.
The other thing you might notice.
Is that?
Something remains.
Just after a sound vanishes.
And let me rephrase that,
Nothing remains,
But that nothing is something that you can actually notice the silence,
The nothingness,
The void.
That's left by a sound that vanishes.
So often in life we're wired to constantly notice new things as they arise.
Whether it's a new person walking in the room or a new sound in your environment or a new notification dinging on your phone.
But what we're doing here is the opposite.
We're noticing all those moments where things vanish.
And in particular,
You might also notice that silence,
That emptiness that seems to follow the moment of vanishing.
That all seems a little abstract,
Just forget I said it and keep going.
But if that's something you are noticing,
Just know that that's all part of this practice.
Invite this emphasis on.
Disappearance.
To allow you to appreciate.
Everything that does appear.
Notice how this technique has the potential.
To heighten your awareness.
Of whatever's happening in your sound environment.
And if that's not happening for you,
That's perfectly fine as well.
Stay with it.
Sometimes the days are sunny,
Sometimes they're stormy,
But they're all working towards training the skill of awareness.
In the long term.
Now.
You can let go of that effort for this last minute.
I'll invite you to maintain your posture.
But to drop any energy that you're putting into paying attention in any particular way.
And just do nothing at all.
Let yourself integrate and consolidate and release.
Whatever may have happened in the past 20 minutes.
For these last few moments.
Take a moment to reflect on the practice that we just did.
And to see what comes to mind when I invite you to capture your experience in a phrase or a sentence or a few words.
Just notice,
Don't put too much effort into this,
But notice what words come to mind.
As I invite you to reflect on what these 20 minutes were like for you.
And whenever you're ready,
You can start to transition out of the practice,
Open your eyes if they were closed,
Give yourself a stretch,
Have a sip of water,
No rush.
