Thought Meditation: Hear In, See In

In this meditation, we practice gently noting auditory and visual thinking. We are invited to also note rest when the mind is quiet. This soft noting allows us to increase awareness of these processes that are commonly experienced as automatic and easily go unnoticed.

The noting practice (sometimes called labeling) comes primarily from Theravāda Buddhist insight (vipassanā) meditation, with its most influential modern form traced to 20th-century Burma (Myanmar).

The foundation of this practice comes from the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (“Foundations of Mindfulness”), one of the earliest Buddhist texts. In it, the Buddha instructs practitioners to:
- Observe bodily sensations, feelings, mind states, and mental objects
- Know them as they are, clearly and directly
- Notice phenomena arising and passing away

Transcript

Okay,

So bringing yourself into a posture for meditation,

Settling into a position that feels as much ease as possible,

But also alert,

There's some energy in the posture.

And then you can take a few deeper breaths just to draw the attention in,

Settle,

And ease your body.

And if any point during this meditation,

Things get agitated or tight,

You can always just take a deep breath,

Long exhale,

And just soften body down again,

And return to this thought meditation.

I'm going to invite you to bring your attention first into the place where you become aware of auditory thinking.

And the way we can do that is to recall a conversation that you might have had today.

Just remember the words spoken,

You might hear them in your head.

And notice where you hear them,

How you hear them.

This is an auditory thought,

And we'll label it hear in,

Hear in.

So for a few moments,

Just letting your attention rest where you become aware of hearing in.

And then each time you notice auditory thought,

Like words,

Speaking to yourself,

Or so if people are speaking,

You can just say hear in,

It's an auditory thought.

Make a soft mental note.

And if you aren't noticing any auditory thoughts,

Any hear in,

Just label rest,

Rest.

Making a soft mental note of rest.

So for a little bit of time,

Let's just practice with hear in and rest.

And now,

Let that go for a moment.

And we'll explore see in,

Which is visual thinking.

So bring your attention to where you become aware of visual thoughts.

It's often in the head,

Just outside,

In front of the eyes,

Behind the eyes,

Could be anywhere.

So just notice for you,

You can think about something you saw today.

Bring this up in your mind,

And that is a visual thought.

We'll use a soft mental note of see in,

See in.

And when there's no visual thought that you're aware of,

You can just use the soft mental note of rest.

So just for a little bit of time,

Let's explore see in and rest.

And now I'll invite you to just let your attention rest where you become aware of thinking,

Both auditory and visual.

And this thought meditation is just a name to label a soft mental note.

Whenever you become aware of an auditory thought,

Just hear in,

Visual thoughts,

See in.

You're not aware of either,

You can note rest.

Sometimes I think of it as like a cat at a mouse hole.

It's kind of waiting and tap,

You just tap.

It's a very gentle cat.

It's tapping the mouse of a thought when it pokes its head out.

It's a little gentle tap.

Hear in,

See in.

Now that sense of just resting,

Attentive,

And noting.

And sometimes a note is just see in,

See in,

See in.

It might last,

It might disappear.

You can notice what happens when you label.

And then you just rest back again,

Waiting for the next thought to tap.

Whatever's happening,

You just keep bringing the attention back to noticing visual thinking,

See in,

Auditory thought,

Hear in.

Letting everything else go on in the background.

Noticing rest when the mind is quiet.

So taking a moment just to notice what that was like,

Take a moment to reflect.

Notice how you're feeling,

Checking in with your body.

A little appreciation for yourself for that exploration.

Whatever happened.

And then when you're ready,

You can open your eyes and bring this to a close.