Hello,
And welcome to a meditation where we'll be focusing on listening and silence.
So begin comfortable.
You can sit up nice and tall or you can really melt into wherever you're seated,
Relaxing the body.
Start to notice your breathing,
Whatever natural flow that it is moving.
Taking a moment to pause,
Experience our breath requires us to slow down.
Often throughout our day our attention is being pulled everywhere in the outside world.
But in this moment,
Give all of your attention to your breathing.
You'll be also noticing the sound that your breath makes as you're breathing in and out.
And with your attention on the breath in this moment,
Now we're going to expand it to the sounds around us.
So you're hearing my voice.
Then also start to pay attention to what sounds you hear outside of this recording within your own present moment.
Perhaps at first you notice the louder,
More attention-grabbing sounds.
Then see if you can listen even more closely for the softer noises,
The quieter,
More gentle noises that are just off in the distance.
Maybe the sound of a refrigerator humming,
Heater,
Air conditioning,
A car off in the distance.
See if you can notice these sounds and also perhaps not label them with words.
Sure you might know it's a car,
But you don't necessarily need to label the noise as a car.
Just allow it to be.
Sometimes as we're meditating,
Noises come in that are out of our control.
Maybe we like a nice quiet environment,
But then who knows,
Maybe a siren off in the distance or a child making lots of noise in another room.
Whatever it may be,
Just notice that.
Notice how you feel when that sound comes in and feels like it's disrupting your meditation.
In other words,
Can you make it part of your meditation?
You can do so by noticing how you're feeling as the noise is occurring.
If there's any sense of resistance,
Irritation.
If so,
Notice.
See if you can just let that be.
Let the noise be there as it is.
Don't demand it to be different or to stop or to go away.
Just let it go.
Let it happen.
Continue awareness.
As you're listening,
See if you can notice the silence that's in between the sounds.
Maybe focusing on my voice.
Focusing the gaps in between the words and in between the sentences.
That's what it feels like to rest your attention on silence.
Even if your present moment right now as you're sitting here has a bit of sound on the outside,
There's always this doorway of finding the silence underneath the sounds.
As Eckhart says,
Every sound is born out of silence and eventually dies back into the silence.
Stop barking,
The person talking,
An airplane flying overhead.
See if you can allow all of it to happen,
All of it to be.
Taking a nice deep inhale,
Exhaling at your own pace.
Now we're going to take this listening,
Focus it a bit more inward.
Listening to our own mind,
To our thoughts and to our feelings.
But just as you were listening to the outside world,
Now start to listen to what's happening within you.
What thoughts are being spoken internally in this moment,
If any?
Even if there's silence,
Of course,
Enjoy it,
Go deeper into that silence.
If there's thought,
Then see if you can allow it to be there,
Just like you allowed the outside sounds to be there.
Offering no resistance to the internal dialogue,
But also noticing it.
You may find the moment you really start to listen inward,
The mind goes quiet for a second for an extended moment.
You can also create this gap by asking yourself,
What is my next thought going to be?
And just for a moment sitting in that not knowing,
The curiosity of listening.
And in this moment of not knowing,
Not having an answer to that question,
You are in the internal silence.
It feels quite good to be in.
There's a peace,
Stillness inside it.
Breathe in and out the feeling.
As Ram Dass says,
The quieter you become,
The more you can hear.
And so if you have found this inner silence,
The quieting of the mental dialogue,
Then again return to listening to the present moment on the outside.
Notice the sounds of your present moment,
Including my voice,
But almost more importantly of your physical environment.
Taking your attention on the various sounds and maybe seeing if you can hear even quieter noises,
Something you didn't hear the first time.
Something very subtle,
Gentle.
Something you could only hear if you were very,
Very still.
And if you are enjoying the silence,
I would invite you to pause.
This recording,
Really just be in the silence with yourself,
No longer needing any guidance for as long as it feels comfortable.
And as this sort of official meditation comes to an end,
I'd like to invite you to continue holding this awareness,
This inner silence and listener,
The observer.
See how long you can carry it throughout your day.
So in a way we're going to blur the line of when meditation ends.
This track will end,
But see if you can keep the light of your meditation on.
No need to end the meditation.
Keep it alive.
Keep the feelings of peace and stillness that you've cultivated.
Carry it with you into whatever you're doing next.
Pay close attention to whatever is the first thing that disturbs the peace.
That disturbance is simply our next lesson.
The more we practice this,
The longer we can hold,
Maintain our peaceful presence,
Not get lost and pulled into the dramas,
The chaos,
The ego of the world.
Find more self mastery.
Find more joy in everyday life,
Which is the real point of meditation.
It's not to feel peace for 15 minutes a day,
But to feel it all day long.
That's very much a continuous practice.
So enjoy.
Do your best.
And I'll see you in another meditation.
