Listening Meditation in Nature

A five minute guided nature meditation, bringing awareness to sounds.

Transcript

Listening meditation.

Take some moments to find a place where you can sit comfortably and at ease outside.

Perhaps leaning up against a tree,

Lying down on the earth,

Preferably somewhere where the sounds of nature are quite prevalent,

Perhaps by the ocean,

Or the sound of wind blowing through the trees,

Or morning birdsong.

Beginning by closing your eyes,

And noticing how your body feels in this landscape,

Even if it's just sitting in your garden,

Or on your patio,

Or in a local park.

What's the response of the body to being outside,

Feeling the elements,

The coolness or warmth of the air,

The feel of the ground,

The sense of space and light around you.

And then shifting your attention to sounds,

Noticing the various sounds that emerge,

Distant sounds,

Near sounds.

It's important when doing this meditation to let go of thinking about,

Or visualizing,

Or imagining the source of the sound.

Simply resting in hearing itself,

The raw vibration of sound,

Listening with the whole body,

Aware of the silence between sounds,

And then,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Or,

Inviting a sense of receptivity,

Spaciousness,

Openness,

Not reaching out to the sounds,

Not doing anything with them,

Simply receiving the sound of the breath,

The sound of the breath.

Staying relaxed in your body,

Alert,

Open,

Receptive with attention,

Spacious awareness.

Noticing what the sounds may evoke in your heart or your body,

What response in the mind arises when you hear the sounds of nature.

When the attention wanders away from this moment,

From sounds,

Noticing that and without judgment,

Simply relaxing,

Relaxing,

Relaxing,

Simply beginning again,

Opening awareness to sounds,

To hearing,

Sounds appearing and disappearing.

Opening attention to the further sounds,

Inviting that quality of spaciousness and vastness.

And as we bring this meditation to a close,

Knowing that you can take this quality of receptivity,

Of openness to every experience in your life,

Using sound as the basis for this openness.

Reviews

That was a wonderful short meditation to do sitting in my local park 🌳 Focusing on the bird song all around was so grounding and calming 😌

It is a really amazing meditation it reminded me why in my childhood my mental health was so healthy and evoked beautiful childhood memories of being in the forest hearing all the sounds smelling all the smells and some smell you could even taste like the damp tress or soil as a child most things I learned out of which was everyday for me happens to be exactly like these meditations on insight timer so I’ll make an effort to make it a habit again.

Thank you so much for this meditation

I listened to this short meditation while just sitting on my porch. I highly recommend it!

Great for outdoors with sounds!

Lovely, short sweet and simple. Thank you. 🙏

Good start for rhr day.Namaste.

Will need to practice

It is 7° F in Madison, WI today, so I did not sit outside. :) However, I did take the opportunity to use my imagination and sounds became my focus. Thank you!