When instructing people in the art of zazen we suggest using the breath to help us stay present and alert. For some of us, though, some it’s more effective to use the practice of listening to sound. We can use it occasionally when we’re very stimulated by a lot going on in the immediate environment during our meditation time, like a neighbor cutting down a tree with a chain saw, or while waiting on a check-out line. The music of the moment.
Or, listening practice can be used while seated in zazen or anytime at all, to bring the attention fully into the present moment. Listening to sound is simple and direct. Sound, like every other sense experience, flows. Right now, what do you hear? Just stay with it and you’ll notice a continuous flow – including big, obvious sounds like a car motor driving by, or a bird chirping in the tree just outside the window, and also small sounds, like creaks and flutters of the house during a quiet afternoon.
Staying with it, we notice how small sounds, big sounds, come and go, start and flow, emerge, have their moments and then fade or suddenly stop. This can be a particularly rich practice. There’s so much to notice. Like for instance, is there a sound to your thoughts? What sounds go on for a while before you even register them? Do you also automatically label a sound with a word? So in other words, listening to the current of sound alerts us to the character of endless dharma gates.
Mushin