Listening/Vibrating
"There's
music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres."
Lord Byron (1788-1824)
"You
see, the universe is a vibration."
Alan Watts in OM Creative Meditations
The universe
vibrates. Some of its vibration we see as light,
some we feel as heat. Our ears perceive the vibrating waves of air
molecules
as sound. Some sounds seem to fit with the vibration of our nervous
system,
so they please us. Some are disharmonious, so they put us off. We can
use
sound to create harmony in us. We respond mentally and emotionally to
vibrations
of certain frequencies and rhythms. Church bells and temple gongs may
be
a call to worship, but they are also an invitation to a certain
spiritual
state, a physical and mental vibration of greater focus and unity. They
stand
out from the background noise, like a bright light in the darkness.
They
draw our attention and induce a vibration in us that reflects the
coherent
vibration of the bell or gong.
Beginning a meditation session with the sound of a deep toned bell or
gong can induce a clearer mental state. We may attune to the unified
vibration
of the instrument.
The world is full of sound. We naturally tune out most of it as
insignificant,
but part of being mindful is noticing the world and our responses to
it.
Here is a meditation exercise you may want to practice and come back to
now
and then.
Sit in your meditation posture, take a few deeper, slower breaths,
close
your eyes and relax your body.
Give your full attention to sound. Listen. What do you hear? Observe
the auditory sensation.
Note any tendency to evaluate and label sounds. You may find that you
value some sounds over others. You may, for instance, notice yourself
judging
the relative value of the calls of a songbird and a jay or crow. See if
you
can put that evaluation on hold and just experience the sensation of
hearing
without interpretation or evaluation.
If you sit very quietly in a quiet environment, you may hear sounds
in your body. In addition to your breathing, you may hear ringing or
white
noise in your ears, the pulsing of your blood, digestive noises, or the
snaps
and pops of your connective tissue as you move. Just note those sounds
for
the sake of awareness.
Keep opening your awareness to whatever vibrations come your way. Do
you feel sound anywhere in your body other than in your ears?
As you vibrate in the pulsing of your heart and blood, the rhythm of
your breath, the firing of your nerve cells, the growth and death of
the
very cells of your body, soften your edges. Feel yourself as part of
the
vibrating universe. Relax into the harmony of it all. You are part of
the
whole. It vibrates you and you vibrate it back. You are one with all.
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©
2002 Tom
Barrett