Portal into the Infinite
Here that? Silence along with the sounds.
In this episode of Awareness at Play we’ll do a guided meditation using our sense of hearing as a doorway into presence, but first I’m going to give a brief talk about freeing ourselves from thought during mediation.
When I say our senses as a doorway into presence. It’s not even a doorway to go through; noticing with the senses is literally awareness already. And when we’re conscious of awareness through whatever means, we’re in presence.
Sensing is always happening. If eyes are open and you have sight, you’re aware with eyes.If your ears work you’re always hearing with your ears. You can’t stop it. Even if you’re completely lost in thought, you’re still aware through your senses. You’re just: also thinking. Your awareness is always and already here. It can’t not be.
But we’d like to enjoy it. We’d like it if this direct awareness, with senses or otherwise, was more often our resting state. Meditation is a powerful tool for this intention, but even for longtime practitioners, sometimes our thoughts can appear to be a barrier to awareness.
So here’s a prompt for bringing back attention when it gets into thinking. We don’t want to demonize thinking. It’s a natural arising. We can count on it happening during meditation. We can welcome thinking because we can use it as a tool for becoming more skillful at returning our attention to awareness. To whatever anchor we’ve chosen for that meditation. And importantly, we learn to return to the anchor with the least amount of judgment or frustration or sense that anything is amiss with thinking.
So every time we return our attention back to our anchor, we are growing and strengthening that muscle. There are few more valuable skills that you could learn in this lifetime! Maybe it’s the most valuable!
My friend Harold Kornylak says it’s like going to the gym. Instead of body building I’m presence building. And every time I return my attention from thoughts to presence I’m lifting a weight, becoming stronger at it.
If this process is already easy for you, don’t take that for granted. It’s quite a gift.
In the interest of not demonize thought, it was really important for me to use a specific prompt in turning my attention back towards my anchor. I was told do it with kindness and gentleness toward ourselves and the thinking. Like putting a little toddler back to bed. I was taught to use the phrase “kindly and gently move your attention.” That was a game changer for ending the frustrating or subtle self-punishing attitude that came up a lot in the beginning.
Even now I like to go over these reminders about attention, because even if they are needed very little in meditation they can still sometimes be an impetus for a insight or a deepening into acceptance of what is.
So what are we turning our attention toward? As thought thins out or calms down, we can becoming so immersed in presence that we experience or get a taste of “that from which all things arise.” We may also experience and rest the vibratory pulsation of all that arises from this unnamable source.
What I go to sit for meditation, my nervous system and my useful mind has usually been in go mode for a little while, so a guided meditation provides optional stepping stones that lead closer to that from which…
Any states or experiences or happenings that we notice, no matter how amazing or exciting, are interesting but distracting if we take them as the end goal. They are like thoughts…a phenomena that arises. Like thoughts, nice experiences are all good, but we can put those little toddlers to bed too, ultimately. We can rest in that from which they arise.
No matter how distracted or confused or bored you are during this meditation, no matter how blissful and transcendent you get, keep returning to the anchor, which is our doorway into presence. Everything about you can be a doorway into the infinite.
So let’s start the Practice
I’ll leave the meditation with a little prompt, but we’ll let it end quietly so you can continue on longer if you like.
If you’re not already, and it’s possible, get into an Upright posture. I like to press back of hands on your upper thighs to confirm I’m pretty upright.
Come to a relaxed breath. A smooth, even, quiet breath.
Find as much of a sense of relaxation as you can right now. Relax your body, your breath.
We have no place else to be, nothing to accomplish.
Let’s listen with our ears
Notice all the sounds around you and coming from you. The sound of my voice, ambient sound, your breath, any ringing in your ears, any distant sounds.
most of us have several subtle sounds happening at all times.
See if you can find a beautiful little sound, previously unnoticed.
See if you can notice subtleties in the sounds you hear.
This is us as silence, listening. Because we are silence, we can hear sounds.
When you find yourself thinking, ever so gently and kindly move your attention back to the listening. (Move up one)
Listen openly, with curiosity, but also softly, resting as silence as you listen.
Listen as if every cell in your body is a little ear, listening. Not just the cells on the outer border of your body, but cells all the way into your interior. Each cell takes in the vibration we call sound. Feel even the most subtle sound resonate as vibration throughout your whole body.
Let the sounds you hear become one symphony, letting go of their labels and where they come from.
Let this symphony of vibration meld into all the little listening cells of your body.
Stay open and curious about the ever-changing resonance of this melding.
If this resonates, see if you can find the felt sense of recognizing that you are the listener, the listening and the symphony of sound that is heard. The sounds are not divided up into where they came from and who’s hearing them. They are a unified happening.
I invite you to recognize that you are the happening that is awareness through listening. And You are that silence from which this happening arises.
Rest in your presence as movements and happenings. Rest in your presence as awareness. Rest in your presence as silence.
Silence is always here. It doesn’t disappear when noise or sound happens. Silence forms a beautiful contrast with sound. We are silence listening to itself.
Before you end meditation let’s intend going forward that we notice and rest in this dynamic interaction between silence and sound more through our day, as small rests, and even as the noise of life goes on along side it.
