Sound Meditation: Practice Being Mindful of Sound for Just 5 Minutes

Mindfulness is simply awareness directed toward the present moment, including physical sensations such as sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.

One of the most common practices of mindfulness is a breathing meditation, where you direct your focus toward the sensations of your breathing (lungs exhaling and inhaling, the air moving in-and-out of your nose or mouth, the rising and falling of your chest, etc.)

However, there are many different situations we can apply mindfulness toward aside from just our breathing. In fact, mindfulness is a tool that can be applied to any conscious experience.

One different type of mindfulness exercise I want to share with you is a Sound Meditation, where you’ll be opening your awareness toward any sounds happening around you or in your environment.

This is an incredibly easy exercise, but it’ll help you to cultivate active and skillful listening. You also may be surprised by how many sounds are going on in your environment that you are typically not even aware of.

Sound Meditation: Practice Being Mindful of Sound

Here are simple instructions for how to practice a “Sound Meditation” on your own.

• Choose an environment to meditate in (such as at home, in nature, or in the city). You can practice this meditation virtually anywhere, even just sitting on the train or bus.
• Assume your meditation posture. You can also do this meditation sitting down, standing up, or walking. Whatever is comfortable and makes sense in your environment. (For example, if you’re practicing this on the bus ride home, it’s not necessary to sit in a half lotus or full lotus position. Just meditate as you are.)
• Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes (on your phone, computer, etc.)
• You can do this exercise with your eyes closed or open, whichever feels most comfortable to you. (Having your eyes closed may help to focus more on sound and not get distracted by anything visual).
• Throughout the meditation, make a mental note of every sound that you become aware of. This is the main purpose of the meditation. You can also choose to write these down on a piece of paper (which can be interesting, because then you can count up all the different sounds you heard during the meditation).
• Try your best to make note of these sounds without judging them. Just think (or write) “car” or “plane” or “bird” – but try not to make judgements in your head on whether the sounds are pleasant or unpleasant. Just note what they are and listen to them with a non-judgmental awareness.
• Keep going until your time is up. Take a moment to reflect on all the different sounds you heard throughout the exercise.

This is a great and simple way to practice being more mindful of your environment. Often we have a lot of different sounds going on around us at once, so it can be fun to take a step back and see how much we can hear at any given moment.

A couple examples

Now let me share a couple of my own lists of sounds that I’ve made during my “Sound Meditations.” The first list is when I practiced in the afternoon, the second is when I practiced it later at night.

Session #1 (September 23, 2010 – 2:00PM – Outside – Backyard – Sunny Day)

• Planes
• Wind in trees
• Wind pushing against fence
• Birds chirping
• Cricket chirping (faint)
• Construction work
• Wind chimes
• Cars driving (in distance)
• Fly buzzing
• Motorcycle (going fast)
• Helicopter
• Water hose
• Dog barking

Session #2 (September 23, 2010 – 9:30PM – Outside – Backyard – Clear Night)

• Planes
• Pond waterfall
• Crickets (lots!)
• Music playing in the distance
• Someone cough
• Gate rattling
• Door open
• Cars driving
• Motorcycle

I was expecting the night session to be more tranquil, but it turned out it wasn’t. I could hear a neighbor playing music and I couldn’t make out any of the more subtle sounds in my environment.

But it is what it is – meditation is all about non-judgment – so I meditated on the music as if it were anything else.

People tend to believe that to meditate you need to go somewhere really quiet (away from technology, cars, etc.), but that doesn’t have to be the case. These technologies are a part of our world, an extension of our nature, and they are just as good as any other object of meditation (whether an “Om” or a singing bowl).

We must meditate and accept what is, not idealize what is the perfect meditation. Both Jon Kabat-Zinn and Ven. Henepola Gunaratana as well as other mindfulness teachers emphasize the importance of applying mindfulness to all aspects of life.

This “Sound Meditation” only takes 5-10 minutes, so I highly recommend you take the time to try it out! Also check out my Meditation Guide if you’d like to download a copy of these instructions, as well as learn other types of meditations you can apply to your daily life.

Enter Zen From There

There’s a Zen story sometimes known as “Enter Zen From There.” It touches on how the experience of sound can be an entry point to zen or enlightenment.

There are many variations of the story, but it generally goes…

A student wanting to study zen asks, “I’ve just arrived here and I beg the master to point out a gate whereby I may enter.”

The master says, “Do you hear the sound of the mountain stream?”

The student replies, “I hear it.”

The master says, “That’s the place of your entry.”

Of course the student was asking for a physical gate to enter the school and begin learning, but the master points out the mental gate he must cross to learn true zen.

Many koans and Zen stories are designed to seem “nonsensical” to breakdown conceptual thinking and point us toward a deeper truth.

The fundamental idea behind “Enter Zen From There” is that any experience – including the experience of sound – can be an entry point to developing inner awareness.

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