Guided Meditation: Meditation as Listening

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The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 13, 2020. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Meditation as Listening

Introduction

So then, I wanted to welcome you again to sitting together. I was mentioning that I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to meditate together with so many people. I would not have matured as far as I did in this Buddhist practice if it hadn't been for the opportunity to meditate with people, practice with people, and really feel the support, the inspiration, and the example of others. That's still the case for me, and sitting here these mornings is a wonderful thing. Thank you.

In ancient times, a disciple of the Buddha was called a śrāvaka^[1] in Sanskrit, which comes from the Indian word "to hear." So, another way of talking about a disciple of the Buddha is someone who is a listener. To listen. And this idea that listening is used to describe a practitioner, I take to be very significant. An important part of this Buddhist path is, in fact, to be mindful, to pay attention in a way that some put as something like "listening deeply." We listen with the inner listening.

Listening has this quality: when we listen to something, the listening itself does not interfere with what we hear. It just allows the sound to come in. Then inside, we might react, respond, and do things, but the listening act itself allows what is there to be registered.

The contemplative life is a life where we're listening very deeply to ourselves. In particular, we're listening with our body, or we're allowing the body to listen. The book of wisdom, the teachings of the Dharma^[2], live in us, as does the depth of our life. What is valued and important for us, what needs to be resolved, what needs to be addressed, what needs to be touched, loved, and cared for—and the wellsprings of deep understanding and freedom—are found in this body.

And this idea that we're here to listen—everyone should have the opportunity to be listened to carefully. We offer that to ourselves when we mind our practice to be quiet enough. Just enough to step away. Just enough from our opinions, our stories, our ideas of what's going to happen, our predictions, or our stories of the past, ideas, and memories. Just enough so that what comes to the forefront is our ability to be in a certain kind of rich, hopefully wise, and caring way where we listen, we feel, we sense, we see, we smell, and we taste the depth of our life, the fullness of our life.

And as the body listens, the body offers awareness. The body can hold all things. The body can begin to teach us so much about our life, what's needed, and how to be with this complicated life that we have. So, for this morning, we will be listeners. And now, in a metaphoric way, take a meditation posture.

Guided Meditation

Allow your eyelids to close. Allow your eyelids and your eyes to rest, knowing that there's no need to be looking with your eyes as we meditate, straining. Or, in the beginning of meditation, the eyes still have the residual habit of looking sometimes, along with the twitching and energy of that. That's okay, just let it be in the background.

Here we sit in our body. Part of meditation practice is to care for this body, and we can care for it by spending a few moments at the beginning of a sitting finding a posture. Maybe make small adjustments that align the posture, harmonize the posture, or establish a posture that you think is most suited for you to be aware, to be relaxed, and to listen deeply to what's within.

Take perhaps a few long, slow, deep breaths. As you exhale, let go of the thoughts and concerns you have. Or if you don't let go of them, let them soften or loosen up. Let them move a little bit further into the periphery, and in the center of experience, settle into your body.

Allow the inhale to arise and connect you to your body. And then let the breathing return to normal, just a normal, easy breath.

To listen well with the whole body, it helps to move around the body to see where you can relax. Softening the muscles of the face. Softening in the shoulders, in the chest. Softening in the belly. Sometimes this relaxing of the body can also be for the whole body. Let the whole body soften.

The whole body allows you to be broader, to be wider than any particular issue or concern you have. So there's a wide sensing or listening to how it is for you here in the body. And this relaxing of the body can include relaxing in the area of your brain, around the forehead, behind the forehead, and in the back of the head. Softening the thinking muscle. Letting the mind become quiet and soft, letting go of thoughts. And letting the mind become broad, wide, and spacious.

Then, as if the body can listen or sense breathing, let the whole body listen or feel the experience of breathing within the body. Let the experience of breathing be a physical feeling of sensations, like feeling a massage.

And if you do have a lot of concerns and thoughts, perhaps there's a way of listening deeply from the body that doesn't participate in the thinking, but which listens deeply to what is—to the depth of it, to the place in the body from which those concerns arise. The silent listening, the silent sensing and feeling that the body is capable of.

Reflections

As we come to the end of the sitting, take a few moments to listen and feel deep inside of you. If you reach deep inside, what can you touch in there? What can you hear or feel that is most important for you? What is it you hold of great value? Not you per se, but the depth inside of you. It's deeper than what you can think about or formulate even as words. What is that place inside? Is there such a place?

Sensations and feelings—they come with this, with what is important for you. And if there is, even if it's indistinct, or it's your own response to this question: what's it like to just sit quietly for a few moments, listening to it, allowing it to be there? Giving it time in the light of awareness.

And might there be some way that what is most important for you, what you value, may inspire and inform in you a care—a caring kindness and compassion for yourself, for those around you that you know, and those many people you don't know?

May it be that as you listen quietly to the depths of who you are, it inspires a greater care, a caring for this world. And may it be that whatever care you have for this world and for yourself, may it find some expression today. May it be that even in some small way, you've made the world a better place for yourself and for all beings.