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Guided Meditation: Hearing the Sound that Becomes All Sounds

Good morning.

As we explore paññā^[1] practice—you know, wisdom—we let awareness illuminate, and it reveals everything from the workings of mind and heart to the subtle perceptions through which we construct reality. And each time we sit, we start over. There's an initiation, and as I was saying yesterday, we can initiate in a deliberate way. We hold the notion that this is engaging with unbiased attention, and then that unbiased attention reveals all the influences, all the biases that arise, all these assumptions. There's a delicate art between attending to experience and not trying to manufacture experience.

Maybe let's start with a demonstration of that. So I'm going to ring the bell, and just listen to the sound. And then, can you continue to listen as the sound of the bell diminishes, and hearing engages whatever else is happening in the realm of sound?

The quality of noticing, the quality of a consciousness of noticing, of experiencing. Each time we start to sit, to rediscover that quality of attention. Starting in a global way without any agenda. What's happening now? Experiencing what's happening rather than manufacturing what's happening, and yet bringing attention to bear^[2]—attending and receiving.

And then, with that delicate attending and receiving experience, to attend to the sensations in the body. Attending to the qualities of body that support awakening. A kind of uprightness in the body that you are. How does uprightness express itself? The spine rising, connection to the cushion or seat, rising the whole way up through the hips. The spine lifting up, supporting the chest, allowing the shoulders to widen and open across the front and across the back. Coming up through the neck, an enlivening quality of uprightness.

And in complement to that uprightness, letting the body settle. Any place where there's tension or holding it up, letting it soften. Letting the eyes and the muscles of the face soften. Maybe noticing any subtle ways the face is holding, and letting it soften. Letting the chest soften, and the shoulders, and letting the abdomen soften. And letting the arms and the hands soften. As if to assure the body that in this attentiveness, it will be taken care of. This is an engagement that will support the life of being, the body of being.

And with the quality of attention and deliberateness, we're not in a hurry to get anywhere. Each detail is given the time it needs. When we do that, there's always a reassuring quality to it.

And then, bringing attention to the breath with that reassurance. Exhale in a way that might help you to open and enliven the breath, to extend the exhale. But can you extend the exhale without tightening the chest, or the abdomen, or the face? And at the end of the exhale, can you just pause for one, or two, or three seconds, and then allow the inhale? And quite deliberately study the influences of breathing in that way.

How does it feel in the body? Can it invite a subtler kind of release? After breathing out and pausing for a few seconds, can you feel the body's impulse to inhale? How the inhale has a quality of allowing what is to come forth. The exhale can have a quality of releasing, letting something that's being held go. In the inhale, a quality of receiving, opening. And just for a few breaths, almost in a leisurely fashion, in a deliberate fashion, extend the exhale, pause, and allow the inhale. Attending in a way that's discovering the subtle teachings of the yoga of breath. A deliberate extension of the exhale, the pause, that quality of allowing, receiving the inhale.

And then deliberately, attentively, shifting and resuming a natural rhythm of breath for your body. But as you do that, attending just as carefully, just as detailed, just as deliberate as you were when the breath was being related to in an extending and opening way. Now, how is the breath being experienced?

Each time we sit, an invitation to discover the subtler details of the yoga of body and breath. How it can be both enlivening and, in a way, soothing, or reassuring, or tapping into something very fundamental. Yes, the mind and the heart, a lot of passion. But this being body and being breath adds a marvelous quality of attention in the midst of the passion of mind and body. In the deliberateness of attending to body and breath, inviting a kind of dwelling. Dwelling here in simply being.

And just as listening to the sound of the bell opens not just to the sound of the bell but to all sounds, dwelling in the body breath, opening to experiencing it, opens to dwelling in all the workings of being. It's not a corruption of attention; it's the expression of being alive. This delicate play between the simplicity of being and the complexity that it dwells within.

With the support of body breath, opening, noticing, acknowledging all that arises. Exploring what it is to bring an unbiased, simple attention to what arises. Noticing the quality of permission to just let it be.

And as the thoughts happen, is it possible to dwell in unbiased attention? Or do they conjure up an intrigue that dictates what happens? So be it, that's part of being. Notice and acknowledge. Okay, there in the midst of noticing and acknowledging, can there be an opening to that too? Just as the sound of the bell opened to all sounds. Still just sounds, even though they're labeled: sound of a passing car, sound of a bird, sound of something in the room.

The thoughts are inclined to conjure up a version of reality. Notice, acknowledge. Let it interplay with unbiased attention. And if unbiased attention disappears, so be it. Just deliberately, leisurely, start over. This is the nature of consciousness.

And when there's a noticing that the mind has conjured up a reality, soak it up. Experience it. What's its dominant quality? Is it an image? Is it a feeling? Is it the urgency of its creation? Invite it into awareness.

In a moment, I'll ring the bell, this time three times. Let the sound wash over your being. And listen as the sound becomes all sounds that are present.

Unbiased Awareness of Biases

Sometimes it seems so simple. Just noticing and not grasping. And having a feeling of liberation, now, just in that moment. Wow, that experience illustrating and instructing us on the wisdom of liberation, the compassion of liberation, and how both are intertwined with how consciousness is being attended to.

The great gift of having a meditation practice is that each meditation session will invite us to rediscover, to dwell in that practice of unbiased awareness and to see what comes forth. It creates a version of reality, and it creates a version of reality that's initiated by, or a conditioned version of reality. Maybe if we wanted to be smart, we could say it's an unconditioned response to a conditioned experience. But usually, in the process of practice, it's more helpful to be naive. And then there's a saying that says, "Not knowing creates the intimate experience, the intimacy." And yet for us, simply not knowing can leave us with some way of connecting, of acknowledging, of allowing it to be, to register.

Once, when I was a monk, I went to visit another monk, and in his little hut—his kuti^[3], as it's called in Thailand—he had on the wall a picture of a baby. And I was a little surprised in that setting to see a picture of a baby. And he said to me, "I want that mind. That's the mind that I aspire to." I don't think he said, "I want," I think it was more aspirational. We come into this world with the capacity to pay attention. And one of the enchanting things to my mind and heart about babies is they engage it completely. Each experience, they give themselves to it completely.

But we all grow up. We all create a much more complex version of reality. And noticing and acknowledging, the ingenuity of it is that it can shift. The noticing and acknowledging can shift dependent upon the state of consciousness, the circumstances, the stimulation. Like when we ask, "What's happening now?" It's like, "What's the dominant experience now?" Is it a quality of mind that's turbulent, or a quality of mind that's deeply settled? Is it a version of reality that has great authority within our being?

We said, can we invite any and every experience that happens for us into a state of awareness that sees it for what it is? In some ways we could say the process is paññā, this is prajñā. The very process of unbiased seeing of the biases of being. An unconditioned response to conditioned being, the very process is wisdom. And then we could say, what's illuminated by the process? All the particular details and ways that consciousness takes shape. And then the way me, the unique expression of those biases that arise in our individual being.

And the inquiry of how to learn how to work with our own being in a way that will enable that unbiased attention. And out of that, the many practices that arise. The practice of compassion, the practice of patience, the practice of accepting what is, the disciplines of not corrupting or undermining the capacity for awareness. My experience of Zen practice is that staying close to this unbiased attention to the biases of being—staying close to that, exploring that—is an important aspect of our practice. It's like listening to the bell ring, and as we listen to it, the sound of the bell opens to all sounds. So we attend with precision to the experience of unbiased awareness, and as we do it, it opens up to everything, all the ways we be.

And often in our dedication, the complexity of being is deemed to be inappropriate. "It shouldn't be like this; it should be a different way." But what if we think of this moment as a momentary culmination of not just our life, but of our parents' lives too, and their parents, and their parents, and their parents? What if we think this is not just opening to the experience of me, this is opening to the experience of this vast web of being? And here we are dipping our finger in the ocean of being with this momentary awareness, and in doing so, appreciating the uniqueness of the moment. And in an utterly mysterious way, connecting to well-being. How do we do that? Is there still a singular self in that experience?

So this dance between acknowledging, "Okay, in this moment, this thought is present," and it describes, it implicates, it has inferred within it a version of reality: me, my life, this place, this time. And yet it touches all being. So in the language of Zen, we say this is the great mysterious inquiry into being, this is the kōan^[4] of being alive. Like it, dislike it, love it, hate it, be grateful for it, despise it, feel deeply connected, feel isolated. Can we sit down in the middle of that? And then can we stand up and open to all of it?

The deliberateness of practice can steady our heart and our mind. And not just support us to enter into all of it, but also invite a kind of joy in doing so. Now, please enjoy yourselves. Thank you.