Two Introductory Exercises: Just Hearing

Exercise 1, Just Hearing

Stop, close your eyes, just hear any sounds

This first exercise is something you can practise almost anywhere. Simply close your eyes, both to avoid all the visual distractions around you, and because this makes your other senses more sensitive. If you're sitting, sit straight. If you're lying down, get flat on your back. If you're standing, stand up straight. Then close your eyes and allow all the sounds around to come into your ears in their own time.

Hear, but don't get involved. Just hear

Hear whatever sounds may arise, but don't get involved with them. Try not to think about what you're hearing; just hear it. There's no need to name it, no need even to like it or not like it. Just hear it. All of that can be difficult at times. So practise it. You may find it helpful to practise at different times of day, and in different places. Sometimes you'll find it easier than at others.

Hear all the sounds

There may be a number of different sounds around you. One or two may be more dominant, but there may be others, quieter or further away, or less frequent. Again, don't get involved; there's no need to count them or identify them, no need to react in any way. Focus on just hearing whatever sounds may be heard. Experience those sounds simply as sounds.

When you simply hear sounds as sounds it becomes easier neither to like them or dislike them. Especially when there are a number of sounds at the same time you're busy hearing all of them, it's easier to avoid reactions to any of them. Again, you won't do it perfectly, especially at first, but practise Just Hearing, and as you do so try to avoid liking some and disliking others. Once there's nothing to dislike, you should find the practice enjoyable.

Just Hearing, summary

• Stop whatever you're doing; sit, stand or lie still.
• Close your eyes, and just hear whatever sounds may be audible.
• Don't get involved with what you're hearing, don't start to think about the sounds, just hear them.
• When your attention wanders, simply bring it back again to whatever you can hear. Whatever may have distracted you doesn't matter, just let it go and focus again on whatever you can hear.
• Enjoy this practice for as long as you like.
• When enough is enough, open your eyes, and return to whatever life holds for you next, unhurriedly and without rush.

One of the benefits of this exercise is that we learn to become fully passive. We have no control over what sounds may be heard. We simply sit and hear whatever sounds may arise. In this way we learn to stop actively doing things, and begin passively to experience things.

Inhabiting this Place

Hear the silence

Sometimes you may find yourself in a very quiet place where there are no sounds. If so, try hearing the silence. Our world is so noisy that silence is special. As you hear the silence, you may notice very quiet sounds, just on the edge of hearing. It really doesn't matter what you hear. Whatever it may be, allow yourself to hear it, to really hear it, and only to hear it.

Open up all your senses

If you are in a silent place, you could try a variation on the exercise by opening up all your senses to that place. Avoid seeing for now. It is possible to Just See, but because our eyes work differently to our other senses, darting about and focussing on one thing after another, we'll leave that skill until we've worked through several more of the Anapana steps.

Again, try not to think about what your senses are detecting. Try to stay at the level of just the raw sensations.

Feel the temperature, is it warm, or cold? Either way, Just Feel it. Are there any odours coming to your nose in that place? Just Smell it. As you sit there, are there any touch or pressure sensations you're aware of? Just Feel them. Continue to Just Hear the silence, and any very quiet sounds within it. Perhaps there are other subtle sensations. The "feel" of the place may be distinctive, whether you can put it into words or not. For example, a very large space may feel rather different from a small space. A room in an old building may smell rather different from one in a modern building. Use all of your senses, and in that way, seek to fully Inhabit this Place, continuing to engage only with the raw sensations, as far as you can.

This exercise also opens up your awareness to a broad range of sensations, and in doing so helps to foster dispassion towards all of them.

Getting distracted

If you find your mind wanders away from the exercise, don't worry about it. It happens to everyone. When we begin any form of meditation practice, the first thing we discover is that the mind has a life of its own. A thought comes into the mind—any thought—and that leads us to something else, and before we know it a whole train of thoughts has swept us far away. We haven't really heard anything for several minutes when we realise what's happened.

It's just how our minds work

That is simply the way our minds work. When they are not fully engaged with something, they start to look around for something more important, or more interesting, than what is happening at present. That's when we remember something urgent we need to do. Or we day-dream about something more pleasant.

Just drop the thoughts and go back to the exercise

When you realise what's happened, simply drop the thoughts and go back to the exercise as simply as possible. There's no need to wonder how it happened. There's no need to get upset or angry with yourself. You haven't failed in any way. Just go back as quickly as you can to hearing whatever sounds may be present now. The same thing applies in all the exercises we do, as far as Step 6. Whatever the exercise, go back to where you were in it. When we get to Step 7 we'll learn a different way of dealing with the things the minds wants to bring to our awareness. Until then, we just need to let them go.