Mindfulness of Hearing (Mondays)

This series celebrates mindfulness of hearing.   We will go deep with hearing and use our mindfulness to include more sound, more of life, with less resistance and more satisfaction.   Hearing is a natural tool to enhance meditation.  Consider the enjoyment you have upon soaking concentration into a sweet bell sound, a babblling brook, or the breeze playing through the trees.  Hearing is big enough to be one's whole path to freedom.   Let's experiment with ways to use hearing in our practice.  We will nudge our mindfulness to become reliable and continuous in all situations --  in stillness, in motion, and in daily life situations. 

Some aspects of hearing bring great delight and gentle the heart.  Other types of hearing are strongly linked to our afflictions and anguish.   Can we befriend our entire auditory experience with equanimity?   How do we include all hearing no matter how pleasant or unpleasant?   A loving relationship with hearing offers greater fulfilment with life's pleasures and reduces friction or distress with the unpleasant.

This couse will introduce you to hearing as if for the first time.   It will also allow us to walk through 6 sets of techniques which can be enjoyed in any of the senses.

Weekly 90 minute meetings

6 weeks of classes on 6 techniques for enjoying mindfulness of hearing

Basic Mindfulness of Sounds   

("Hearing Out")

Tuning our focus to the quiet, the subtle, the pauses 

("Hear Rest")

Attending to changing patterns in sound as a sensory gateway to the freedom of embracing Impermanence 

("Hear Flow")

Mindfulness of Mental Talk.  The voice in our head.   Linked to loving and hating, great joys and terrible judging.  Typically a challenging arena for mindfulness.  We can learn a few simple strategies to deal with the speed of thinking while lessening our tendency to get lost in it.  We can "get off the ride" of identification and believing, and open up to appreciation and wonder at the workings of our mind.

("Hear In")

Auditory experience rises and falls within a space.  Sounds of the world, and sounds of the mind can be approached as a whole field.  Mindfulness helps us release our grip on particular sounds, and lets the symphony of hearing flow without resistance.

("Hear Space")

 

Sometimes we feel fragile, agitated, scattered or overwhelmed.  There is need for a strategy to sooth our system and put us back into body-mind system regulation within a safe zone of tolerance.  Traditional meditation and modern neuroscience offer options for taking care of ourselves by creating and focusing on positive content in Mental Talk. 

("Hear Good")