Insight Meditation 30

Learning to observe awareness of hearing creates a grounding for mindfulness within daily life and also the ability to observe attraction or aversion as they arise towards what is heard. 

This sensitivity allows you to soften into your relationship towards what is heard, deconditioning any habitual pattern of attraction or aversion through mindful non-participation.

• Develop understanding of the relationship between the mind and the ear.
• Decondition habitual attraction & aversion towards sound.
• Disentangle awareness from the six sense fields – hearing & mind.

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• Length: 60 min, 1-2 times daily.
• Developing Insight: Become familiar with the experience of awareness of awareness of hearing and how to soften the effort of habitual grasping towards it.

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Conditions: It is helpful to meditate in a place with sound or to put on some quiet music in the background. Play games with this and do not always put on pleasant music or expose yourself to only pleasant situations. Learn to soften into any subtle habitual aversion you may experience.

For this meditation you will also need a bell or can set up bell chimes using insight timer.

Step 1: Sit in meditation, gently closing your eyes.

Step 2: Establish mindfulness of your body as you sit in meditation.

Step 3: Bring your awareness to the flow of change within sound as it comes into you and soften listening.

• Observe awareness and the sound as two separate experiences. 
• Apply GOSS, using awareness as your grounding point, to disentangle awareness from the sound.

Step 4: Bring your awareness to the flow of breathing within your body in a very general way. Be careful of developing too much samadhi instead relaxing your mental grip so that you can be distracted. Observe breathing experience and awareness as two separate experiences.

• Observe the pull of awareness towards any sounds around you. 
• Observe awareness and the sound as two separate experiences. Apply GOSS, using awareness as your grounding point, to disentangle awareness from the sound.

Step 5: Come out of formal meditation and strike a bell, observing the sound. Observe your mind create the idea ‘a bell’.

• Observe the pull of awareness towards the flow of the bell.
• Observe awareness and the bell sound as two separate experiences. Apply GOSS, using awareness as your grounding point, to disentangle awareness from the sound.

Step 6: Disentangle your awareness from the sensory world by developing nirvikalpa samadhi (stillness) as in Meditation 43 for the rest of your meditation session, continuing to incline your mind towards letting go of habitual sensory experiencing.

• Be curious about habitual movements within the focus of the ear towards sounds.
• Observe and soften any attraction or aversion. 
• Notice the relationship towards hearing and commentary, also between hearing and the speeding up of the functions of the mind. 
• Take interest in the difference between hearing and listening. 
• Be curious in regard to your mind aligning the experience of all senses as one known world. 

You are ready to progress to Insight 31: Mindfulness of Smelling when:

You can clearly experience:

1. The autonomous nature of hearing in regard to contact, the ear, the audial field, and mind created images and perceptions.
2. You can observe awareness of awareness of hearing, and you understand what it means to disentangle awareness from it.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.