Being mindful means coming to our senses. In other words, being aware and able to attend to what is already happening in the world around us through our sense of sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound. The traditional five senses are attributed to Aristotle. Recent research has since discovered many senses, including proprioception, the sense of knowing where parts of our body are in space, as well as equilibrioception, the sense of balance, acceleration, and changes in direction.
Sound is caused by a movement that passes through the air or some other medium as waves of vibrations. The frequency is the distance between the waves and loudness is their level of energy. There’s an old thought experiment that asks. “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it, is there a sound?” Without a human or animal to receive and process the sound, there will only be vibrations passing through the air and forest. When you are next at a music concert, take a moment to appreciate how the sound of the instruments is actually in everyone’s heads, a collective act of perception. In the auditorium, there are only waves of acoustic vibration pulsing through the air.
Hearing is an interesting sense as it’s always on. Our ears are like microphones, picking up sounds indiscriminately, whether we want them or not. We can close our eyes, but we can’t normally close our ears. The actual construction of the human ear is an amazing evolutionary development. From the tiny bones of the middle ear began their evolutionary journey as part of the jaw bones of a fish, to the cochlea, from the ancient Greek name for a spiral snail shell, of the inner ear, which has thousands of hair-like filaments called stereocilia that transform the vibrations into electrical signals for the brain. Most of the time our hearing works amazingly well, from the smallest whisper to the sound of thunder. As we age the stereocilia wear out and are not replaced. Also, they evolved for a relatively quiet world and are not designed to withstand some of the noise elevated levels we experience today.
The electrical signals are transmitted to the brain stem, then to other parts of the brain for processing and interpretation. Different sounds affect different parts of the brain. For instance, your alarm clock may trigger a brief fight-or-flight response; music can stimulate emotions or body movement. Restful rhythms, like the sound of ocean waves, have a calming effect, as they’re similar to the pace of our breath during sleep. Birdsong is also calming. As we evolved, we learned that hearing birdsong means there’s no immediate danger.
Although there’s always sound in the world around us, when it’s unwanted, we call it noise. Those of us living in towns and cities are probably experiencing more noise than at any other time in human history; for instance, the background noise of traffic that hardly stops. When was the last time you were somewhere where you could not hear the hum of traffic in the distance? We also experience noise in the workplace. Interestingly, research on noisy open-plan offices found that productivity can decrease by a staggering 66%. In noisy environments, we find it more difficult to concentrate and our stress levels increase.
We can use sound and our sense of hearing in several ways in mindfulness practice.
- We can bring our attention to our hearing to connect with the present moment. Even if we’re listening to a recording from the past, the sound is only ever playing now.
- We can use our sense of hearing to expand our awareness, away from agitation and busyness to a spacious awareness that extends right out to the limit of the soundscape around us.
- We can appreciate the richness and complexity of the world of sound, as well as feel gratitude for our sense of hearing.
The sounds around us can help us “come to our senses”, in the present. And by turning our attention and awareness to the soundscape, we can access peace and calm and appreciate the depth and beauty of the world around us.
Suggested weekly practices
- Appreciating your sense of hearing; the subtle detail in birdsong and wind in the trees on the walk, the sound of people’s voices, and how amazing it is that sounds have meaning.
- Pausing to explore the soundscape at particular moments during the day. The sounds that arise play out and release, as well as the relative silence they return to. Extend your hearing out to experience the spaciousness of the soundscape and rest there.
- See if you can notice the difference between raw sound just as it is, and how you perceive sound, the thoughts, meanings, likes, and dislikes that overlay what you hear.
Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.
- Play the settling practice, then read the session content, which you can print off if that helps
- Then play the second audio to explore and experience your sense of hearing and sounds
