Mark Tanner - Mindfulness in Sound

Sound is detonating all around us. And in between, we have the blessing of silence, less commonly found but equally beautiful. Though sound mostly comes to us free of charge, its capacity to inform us, move us and stir us into action is priceless.

S OUND, LIKE LIGHT, HAS LIMITLESS FREQUENCIES , and with it an inexhaustible capacity for stirring our emotions. Just as white light is a spectrum of colours that have come together as one, white noise is where every conceivable sound frequency converges into a constant, ambient sound. Though white noise, such as air conditioning, can aid sleep or block out a loud voice nearby, it can also be a valuable tool for meditation. But mindfulness is not about pretending the world is without its distractions; we can learn to harness sound, in all its complexity and mystical power, so that we become more focused, aware and alive to the moment.

Without perhaps realizing it, our environment continually resonates, buzzes and chimes, however aloof or distant from its source we may be. But all this eager hullabaloo is easily squandered if our ears lag behind its beat. When we spot something happening nearby, we instinctively turn our eyes in its direction, raise an eyebrow, tilt our head to sharpen our focus. But noticing doesnt need to be a visual response; it can equally be auditory. The echo of a door slamming will comfortably outlive the nanosecond it took us to watch it happen. A fanfare of car horns tells us more in a split second than staring fixedly at a row of taxis inching their way down a gridlocked street. And the sound of a waterfall will live on in the aural memory far more vividly than its mental photograph. For this reason, we may recognize a human voice many years after we last heard it even a voice that might to others seem unremarkable. Its distinctive timbre seeps into our subconscious and could be ready to return to us in an instant, just when we least expect it.

We commonly speak of overlooking something not seeing it, or else not seeing its value and yet this presupposes it is our capacity for sight that has been allowed to lapse. For a person practised in mindfulness on the other hand, sound or perhaps the very absence of it amounts to more than a personal sensation playing itself out somewhere in the brain; it is the medium through which meditation most easily begins. This is why Buddhists use bells to help them meditate not to dull the senses, but to draw their minds deeper and closer to their spirituality.

Being alert to sound is the easiest thing in the world, yet we so quickly take it for granted. The more amorphous and flowing a sound is, the more helpful it will be when it comes to harnessing our breathing, slowing down our private world and becoming aware of each passing nanosecond. It can almost seem that time itself has its own distinctive sound.