Sound Is a Medium for Mindfulness // Pt. 1
“Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves. Consider, for example: a magician who cuts his body into many parts and places each part in a different region—hands in the south, arms in the east, legs in the north, and then by some miraculous power lets forth a cry which reassembles whole every part of his body. Mindfulness is like that—it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh
We consider mindfulness as a profound love affair with what’s deepest and best in all of us.
In complete brevity, mindfulness is moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. Derived from Buddhist spiritual traditions and practiced for over 2,500 years by cultures around the world, mindfulness is an ancient art supported by modern science that has the power to transform all living beings—not just individuals, but also the planet, the collective.
Howard University recently conducted a large study that found we are happiest when we are deeply engaged in the moment, and that constant, wandering minds make us more miserable—even if we are thinking about something pleasant. A growing body of evidence shows that mindfulness can help ease psychological stress and stress-related health problems including anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, and pain. Additionally, mindfulness has been the only brain-training tool proven to consistently strengthen attention.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., scientist, writer, and meditation teacher credited with making mindfulness mainstream in the West, says to think of mindfulness as a lens—taking the scattered and reactive energies of your mind and focusing them into a coherent source of energy for living, problem-solving, and healing. He has emphasized that mindfulness is not a mental trick, but rather a basic human inheritance that is essential to life. We need to be optimally aware of who we are, where we are, and how we are in order to survive individually, as communities, and even as a species.
There's no one right way to practice mindfulness—there are a lot of different doors to this room and a lot of different traditions rooted in this practice. The doorways can look different, but the room is the same.
One of the reasons we began this community and project of Sound Off is because we have found sound to be a doorway. And by “sound” we are referring to auditory, informational, and internal sound — actively noticing, observing, listening, and hearing with full awareness and open imagination. You need only listen to a few notes of your favorite song, a favorite tune in nature like the ocean wave gliding back and forth, or read a brief line from your favorite poem, or remember the feeling of being deeply listened to, to know that sound possesses the remarkable ability to bring us into the present moment. So it should come as no surprise that we employ sound as a powerful tool in practicing mindfulness.
Both ancient texts and modern science agree that everything in our known universe is in a state of vibration. Sound is everything; everything is sound. While this may seem nebulous and far-fetched to wrap our minds around, that is what we want to do here: reveal the simplicity, power, and beauty of how sound is woven into our very beings, and how it may ultimately provide access to mindfulness. The act of listening reveals this, as it is impossible to listen in a completely embodied way without being fully present. Without moment-to-moment awareness, our attempts at listening become something else entirely: flat, filtered, and like the body the magician calls forth—portioned and disconnected.
Sound serves as a doorway, anchor, medium, container, and a powerful tool for tuning our instrument. Its ability to evoke emotional reactions offers us the opportunity to explore our inner landscape in a safe and supportive environment. The invitation, in a sense, is to connect with what is most beautiful within yourself. Rather than one more thing to fit into your busy schedule, may practicing mindfulness become a reclaiming of possibility—a radical act of soundness and love.
Pulse + Pause
Tune into the present moment. What can you hear? In the distance, in the room, inside yourself?
What can you simply be with, without creating a story around it? How can you befriend yourself enough to enter into just being? Can you become aware of how judgmental you are and then let that judgment go, at least for a few minutes?
A blessing:
May you feel the vibrancy of life as it sits
It's most alive in the moment
Where it longs to meet you and to feel the weight
Of your visit again and again
