Zen and the art of listening!

[gags]

3 Is in a row .. what a bore!

 

[CapMan]

3 Is in a row .. what a bore!

Not at all

 

[Ze Frog]

I think it should be taught in schools !

When I was at secondary school we had this awesome religious studies teacher, one day we did meditation of sorts. We had to get to a relaxed state, close eyes and listen to see if we could here thing's we didn't notice before. And it was pretty mind-blowing, if you let yourself relax and just listen intently you could start hearing bird song, leaves moving etc etc. Amazing what you can see and hear when in a heightened state of awareness. A lot of our senses are actually far more intense than we realise, mainly because most of the time they operate almost subconsciously I guess as we don't think about them.

Also I have Asperger's and am really anxious in social situations, so I'm kind of used to managing things that would normally be left to subconscious autonomy. Like breathing, controlling it to try and calm and reduce heart rate, it's pretty amazing when you take a more conscious approach over what normally seems a mundane thing.

 

[CapMan]

And it was pretty mind-blowing, if you let yourself relax and just listen intently you could start hearing bird song, leaves moving etc etc. Amazing what you can see and hear when in a heightened state of awareness

That’s also my experience

 

[Ze Frog]

That’s also my experience

Did we go to same school, are you in or were in UK at that time?

 

[CapMan]

Did we go to same school, are you in or were in UK at that time?

Sorry my bad for not being too clear. I wasn’t at that school, but have the same experience of peacefulness and awareness of sounds when meditating.

Sorry for the confusion. Wish I’d had a cool teacher like you!

 

[Vincent Kars]

Zen and the art of not listening comes close to hearing one hand clapping. Happy Zen!

 

[Ze Frog]

Sorry my bad for not being too clear. I wasn’t at that school, but have the same experience of peacefulness and awareness of sounds when meditating.

Sorry for the confusion. Wish I’d had a cool teacher like you!

Ah, yeah, was just curious, small world and all that.

 

[Leeken]

I wear a sleep mask sometimes when “really“ listening closely,amazing how much it changes the stereo image,in fact the best and cheapest upgrade ever.

 

[fordiebianco]

Not sure whether it is mindfulness, meditation or attentive hearing, but there is some music I have to stop reading or working and just listen. Wagner's prelude to act 1 of Lohengrin is one of those.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I find it helps to create a listening ritual. One thing I believe helped with LPs. Harder to do with streaming. Easier to do if you make it a habit to listen to complete albums. Once done that way because otherwise you had to get up and change the disc after each song. Even more so if you listened to reel to reel tape.

So on days you are in the flow, or the groove it is easy to have relaxed focus on the music. On days when your mind is all over the place, going thru the ritual will often start to calm it down, reign it in and gain you some focus. Maybe not as much focus as on days when you are already at ease, but enough to be good for you.

With streaming I do listen to an album, or sometimes have play lists for one artist at least. That single artist seems to create a train of thought that listening to various artists won't ever create. With classical a certain composer. I do have some playlists of particular styles of jazz or blues that various artists are similar enough it seems to work.

Otherwise it just becomes aural wallpaper.

I've found creating rituals for some other enjoyable hobbies has the same beneficial effect. It works for religion and hobbies.

 

[HoweSound]

I’m very aware of the tape that often plays in my head with distracting thoughts and chatter.

I guess it is also there when I should be in the moment listening to my music.

It can be difficult to tune it out, but I’ve found that regular meditation is very helpful.

I wondered how others would judge their attentiveness during listening ?

How does it feel when you’re listening is totally in the moment ?

Apols for the typo, Dali should of course be Dalai .

Unless you are the Salvador Dali of Audiophiles...

 

[HoweSound]

I have trouble listening to music as background while doing other tasks - it makes me feel anxious. On the other hand, listening intently with no distractions is restorative, relaxing and memorable.

 

[Anton D]

I wear a sleep mask sometimes when “really“ listening closely,amazing how much it changes the stereo image,in fact the best and cheapest upgrade ever.

You are one third of the way to being Tommy!

 

[Newman]

I wondered how others would judge their attentiveness during listening ?

If I just say "let's put on some music and pay full attention to it", then I can't guarantee that I will achieve Flow. The rest of life is still there, in my attention. But then, without warning, a track will come on and just grab me, and I am fully captivated. Quite often this will lead to a long Flow session. But I can't consciously control the entry nor the exit points.

How does it feel when you’re listening is totally in the moment ?

Absolutely wonderful. Otherwise I would give up the hobby.

 

[MattHooper]

I’m very aware of the tape that often plays in my head with distracting thoughts and chatter.

I guess it is also there when I should be in the moment listening to my music.

It can be difficult to tune it out, but I’ve found that regular meditation is very helpful.

I wondered how others would judge their attentiveness during listening ?

How does it feel when you’re listening is totally in the moment ?

This is why I got back in to purchasing and listening to records. I find it aids my focus in listening.

I'm on a computer all day long, my iphone is tugging for attention all day long, as much as I appreciate the convenience of my digital server (ripped CDs, Tidal), it was another opportunity to interact with computers and screens, with my iphone as the controller. I found my tendency is to "be in the digital world" when I listen to streaming with the tendency to be distracted by my phone, and to either surf the web while listening or just surf music in a restless manner.

When playing records I've unplugged from the digital world, just as I do when I curl up on the sofa to read a good book, and I find giving my full attention to the music is effortless. I almost always listen to a full side, and usually a full album, once I've dropped the needle.

Also, I have a very cozy listening room, and I've set up some moody lighting with flowing colors on my projection screen, which gets me right in to the vibe of listening to music.

Works for me, anyway.

 

[smith007]

As an appreciative lurker here, able to offer nothing but my interest in learning about the science of audio, I can offer a little here that may be helpful.

Efforts to estimate the number of states of mind, or thoughts, that we have each day ring in at 60,000 - 80,000! The neuroscience Connectome project has identified, at the macro level, what is called the default mode network (DMN), an anatomically distributed, functionally integrated system that is active when our mind wanders. Oh, perhaps it was a hugely adaptive advantage in our evolution to live in a community of minds each of which wandered apparently randomly to one then another extant issue or existential concern (have to check Grog’s wound; hmm, are we ready for weather change; oh ya, need to see what that night sound was…). Makes sense to me. So a wandering mind, intrusive thoughts, attention being stolen without our intention, is a feature of the human mind, part of our evolved chipset, and is not a bug. When we are focused on something, the DMN is not active. Yet the mind will wander even against our abiding will.

There are many forms of practices of meditation that exercise this other feature of the mind, our executive capacity to focus attention. We have this other capacity to be aware, different from becoming conscious when we wake up in the morning, to know that we know that we are so focused (hence homo sapiens sapiens - the wise human who knows s/he’s wise). Mindfulness, our capacity to pay attention in the present moment on purpose without judgement, is a capacity that can be strengthened with practice. All that we ever ever have is the present moment - yet the wandering mind persistently takes us to the mirage of the future and to reflections about the past. Note that our senses are present moment inputs only - that’s where we want to be to listen to music!

Some forms of practice (such as Zen) are a very pointillistic, intense application of present minded attention. Other practices, such as mindfulness (Vipassana) meditation, cultivate a relaxed present moment awareness that is suffused with gentle affects - relaxed, curious, open, grateful. I find these practices lend themselves best to audio - to hear rather than to listen, a sort of choiceless awareness of what the music is imparting, letting go of judgement that arises and returning to the soundscape….

How do we get better at anything? How do we develop skills in anything? It always requires practice, and lots of it, and the patience to keep practicing even when our wanting mind is dissatisfied with our progress… weeks, months, years of practice. Is it worth it?

Please understand that our engagement with the present moment has been crushed by our modern contingencies (which becomes our landscape of practices), that we don’t smell the coffee as much as we might think we do, taste our food, hear our kids… but instead we panic scroll, get caught up with conversations in our head, and get pulled away by the opportunity costs of not having our devices right in our faces.

 

[CapMan]

As an appreciative lurker here, able to offer nothing but my interest in learning about the science of audio, I can offer a little here that may be helpful.

Many thanks for writing so comprehensively, I found it very interesting.

I started with The Power Of Now, then became more interested in Buddhism.

Less keen on the ritualistic elements, but the psychological and spiritual parts are fascinating and hold A lot of truths for me.

I would say that a completely calm mind free of chatter is an amazing thing - even if it only lasts a few minutes during meditation. The way it positively impacts the day ahead can’t be understated.

 

[smith007]

One meditation practice that people here might like to try is to take a semi-active seat (not too comfy, not too rigid), perhaps outside if the weather allows it, close your eyes (the problem of visual dominance) and to just be aware of sound, the ambient changing soundscape. Note when the mind forms judgements (those damn neighbours...) and return to listening, perhaps wanting that bird to sing again and to come back to just listening, slipping just-like-that in to the busyness of mind and to come back to listening. It's a great way to become acquainted with the difference between being present and being caught up in thought, judging, wanting... and to see how immediately and fully we disappear from awareness... all of which will happen when we're "listening" to music.

 

[Anton D]

One meditation practice that people here might like to try is to take a semi-active seat (not too comfy, not too rigid), perhaps outside if the weather allows it, close your eyes (the problem of visual dominance) and to just be aware of sound, the ambient changing soundscape. Note when the mind forms judgements (those damn neighbours...) and return to listening, perhaps wanting that bird to sing again and to come back to just listening, slipping just-like-that in to the busyness of mind and to come back to listening. It's a great way to become acquainted with the difference between being present and being caught up in thought, judging, wanting... and to see how immediately and fully we disappear from awareness... all of which will happen when we're "listening" to music.

The Eightfold Path approach and, especially, mindfulness, is a great life mantra.