It matters little what one hears, but how one listens does matter in the sense if it comes from a state of attention. There’s all kinds of noise around us most of the time, but what’s mostly heard is labeled from our impulses and opinions. Freedom from the known can happen, but only when it’s learned how to truly listen, and one can only listen when one is in a state of attention. This is when one can truly hear. This state of attention arises from silence, there’s nothing to think about in a state of attention. A dog barking, a car beeping its horn, a helicopter, a waterfall, the ocean, all sounds can be heard and as with any sound, they can annoy you or the can anchor you in the present moment. There’s so much noise that goes on in one’s head, but it has nothing to do with the sounds that are heard.
Everything arises from a state of silence, but not everything’s heard from a state of attention. As I was sitting in my backyard the other day, listening to the water sprinkler in my pool, (my serene opinion) the neighbors son came out to play basketball in his yard, he also preceded to play his music very loud to where my opinionated serenity was disturbed. I immediately took a deep breath and realized that although I was enjoying listening to my pool sprinkler, I wasn’t in a state of attention. If I was when the sound changed to what arose from the silence, in this case my neighbors music,I wouldn’t have been disturbed. One deep breath showed me this, and it allowed me to be in a state of attention to the sounds that were there in the present moment instead of the mind agitations of my impulses and opinions.
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