listening to music

Listening to music is a beautiful way for us to develop our mindfulness, and it's simple, of course. We need just make some time for the little exercise. And when I say make some time, I mean, put aside all your other activities. And just listen to some music. It could be in a live concert, but it can equally well be at home, listening to recorded music. But just make sure that you're not busy doing other things at the same time.

So often that's how we live our life: thinking we're attending to one thing, but really being busy with something else. Perhaps holding a conversation whilst we're doing the washing up – we're doing two things at once, and we're not fully mindful of either. So to practice mindfulness is useful to do just one thing at a time.

In this case, make some time to listen to some music. And it helps if it's music that you enjoy. And I also suggest that it's music without words, either without vocals altogether, or at least without words that you understand. Words tend to take us into a different thinking space in our mind. So listen to music without words. And all we need do is to really hear the music. Bring all our awareness to the sound. Of course, thoughts will pop into the mind. And when we notice that, we need merely bring our attention back to the music, back to the sound.

And it's interesting, if you pay attention, careful attention to yourself as you're listening to the music, you might notice that quite often you're not really hearing it directly. You might find that there is a sort of echo in your mind. You're kind of repeating each note mentally, as a sort of mental sound. See if you can bring your awareness completely to the direct auditory sensation: no words, no thoughts, and none of this echo in the mind. And it's beautiful.

This might come easily to you. For others, it might be very challenging. Either way, it will enhance our capacity for mindfulness. 

Listening to the music in this way, with complete awareness on the sound, you might have the feeling that the sound is originating inside you, especially if you close your eyes. You may lose that sense of a boundary, an edge to your be. You will encompass the sounds. The sense of inner and outer might disappear. This is also a characteristic of mindfulness. Once we develop it enough, a sense of separation between ourself and the outer world begins to melt down.

So try this simple exercise in mindfulness: listening to some music. Enough for now.