Frozen Sound, Relaxing the Mind and Liz Gilbert
June 2, 2024
8 min read
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Newsletter
{Body}
Listening beyond the ear
Objects moving through a medium always create sound. From the tiniest subatomic particle to the largest spiral galaxy to the seemingly motionless mountains — everything sings while in motion.
Or as Pythagorus — an ancient Greek mathematician — so beautifully put it: “a stone is frozen music.”
Granted, human eardrums can’t hear most of that music, having evolved only to pick up sounds happening within a 20Hz → 20,000Hz spectrum (which is barely a sliver of all possible audio channels).
Lucky for you, it is possible to listen to the material universe’s virtually endless range of pitches and tones through what’s called your “third ear.”
{Mind}
Relaxing the mind using meditation
When you first learn to meditate, you are instructed to aim your attention towards something.
Aim your attention towards the breath. Aim your attention towards nearby sounds. Aim your attention towards thoughts of gratitude.
With this framing your attention can seem like a flashlight, meaning (1) you can choose which of your senses to focus on — sight, sound, smelling, tasting, feeling, or thinking. And (2) you can choose how wide or narrow to make the beam — for example, on your entire hand or just your index finger.
The problem with the flashlight analogy is that it requires you to go somewhere to meditate!
What does that mean? Try this out: look up from your screen, take in your environment, and choose an object to shine your spotlight of attention on.
It seems like that object is “over there,” right? Well, that feeling is actually an illusion.
In reality, photons emitted from a nearby light source are bouncing off of that object at the perfect angle to make contact with your retinas. From your point view, the thing you’re seeing isn’t “over there” — it’s “right here” on your eyes and in your brain.
All of this has huge implications for relaxing your mind during meditation.
Instead of listening to sounds by projecting your attentions towards them, you can simply let the sound waves arrive at your ear drums. Instead of squinting your eyes to see the world with higher resolution, just allow the light to appear right where you sit. Instead of putting in effort to feel the breath moving through your nostrils, simply receive it.
Remember: everything is happening all on its own and you don’t have to do **anything to be aware of it.
If you can manage to stop this seeking — if you are able to drop back and allow the material world to just do what it does — your mind will immediately relax.
{Soul}
For some sick reason, us humans love to bond over our shared misery.
The state of our politics; our boss’ incompetence; the price of this meal; how crazy our partner is being; the weather ruining our plans.
This is strange considering that, when asked point blank, we all recognize the immense beauty and privilege we’ve been afforded in this life, and how much better it feels to be in gratitude.
Buddhists call this the "poisoned honey" attribute of the mind. In the moment it feels so good to complain. But over time that tendency ends up weakening – and eventually destroying – us.
Rather than following the majority of people and seeing life as an affront on your very being, be the rare soul who speaks only of love and appreciation. Watch how that attitude shifts the tonality of every single conversation you have, making your connection with others deeper and more harmonious.
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