Kuan Yin’s Method of Listening to Sound

An Eternal Now SG

Last time we talked about the meditation method of SEEING THE LIGHT. You can find the whole article, with corrections, on the blog. People always ask how they can help our site and I tell them to create links to pages of importance using the free services like HUBPAGES, SQUIDOO, WORDPRESS.com (not .org), BLOGGER, and bookmarking. The more links you create to our pages, the easier it is for the google search engine to place us on page one where people will read the article. Otherwise, no one will find it. You want some merit in the direction of cultivation? Find some articles (not necessarily from us, though of course we’d like them to be ours) create links with the relevant keywords, and that will enable others to find the same article you found useful. Costs you nothing except time: hubpages.com, squidoo.com, wordpress.com, blogger.com, and book marking. Trust me, this HELPS A LOT in spreading the lessons!

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And now for the promised lesson on Kuan Yin’s Method of Hearing Sound …

Along with life there is usually hearing, seeing, and knowing. Seeing is a type of knowing that relies on the eyes, something we dealt with last time. Once you see something you also know. “I see” means “I understand this,” so seeing is also a form of knowing.

For seeing you need several karmic conditions. One of them is light. Without light, you cannot see anything. Color is a form phenomenon, an appearance phenomenon. Night time is dark color, day time is bright color. We’re always surrounded by light/color no matter what, which we went over last time. Pitch blackness is a color and is therefore light, not the “absence of light.” It’s just a different colored light that awareness can know.

Some beings like dark light and some like bright light. Whether they like one or the other is a function of their karma, so in the universe don’t think bright is better than dark. If you said so, a bunch of animals would certainly disagree with you. In any case, light is one of the conditions for seeing. You must see something and what you see is light that has form. Forms and appearances are light.

The second item is hearing. Hearing does not need light as a precondition to take place. Also, when you hear something it is another kind of knowing. Its very existence is also empty just as we found with light, colors, energy and appearances last time. You cannot grab onto hearing or sounds. Sounds don’t stay, they are ungraspable, they are illusions like a dream — EMPTY rather than solid and real because they never stay unchanged.

In the Surangama Sutra, it’s said that when we use our eyes and see that the boundary of seeing or vision is limited — we only see about 30% of what’s around us. We have to turn our head left and right and backwards to see everything, so we’re only seeing about 30% unless we do that. For HEARING, however, unlike seeing the proportion of efficiency is more like 100%. Doesn’t matter where the sound comes from, you can hear it. There’s no natural blockage or limit. Sound therefore is a more efficient method for cultivation.

The Buddha Manjushri said in this world there is a clear and clean teaching of sound. Sound and chi are closely related. The reason we hear is because of chi — chi (air) can transmit sound. CHI means ENERGY. It exists in all directions, so in the Surangama Sutra, Manjushri said the best way to cultivate was to listen to sound. He examined 25 cultivation methods and said for this world, this Earth, this method was the best for human beings. It can help you attain enlightenment quickly.

For example in China people say your ear is connected to the “sea of chi.” That does not mean the dan tien even though names are similar. The “sea of chi” is everywhere. Sounds are everywhere, energy is everywhere all around us every moment, every place.

Our ear (hearing) is connected to the ocean of being (our original nature). People see light all around them but tend to forget about sound. Try to experience hearing and the sea of chi in the universe. Life is within this sea of chi and sound. Hearing is connected to the sea of the original nature.

So here’s the practice. It has three steps to it.

Step 1: The first step is to let go [of fixating on your thoughts] and you’ll start to hear all the EXTERNAL sounds in the room, in your environment, wherever you are. You don’t have to specifically listen. You don’t have to think about it. You do this all the time — you just hear and know. If you somehow close off the function of hearing, however, then you cannot hear external sounds. For example in rare cases you can become so focused or engaged in some task that you can become totally oblivious to a sound that happens around you. We say you “forget the sound” or “miss the sound” but it just means you’re like a scientist who becomes so absorbed in his work that he becomes oblivious to the sound. That’s turning away from the hearing function.

Now Kuan Yin’s name means “Knowing and Observing Worldly Sounds.” What this means is that you don’t have to search specifically for sounds — they are already there. You just observe them and you know them. Hearing just functions and you know what you hear. It’s not “observation” through the eyes or vision but listening, hearing. Hearing is the observation of sound.

So here’s the practice. You’re sitting in formal meditation or just sitting in a room quietly. You hear some external sounds but let go of the things (sounds) you hear. When you let go you still hear. It’s a natural function, there’s nothing to do, so be relaxed about it. There’s still knowing of sound without any need to strain to listen to a sound, so any straining or focusing is incorrect. That’s using too much force and you can never enter samadhi that way just like you can’t enter samadhi using anapana if you are always counting or focused on the tip of your nose. You just know the air is going in and out of the nostrils when it happens and that’s it — no strain, nothing to think about, you just know it. As to sound, the Zen master Bankei said you walk along and hear a bird sing and naturally know it’s a bird without thinking, right? You don’t have to purposely listen, grab the sound, let go of it or welcome it. Just be there naturally and you can hear and know. There’s nothing to do except relax and be natural.

This is called “entering the flow of sound.” It’s the first stage of this practice. Anyone can do it because you do it all the time. You just never turned it into a cultivation method. “Entering the flow” means letting go of the sound you hear. Let it arise, but don’t analyze it, just know it when it comes. When you notice a sound that’s knowing it — that’s all you need to do. If you practice this, then your mind will gradually become calm by listening to sound. This is entering Kuan Yin’s method.

In another Buddhist sutra it says “the sound of ocean waves, waterfalls, wind blowing, …. you are capable of hearing all these sounds.” Doesn’t matter what these sounds are. All the sounds are “empty” because they cannot be grasped. They cannot be held onto. They are empty because they cannot stay in the mind but are effervescent and must depart. Can you grab onto them and hold them forever? No, so we say they are empty. They are effervescent like light or a reflection in a mirror you cannot grasp. And yet you can hear them … just like you can see light. You don’t need any force, it’s natural, just don’t cling but let go. In fact, the more empty you are (not preoccupied with thoughts and not clinging) the more you can hear. Don’t specifically focus on the sounds but just notice them. This is called “entering the flow of sound.”

Gradually you will realize that all the sounds you hear have nothing to do with you. All the light, colors, images you saw in “seeing the light” practice have nothing to do with you either — they are just there, they transform. They represent energy so are empty because you cannot grab onto energy or make it unchanging. Anything that always changes is empty of reality. As to sound, it is just something that occurs to the mind, something that is experienced by the mind. You didn’t make the sound. You just observe it when it comes. It has nothing to do with you. So there’s no need to wait for it because that’s using force. Just relax, sounds come and you know them and they depart. You don’t even need to let go because they just pass by. “All the sound has nothing to do with me. It just occurs. It’s just there.” This is step one of practice.

Step 2: Gradually you don’t have to listen anymore. The mind quiets down and you connect with emptiness. You experience emptiness. Sound is gone. The sound of silence (as a “mark” in the mind) is gone. You need gong-fu to reach this stage because this is samadhi. Everything quiets down. This stage is called “all the sound that enters quiets down.” It is mental cessation. The monk Han Shan in his autobiography said after practicing Kuan Yin’s method by a waterfall that he reached this state of cessation and stayed in this state for 24 days.

Step 3: There are two states to sound: (1) movement and (2) quietness/silence. When you hear something it’s the moving state of sound. Silence is the quiet state of sound. These two are like birth and death. In this third stage, both states have now disappeared and you meet the original nature. Congratulations, you’ve succeeded.

After this you can have all sorts of miraculous superpowers. That’s why Kuan Yin has 32 special appearances. He will follow the sound (thoughts) and try to help people. He can do that because he’s out of the stream of sound so he’s never confused and can follow it back to the origin. The method is so powerful that Kuan Yin used it to reach enlightenment before Shakyamuni, but came back to be an assistant. Manjushri praised this method, Samantabhadra attained enlightenment by using a hearing technique as well.

Basically, you let go of thoughts to reach a state of inner silence or cessation called samadhi. That’s step 2. Then you let go of samadhi to meet the original nature. That’s step 3. That’s when birth and death, or beingness (existence) and non-existence both cease to be.

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Filed under Enlightenment, Meditation, Samadhi - dhyana by admin