I’m sitting, hearing.
Am I listening to something specific?
No.
I’m not even listening.
Simply hearing.
In the waking state, how could I not be hearing?
Using this, the sounds appearing in my hearing, I divine for who is hearing.
I’ve been reading the Śūraṅgama Sūtra recently. It has become a daily contemplation, to sit with a few words of this sacred text.
I came to it through a beautiful synchronicity. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra was one of only three sacred texts carried by Zen Master Bassui.
Zen Master Bassui wrote the following, in reference to Kannon (Avalokitesvara) as described in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra :
“He was a person who for every sound he heard, contemplated the mind of the hearer, realizing his own nature.”
Bassui took this approach of Kannon, as inspiration for his own practice of Self-Inquiry, and through this, led many others to discover their own True nature. We can too.
If you are truly present, here, now, then your attention is on these words, drinking them in. Yet you can still perceive sounds, bird song, a car horn, the wind in the trees. Life is happening all around you, and you can remain with your attention resting in one place, whilst all of life is perceived.
You can read these words, and still tell me not only that you hear a bird singing right now, but that it is a blackbird, or a bluejay, or whatever. Something recognises and knows, without attention having to go there.
Bassui took this approach of Kannon, as inspiration for his own practice of Self-Inquiry, and through this, led many others to discover their own True nature. We can too.
Stop for a moment.
Just for a moment, stop, and notice, who is it that is hearing sounds?
Look.
Look inside.
Not through a dynamic action of looking.
But simply, quietly, directing your attention within.
Hearing a bird sing, we can use the sound to find the source of the hearing.
Our attention begins at the bird. Or so it appears at first.
It begins somewhere else.
Where is that?
Use the sound as a divining rod, to lead you to the source of the hearing, to the one who is listening, the one who hears, the perceiving awareness itself.
This is where you will find yourself.
If you were to take just this one, simple pointing from Zen Master Bassui, and to follow it in every waking moment, you could discover your own True nature swiftly and directly.
No meditation, yoga, no reading, not even this quiet letter is needed.
Just this simple looking.
As you go about your day now, direct your attention to this place, this place that Bassui and Kannon are pointing us too, look for the one who is hearing.
There is nowhere that is unsuitable for this. There is no time of day, no location where you can’t apply this.
In the waking state, life is a vast ocean of sound, use it to find your True nature. There is never a time without sound.
Even if it is simply your own heartbeat. Your breath. Sound is always there.
I will be with you, it is my own way also.
Simply hearing, and looking.
— Bhagavati, The Quiet Letters, Unbounded.
Forget what you are hearing, and look for who is hearing.
words : Bhagavati image : René Reichelt