VBT – Meditation 44.1
Listened Attentively
First you become sensitive to three sounds, which is very difficult. And when you become so sensitive that you can drop the “A” and “M” and only the middle sound remains, in this effort you will lose your mind. You will be so engrossed in it, so deeply attentive to it, so sensitive to it, that you will forget to think. And if you think, you cannot do this.
This is just an indirect way to bring you out of your head. So many ways have been tried, and they look very simple. You wonder, “What can happen? Nothing will happen by such simple methods.”
But miracles happen, because it is just indirect. Your mind is being focused on something very subtle. If you focus, you cannot go on thinking; your mind will drop. Suddenly one day you will become aware, and you will wonder what has happened.
In Zen they use koans. One of the famous koans they tell to the beginner is, “Go and try to hear the sound of one hand. You can create a sound with two hands. If one hand can create a sound, hear it.”
One small boy was serving a Zen master. He would see many people coming. They would come to the master, put their head at his feet, and then they would ask the master to tell them something to meditate on. He would give them a koan. The boy was just doing some work for the master, he was serving him. He was just nine or ten years of age.
Seeing many people coming and going every day, one day he also came very seriously, put his head at the master’s feet, and then asked him, “Give me some koan, some object for meditation.”
The master laughed, but the boy was very serious, so the master said, “Okay! Try to hear the sound of one hand. And when you have heard it, then come to me and tell me.”
The boy tried and tried. He couldn’t sleep the whole night. In the morning he came and he said, “I have heard. It is the sound of the wind blowing through the trees.” The master said, “But where is the hand involved in it? Go again and try.” So he would come every day. He would find some sound and then he would come, and the master would say, “This is also not it. Go on trying, go on trying!”
Then one day the boy didn”t come. The master waited and waited, and then he told his other disciples to go and find out what had happened – it seemed the boy had heard. So they went around. He was sitting under a tree, absorbed – just a newborn buddha. They came back and they said, “But we are afraid to disturb the boy. He is looking just like a newborn buddha. It seems he has heard the sound.” So the master came, put his head at the boy’s feet and asked him, “Have you heard? It seems you have heard.” The boy said, “Yes, but it is soundlessness.”
How did this boy develop? His sensitivity developed. He tried every sound, he listened attentively.
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