THE SOUND CURRENT OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN BUDDHIST MYSTICISM

Comparative Mysticism — Some References to Inner Seeing, Inner Hearing, and Sound in Buddhism

The Divine Eye According to the Buddha

“With the Divine Eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, a bhikkhu surveys a thousand worlds. Just as a man with good sight when he has ascended to the upper palace chamber, might survey a thousand wheel-rims, so too, with the Divine Eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, a bhikkhu surveys a thousand worlds.”

The Divine Ear According to the Buddha

“I have proclaimed to my disciples the way whereby with the Divine Ear element, which is purified and surpasses the human, they hear both kinds of sounds, the divine and the human, those that are far as well as near. Just as a vigorous trumpeter might make himself heard without difficulty in the four quarters; so too, I have proclaimed to my disciples the way whereby with the Divine Ear element … far as well as near. And thereby many disciples of mine abide having reached the consummation and Perfection of Direct Knowledge.” (The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha — A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya, Teachings of the Buddha, translated by Bhakkhu Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications)

“It is easiest to hear this Sound when it is quiet, particularly at night-time. Once you have identified this Sound, then you place your awareness on it without wavering. Resting your mind in the Sound, you continue to listen, going further and further into the Sound itself.” (“Mind Beyond Death”, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Snow Lion Publications)

“As you calm down, you can experience the Sound of Silence in the mind. You hear it as a kind of high frequency Sound, a ringing Sound that’s always there. It is just normally never noticed. Now when you begin to hear that Sound of Silence, it’s a sign of emptiness — of silence of the mind. It’s something you can always turn to. As you concentrate on it and turn to it, it can make you quite peaceful and blissful. Meditating on that, you have a way of letting the conditions of the mind cease without suppressing them with another condition. Otherwise you just end up putting one condition over another.” (Ajahn Sumedho, a bhikkhu of the Theravadan school of Buddhism, from, The Sound of Silence)

“Avalokiteshvara Buddha (Quan Yin), the hearer and answerer of prayer, has visited all the Buddha-lands of the ten quarters of the universe and has acquired transcendental powers of boundless freedom and fearlessness and has vowed to emancipate all sentient beings from their bondage and suffering. … How sweetly mysterious is the Transcendental Sound of Avalokiteshvara! Is is the subdued murmur of the sea-tide setting inward. Its mysterious Sound brings liberation and peace to all sentient beings who in their distress are calling for aid.” (Surangama Sutra, “A Buddhist Bible, Dwight Goddard)

“Ananda and all you who listen here

Should inward turn your faculty

Of hearing to hear your own nature

Which alone achieves Supreme Bodhi.

That is how enlightenment is won.

Buddhas as many as the Ganges’ sand

Entered this one gateway to Nirvana.

All past Tathagathatas

Have achieved this method.”

(“The Surangama Sutra”, Selections from the Upasaka Lu K’uan Yu Translation, Published by Rider and Company, London)

“Listening to the inner Sound brings the heart into a position of acute inner awareness. It is not that the inner Sound has some magical property. Rather, it is that bringing of the alert mind, bringing openness and receptivity to Sound, is symbolic of the presence of Ultimate Truth. The Sound is always there. We don’t have to create it. It is featureless. It is ever present. So it is a good symbol for Ultimate Reality itself.” “In the sutra the Buddha praised this method, the meditation on listening, as the best method for enlightenment. Ajahn Sumedho had been teaching the meditation on the Nada Sound for some years so he was tickled by this connection to another Buddhist tradition. He hadn’t realized that there had been so much emphasis on this in traditional Buddhist meditation practices.” (Ajahn Amaro)

“O nobly-born, when thy body and mind were separating, thou must have experienced a glimpse of the Pure Truth, subtle, sparkling, bright, dazzling, glorious, and radiantly awesome, in appearance like a mirage moving across a landscape in springtime in one continuous stream of vibrations. Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor awed. That is the radiance of thine own true nature. Recognize it. From the midst of that radiance, the natural sound of Reality, reverberating like a thousand thunders simultaneously sounding, will come. That is the natural sound of thine own real self. Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor awed. O nobly-born, five-colored radiances … vibrating and dazzling like colored threads, flashing, radiant, and transparent, glorious and awe-inspiring, will … strike against thy heart, so bright that the eye cannot bear to look upon them. … Be not afraid of that brilliant radiance of five colors, nor terrified; but know that Wisdom to be thine own. Within those radiances, the natural sound of the Truth will reverberate like a thousand thunders. The sound will come with a rolling reverberation. Fear not. Flee not. Be not terrified. Know them (i.e., these sounds) to be (of) … thine own inner light.” (Extracts from, “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” — Bardo Thodol), edited by Dr. W. Y. Evans-Wentz)

Ajahn Amaro: “When he [Ajahn Sumedho] first taught this method to the Sangha at Chithurst that winter, he referred to it as ‘the sound of silence’ and the name stuck. Later, as he began to teach the method on retreats for the lay community, he began to hear about its use from people experienced in Hindu and Sikh meditation practices. In these traditions, he found out, this concentration on the inner sound was known as nada yoga, or ‘the yoga of inner light and sound.’ It also turned out that books had been written on the subject, commentaries in English as well as ancient scriptural treatises, notably, “The Law of Attention: Nada Yoga and the Way of Inner Vigilance”, by Edward Salim Michael. In 1991, when Ajahn Sumedho taught the sound of silence as a method on a retreat at a Chinese monastery in the United States, one of the participants was moved to comment, ‘I think you have stumbled on the Shurangama Samadhi. There is a meditation on hearing that is described in that sutra, and the practice you have been teaching us seems to match it perfectly.’” (“Who is Listening?”, by Rev. Guo Cheen)

Stages of Inner Sound Meditation in the Shurangama Sutra, a Buddhist Scripture:

“That Buddha taught me to enter samadhi [deep meditation, union] through a process of listening. I began with a practice based on the nature of hearing. (1) First I redirected my hearing inward in order to enter the current of the sages. (2) Then external sounds disappeared. (3) With its direction reversed and with sounds stilled, both sounds and silence cease to arise. (4) So it was that, as I gradually progressed, what I heard and my awareness of what I heard came to an end. Even when that state of mind in which everything had come to an end disappeared, I did not rest. (5) My awareness and the objects of my awareness were emptied, and when that process of emptying my awareness was wholly complete, then even that emptying and what had been emptied vanished. (6) Coming into being and ceasing to be themselves ceased to be. Then the Ultimate Stillness was revealed.” (Shrangama Sutra quoted in the white paper, “Who is Listening?”, all about transcendental hearing, the sound of silence meditation practice in Theravadan Buddhism, by Rev. Guo Cheen)

— The Buddhism Section of: The Yoga of Sound — Exploring Sound Meditation (Auditory Mysticism, Surat Shabd Yoga) in the Sacred Texts of the Great World Religions and Gnostic Traditions