11:11 Angels Message Board

A Zen teacher once told me something interesting. We were meditating together at my home when my dog began to bark. He sensed my agitation and said in his rich Tasmanian accent, “Don’t be snobbish about sounds. They’re all just sounds.” Those words have stuck with me. We tend to get very picky about noise in meditation. We consider particular music, or chimes, or chants, “beautiful,” while the noises of everyday life are a “distraction.” It’s like another teacher told me once as he instructed me to open my eyes during meditation: “We exclude so much of life when we close our eyes.”

That tends to be a major theme for most of us in spirituality — trying to use spiritual practice or beliefs to exclude the parts of our lives we see as bad.

Practice Over Parables — by Jason Garner

https://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?op=audio&tid=2353

Thank you Welles for this little "shorty". I think it is easy to forget that sound is one of our valuable allies when we meditate. It can actually lead us into a deeper state of awareness. Although I must admit becoming quite frustrated years ago with my two dogs and especially my cat who used my stillness time as an opportunity to bathe himself on my lap. I used to tell myself, though, "if I can meditate and find peace with a bathing cat on my lap then I can find the same peace on the side of an erupting volcano. ( Not that I wish to put that to the test mind you. )


Sandy