Last night I tweeted the following: The sense of hearing is the first to develop when we are forming in our mothers' womb. It is also the last to "shut down" at our dying.
There are many layers to this statement.
The first layer is the physical aspect of this. Medical sciences are revealing that foetuses react more sensitively to sound than light. Death is also a gradual process (in ordinary circumstances). The various organs of our physical bodies do not all die at the same time. Our ears never shut down until all other organs ceased.
This transits to our emotional attachments to our sense of hearing. We can shut our eyes. We can hold our breaths. And we can close our mouths. But we cannot turn off our hearing naturally. Yet the art of listening is one of the hardest skills to develop. Listening is such a powerful emotional tool that to have someone who listens from their hearts is thousands times more healing than to have a thousand words spoken to us in times of emotional stress.
The act of hearing and listening also has a deep significance spiritually. In the many cultures, emphasis had been placed on light and sight. The genesis began by declaring that God created that light first by saying “Let there be light...”
But my Buddhist studies led me to believe that this is inaccurate. I believe that sound comes first. (I know light travel faster and hence more obvious. But we are not discussing speed here.) Just like sound is first observed by the foetus, sound is the original building block of the cosmic energy. Sound is the energy that is most associated with vibrations which is the driving force for all reactions at the atomic and sub-atomic levels.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of Buddhism would know that Buddhist practices are usually revolved around meditation and chanting.
Meditation is a useful tool to calm our bodies and minds. But the question is, why do we need to calm? It is to heighten our sense of hearing. To hear our own minds. Seriously.
Chanting occurs when there is a rhythm we identified to be important and wanted to embrace. The purpose of chanting is for us to hear this rhythm, and to reinforce it into our lives. In Nichiren Buddhism, we learnt that the most important rhythm of life is manifested in Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. And that is the chanting I do. I do it, to hear it, so that I may embrace it in death.
There are many layers to this statement.
The first layer is the physical aspect of this. Medical sciences are revealing that foetuses react more sensitively to sound than light. Death is also a gradual process (in ordinary circumstances). The various organs of our physical bodies do not all die at the same time. Our ears never shut down until all other organs ceased.
This transits to our emotional attachments to our sense of hearing. We can shut our eyes. We can hold our breaths. And we can close our mouths. But we cannot turn off our hearing naturally. Yet the art of listening is one of the hardest skills to develop. Listening is such a powerful emotional tool that to have someone who listens from their hearts is thousands times more healing than to have a thousand words spoken to us in times of emotional stress.
The act of hearing and listening also has a deep significance spiritually. In the many cultures, emphasis had been placed on light and sight. The genesis began by declaring that God created that light first by saying “Let there be light...”
But my Buddhist studies led me to believe that this is inaccurate. I believe that sound comes first. (I know light travel faster and hence more obvious. But we are not discussing speed here.) Just like sound is first observed by the foetus, sound is the original building block of the cosmic energy. Sound is the energy that is most associated with vibrations which is the driving force for all reactions at the atomic and sub-atomic levels.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of Buddhism would know that Buddhist practices are usually revolved around meditation and chanting.
Meditation is a useful tool to calm our bodies and minds. But the question is, why do we need to calm? It is to heighten our sense of hearing. To hear our own minds. Seriously.
Chanting occurs when there is a rhythm we identified to be important and wanted to embrace. The purpose of chanting is for us to hear this rhythm, and to reinforce it into our lives. In Nichiren Buddhism, we learnt that the most important rhythm of life is manifested in Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. And that is the chanting I do. I do it, to hear it, so that I may embrace it in death.
