Limitless Perception

A Meditator's Guide to Music and Sound

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This post was written in memory of my mentor Lama Marut, who first introduced me to the yoga of sound, and who left this world 3 years ago. You are missed.

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I sometimes get asked about music during meditations: should I, shouldn’t I, how do I…? Opinions about music, sound and silence for meditation and yoga are many and often widely diverging.

In my own case, when I first started to practice I craved silence and found music and sounds to be distracting; but over time as I learned and explored, my views have shifted and become more complex. I still prefer silence when I'm doing or teaching an active/dynamic form of yoga, but I use music for other forms of physical practice like strength training, where it gets me into a certain rhythmic state and motivates me. I also deeply enjoy having gentle music for softer practices like yin and restorative yoga, and for meditation.

This is what works for me right now—the bottom line is as usual to find what works for you. But if you want a deeper dive and some inspiration around how to work with sound and music, read on…

Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash

Sound and Silence

The relationship between sound, silence and internal practices is a deep one, and different traditions have their own approaches. The Zen tradition, for example, is steeped in silence and cultivates great sensitivity to the richness of silence and the simple, everyday sounds that emerge out of silence. The sound of the meditation bell at the start or end of a session is an opportunity to embody and reflect on the teachings, as well as an expression of the ringer's inner state. Because sound is fleeting, coming from and dissolving back into silence, it is a profound reflection of the state of all things. Ringing a Zen bell is my favourite way to start and end my day; the vibration clarifies my inner and outer space and gives my day a clear and sacred frame in which to unfold.

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Bathe deeply in that ocean of sound
Vibrating within you, now as always,
Resonating softly,
Permeating the space of the heart.

The ear that is tuned by rapt listening
Learns to hear the song of creation.

First like a hand bell,
Then subtler, like a flute,
Subtler still as a stringed instrument,
Eventually as the buzz of a bee.

Entering this current of sound,
The Listening One
Forgets the external world, becomes
Absorbed into internal sound,
Then absorbed in vastness,
Like the song of the stars as they shine.

—Radiance Sutras 15

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I remember being asked to teach meditation to a group of kids in primary school when I was interning as a teacher’s assistant in 2014. It was a class facing many challenges and the head teacher thought some inner space might help them. I prepared a few things but I basically I had no idea what would work, except for the fact that I had to keep it really short (what we call a micro-meditation). But the moment I rang the bell and asked the kids to ‘follow the sound until you can’t hear it any more’, they got it. One of them said afterwards it felt like she was spreading out into space, which is exactly how it is. Another said he could hear the silence afterwards for a long time and it felt ‘quiet inside and outside’. These kids were around 8 years old. For me, it was a case of witnessing radical transformation within moments (and of being quite literally saved by the bell ;) It later turned out that this meditation became a fan favourite amongst the kids, who would request it from their teacher even after I had left the school.

The Yoga of Sound

In yoga there is a branch of practice called nada yoga, or the yoga of sound. Sound is essentially a subtle form of motion—vibration—that we can perceive through our senses. Nada yoga is the practice of uniting mind and senses in the perception of inner and outer worlds through sound and vibration.

Nada is the creative power of the highest consciousness. It exists in each individual and throughout the cosmos.

—Swami Muktibodhananda, Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Yogic meditation often uses the senses as gateways into meditation or to alter states of consciousness. The Sanskrit word for the senses is indriya, which can be translated as:

• इन्द्रिय · indriya · sense, organ or faculty of sense (as in the five organs of perception—eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin). Bodily power, power of the senses. Fit for or belonging to or agreeable to Indra, the god of the senses; a companion of Indra. Power, force, the quality that belongs to the mighty Indra. An exhibition of power, a powerful act, virile power.

The senses, in this understanding, are companions and expressions of divine power. In other words, perception is revelation.

As I write this, I’m recalling the experience of going to a concert or music festival, and notwithstanding the experience itself, noticing that somehow the world feels different afterwards. Being on the train home after a show, colours look brighter, space is richer and fuller, I’m more aware of the living-ness of the people around me, and it’s like my skin is sensitive to every tiny vibration. The world is humming, alive, abuzz. Sometimes even recorded music, or the right sound at the right moment can trigger this kind of awakening. This is the power that sound can have on consciousness and perception.

what it feels like inside when I listen to music | USGS on Unsplash

Why sound?

Sound is one of the easiest gateways into meditation because:

1. it is experienced as infinite, coming from and going everywhere;

2. it is ever-present, as overt sound, subtle sound or silence; and

3. it can be perceived not only through hearing but also through vision, touch and vibration, so it is multi-sensory.

Many people also enjoy sound-based meditations because they effortlessly expand awareness beyond, or behind, the voice of the mind. Outer sound, even if very subtle, balances and brings inner quiet. Learning to rest in sound and silence can give you a break from the internal monologue whenever you need one, as the kids in my story above realised.

A little side note…

The yoga tradition differentiates between struck (ahata) sounds, which arise from two objects or more coming together; and unstruck (anahata) sounds, which arise spontaneously and are ongoing, without being caused by objects coming together. The vibration of life is one of the latter.

Struck sounds are perceived by the ears, but unstruck sounds are perceived directly by awareness. You may know that the Sanskrit name for the heart chakra is anahata, the unstruck, making it the energy center which communicates directly to your innermost consciousness through spontaneous vibration—your heart-song that is always being sung.

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The One Who is at Play Everywhere says,

There is a space in the heart where everything meets.
Come here if you want to find me.
Mind, senses, soul, eternity—all are here.
Are you here?

Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.
Listen to the song that is always resonating.
Give yourself to it with total abandon.
Quiet ecstasy is here,
And a steady, regal sense
Of resting in a perfect spot.
You who are the embodiment of blessing,
Once you know the way,
The nature of attention will call you to return.
Again and again, answer that call,
And be saturated with knowing,
"I belong here, I am at home."

—Radiance Sutras 26

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Pathways of Sound

From a quantum scientific perspective, the universe ("one song") is vibrational, with different forms of matter moving at different frequencies and creating everything we perceive like a multi-faceted symphony or orchestra. Those who are attuned to sound and vibration experience the world in this way; in momentary glimpses, if not all the time.

can you hear the song of the universe?

We humans have known this for millenia, which is why it is so common and pervasive for us to use music—often combined with dance, ritual and drumming—to evoke altered states. Many times music is created or used in a group practice on special occasions, like the songs of various festivals. But it is the same idea even on an individual and secular level: this is what music-lovers do when listening to or creating music on their own, and when attending musical events like concerts.

It is worthwhile to remember that prior to widespread literacy, most information was transmitted through word and song. This includes everyday information, history and entertainment as well as spiritual and religious teaching. The latter was given orally through the singing or chanting of verses, or through the speech of a living teacher. Religious texts are so often poetic precisely because they are meant to be spoken, or sung. Think of it and there are examples everywhere: Sufi poetry, the Vedas from Hinduism, the songs of Milarepa in Tibetan Buddhism, the haiku of Zen Buddhism…

I once heard it said that the more deeply in touch with truth you were, the more you would hear it resounding everywhere; not only in the voice of your teacher, or of other people, but also in the sound of the birds, and the sea, and the breeze in the mountains and the trees. This is another way of saying: the more you attune and immerse, the more you are able to perceive the song of the universe.

Given this rich history, it is no surprise that many spiritual experiences from traditions around the world are associated with, released by, or connected to sound and music. Do you have experience of any of these? I once went on a meditation retreat which was held at an old English abbey. We spent most of the time in silence, but on occasion we would sneak into the cathedral to listen to the monks chanting: gorgeous, deep, resonant frequencies that travelled through the ground, the space and the air and touched your heart, your skin, your bones. I had no experience of church chanting prior to this, and yet it immediately reminded me of the way Tibetan monks chant during ritual ceremonies. It was the same rich and wondrous otherworldly feeling, replicated in a tradition from the other side of the world.

On another note (pun intended), there are also practices in certain traditions designed to activate our inner voice, intuition or deeper consciousness, which can then 'speak' to us in various ways:

When the kundalini awakens, sometimes inner voices or narrative can also be heard from the deeper levels of consciousness. The actual phenomenon is difficult to explain at an intellectual level as it is more a feeling that is experienced rather than a physical sound. It is something like two trees talking to each other... Ultimately the inner voice becomes pure vibration, which is neither picture, idea, nor sound, but still there is an understanding through it, as if you were speaking a language... The deeper you go, the more you come into contact with the cosmic mind.

—Swami Muktibodhananda, Hatha Yoga Pradipika

In the healing traditions, there are a great many forms of sound and vibration that are considered therapeutic and used to shift or affect the vibration of certain body parts, areas or of our experience as a whole. This is what sound healers are trained to do.

All these examples show that there is no reason to believe (as I once did) that music is an impediment to any kind of internal practices. At the same time, it is not absolutely required either. Music, sound and silence exist on a continuum, on which any point can be used to invite internal and meditative experience.

Ways to Practice

Nada yoga can be explored through:

• mantra chanting, invoking sacred sounds

• music, or being immersed in a soundscape that you love

• breathing practices involving vibration and sound

• bija or seed-syllables of power

• discovering the pulsing rhythm of life that is always humming everywhere (spanda)

• and dissolving awareness into the great silence from which life emerges (nada)

What are some ways you can do this on your own? Here are my suggestions, along with some verses that might spark inspiration. As always, feel free to play and invent your own practice or technique.

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1. Play music in the background

to get into the meditative mood. This is a classic approach, often used in group sessions and recordings. The music becomes an anchor that you can float in and out of as you follow the rhythm of your own attention.

2. Meditate to music:

especially for moving and dancing meditations, but you can also lie down or sit snug and let the music wash over you and take you on a journey. This was something I did as a teenager, and is often powerful at that age or at any time when everything (senses, energy, personhood, relationships, life, learning) is in hyperdrive, developing so fast that you can’t keep up and you don’t know how to share your experience with others. Then music becomes a place where someone else helps you express, process and feel, and you can move to it or rest in it according to the flow of your own energy.

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Immerse yourself in the rapture of music.
You know what you love. Go there.

Tend to each note, each chord,
Rising up from silence and dissolving again.

Vibrating strings draw us 
Into the spacious resonance of the heart.

The body becomes light as the sky
And you, one with the Great Musician,
Who is even now singing us
Into existence.

—Radiance Sutras 18

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3. Make your own ‘music’ as meditation

Music and sound are one of our most powerful forms of expression. We tend to think of language when we try to express ourselves (‘use your words’), but sometimes words can be limiting or awkward or just not the right fit.

Occasionally when I’m talking and I lose the thread of what I want to share, or I realise I’m not going in the right direction, I will take a cleansing breath in, and then just make some random sounds as I exhale, like babbling or gibberish. Of course this is provided the context is informal and it’s appropriate! But it usually gets people laughing, and it serves as a kind of natural reset-and-refresh to clear the space, and then I can continue talking or we can dive right back in to the flow of the conversation.

There are in fact meditative practices that use gibberish sounds as a doorway—they are meant to take you into a cleaner, freer state of being (Osho meditation is an example). Babbling nonsense sounds are like ‘lite’ versions of power or seed syllables (bija); they take you back to a more basic, simple state of awareness, before the complexity of words and language fills or clouds your mind. They are also extremely liberating, as they allow total freedom of expression without any boundaries or limitations. You are even freed from the need to make sense.

So whether or not you feel you can ‘make music’, know that you already have an instrument inside you—and no one is listening anyway, so you can set yourself free to express anything you like. Hum, sigh, sing, shriek, laugh, pant, growl…and then see what you feel like in the silence afterwards.

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Think of any vowel—they are all delicious.
Savor the sound with infinite gentleness.
Attend to where it comes from within you
And where it goes to when it fades away.

Listen to the subtle, ever-changing tones,
Layer upon layer.
Discover what gradualness is.
The power of sound will lead you
Into the power of silence.

Syllables are born from space,
Resonate in space, then melt into spaciousness.
Know this silent spaciousness as your Self.

—Radiance Sutras 17

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4. Meditate in silence…

experiencing the 'hum of life' inside and all around you. This is a beautiful practice that we sometimes drop into spontaneously, when awareness aligns inner and outer worlds.

One of the gifts of knowing that sound and music are part of meditative exprience is that you no longer have to block out or be bothered by random noises in your environment. If your neighbours start blasting hip-hop music, or the builders start tearing up the road outside, or you can hear your family talking…no worries, just welcome it all into your awareness. That’s the hum and the rhythm of life, expressing itself in this moment. You can even practice this as a mini-meditation: simply immerse yourself in the landscape of sound all around you, and let it wash through and clarify your awareness. I do this while waiting to cross the road sometimes, and it’s amazing how spacious it can feel around all the noise.

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The roar of joy that set the worlds in motion
Is reverberating in your body
And the space between all bodies.
Beloved, listen.

Find that exuberant vibration
Rising new in every moment,
Humming in your secret places,
Resounding through the channels of delight.
Know you are flooded by it always.

Float with the sound.
Melt with it into divine silence.
The sacred power of space will carry you
Into the dancing radiant emptiness
That is the source of all.
The ocean of sound is inviting you
Into its spacious embrace,
Calling you home.

—Radiance Sutras 16

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Thank you for reading. I hope you found this deep dive helpful and inspiring. It was a delight to write, and has reanimated my love and appreciation for music and music makers everywhere.

Next Steps

If you’d like to explore this topic further, I’d recommend the following two books:

• True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art, Chogyam Trungpa

• The Mysticism of Sound and Music, Hazrat Inayat Ali Khan

Later this month I will also be releasing a guided practice related to this post, so stay tuned and subscribe to receive that in your inbox.

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If you enjoyed this post, feel free to share it with others, and please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support my work (more on that here).

And as always, I welcome your responses and thoughts. How do you relate to sound and music? Have you ever tried any of these practices or approaches?

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