Listening to Nature and Music

Listen in such a way that the body is completely relaxed, without anticipation of what is to come. Let it be unconditioned by names and labels of what it is hearing. Let the act of listening be a reception, absorbed in the music. Only when you are relaxed can it truly be a receiving quality. If you are tense, expectant, or ideational, then you are busy interpreting what you hear in comparison to past experiences. Then, what is heard is obscured by memory and is no longer a vivid and direct experience of listening.

In my mid-twenties, I worked at an ayahuasca centre, immersed in nature and the brilliant sounds humming heavily, as only the jungle knows how. It was wonderful in moments of silence to submerge into the sounds of crickets that enveloped the night sky. One should always be pleased by the sounds of nature because natural sounds restore our natural harmony. They only get in the way or bother us if we are estranged. For example, if we live in the city and then spend time by the ocean, the sound of waves may be so loud that it is hard to sleep. However, in not too much time, that sound will begin to soothe the busy mind and become part of the background. In the practice of listening, one should always attend to what is heard in their present environment.

Next to nature, I have always listened deeply to music. As soon as I knew how to use my mother's Walkman or stereo to play old tapes, I would listen intently to the music, letting the lyrics be impressed upon my mind. As for many adolescents and teenagers, music became a teacher and a mentor, whereas in the world those figures appeared to be few and far apart. 

At this ayahuasca centre, the ending of the ceremony would trail off from the consistent cadence of hymns that carry the ritual and drift into long recorded pieces of music that would play until morning as people rested and slept. There in the jungle, as the ayahuasca settled and yet continued in the sound of the insects, I found myself immersed in the act of deep listening to the pre-recorded arrangements that were obviously carefully selected and played at this potent point of the night, reminding me of car rides as an adventurous teenager in the back seat after parties, consuming good doses of LSD as a sober driver friend would aimlessly drive the long way home. The music would come alive and catapult me into a new dimension, intermingling in real-time with the outward experience as time faded in and out, stretching to no longer be a linear march.

Later, studying the UDV (União do Vegetal) and hearing about Mestre Gabriel's use of a record player to play particular pieces of music at certain intervals within the ritual, not to fill the silence, not to entertain the participants or fill the space as a kind of caretaker while the ritual substance was in action, but rather to train a type of deep listening while in the ritual-trance state and non-ordinary state of consciousness of the ayahuasca and, more so, to elicit the appreciation of music.

As a teenager, I would save money to go to the record store to lay-by and pre-order CDs before they came out. When I finally had the disc in my hand, I would go to my room and immerse myself in the fresh atmosphere of hearing the album for the first time. Back then, songs were not so random, not just a single on a streaming platform or a hit on some pop charts. A song was in context with the album, and to understand what the artist was conveying, one would listen to the whole album from beginning to end as an overarching journey.

Many reading this will be familiar with this experience. I share it now because I don’t want it to become a lost art. I want to remind you not to forget to be totally immersed in what you listen to. To give space for music, not just as background noise while you are making breakfast, but actually sitting down for focused appreciation of live and pre-recorded pieces, songs, and albums much the same way that one sits down to watch a movie. Make time to sit down and listen.

In listening to pre-recorded music, there are many layers. Sometimes we stop being surprised because we can predict what comes next, we hang on to the lyrics, and catch the melody as it comes around. If one is serious about listening when it comes to music, then often a taste develops for the abstract. Subtle drone tones or ambient soundscapes that to some just sound like noise become like delicious drips of honey to the refined ear, moving one to astonishing states of simplicity and emptiness.

For some, even the most sophisticated pieces of music can sound just like a cacophony of noise. For others, even the buzz of a refrigerator can become a door to the sublime and an invitation to hear the present moment in a new way. For the purpose of deep listening, consider setting aside music with a distinct melody and rhythm. Avoid any sound that the mind can latch onto, anticipate, or predict. Instead, drift into the open-ended ambience of a drone, submerge in the endless flow of the sound of a stream, or disappear into the subtle nuances of static. In this way, what might typically be perceived as noise becomes an invitation to hear in a new way and opens a doorway to the sacred and profound.