Mindful Listening: A Meditation Game

Read time 4 minutes. Mindful listening is a stand alone article in our Blocked Energy series.

We’ve spoken often about the importance of accepting and allowing. Most of the time the focus has been on mental attitude—how we relate to thoughts, how we lean into letting go. Today, let’s turn the lens slightly and look at the physical side of accepting and allowing, through the deceptively simple practice of mindful listening.

What is mindful listening?

There are many ways the phrase gets used. Sometimes it refers to being fully present when someone else is speaking—truly hearing what they are trying to communicate. That alone can transform relationships. When someone feels heard, their stance softens. Ironically, they become more willing to hear us in return.

But that is not today’s lesson. Our focus here is on what could be called active sound meditation. A way of transforming our moment-to-moment relationship with the world by treating sound as practice. It is a method simple enough to weave into daily life, yet profound enough to reshape how we meet disturbance.

Vibrational disturbance

I live in the city. Which means I live with noise. Lately it seems every week another car roars past—engine tuned louder, exhaust rattling harder. Each time I think I’ve heard the most obnoxious car yet, another one proves me wrong.

We could wander off here into a conversation about ego and identity—how people seek validation through their machines. But that is not our focus. What matters is what happens inside when the noise arrives.

Think of your own reaction to loud, sudden, or annoying sounds. First there is shock. Left alone, that shock dissipates on its own. But rarely do we leave it alone. Almost instantly we add rejection, commentary, irritation. Ugh. So annoying. And in that moment, resistance has already begun.

Sound as energy

Last time we explored blocked energy. The lesson here is the same, only simpler. The initial sound is just energy. What blocks it from passing through is not the sound itself but the wall of mental activity we throw up in response.

Michael Singer puts it this way in The Untethered Soul:

“This is how the overall system of perception is meant to work. It’s meant to take things in, allow you to experience them, and then let them pass through you so you’re fully present for the next moment.”

The implication is striking. Any inner dialogue—positive, negative, large, or small—has the same effect. It holds us. It keeps us from being present for the very next moment. Singer calls it “an unfinished energy pattern that ends up running your life.”

The cure is not to fight the mind or silence the noise. It is to shift the game.

“You don’t fight the mind. In fact, you don’t even try to change it. You just make a game out of relaxing in the face of melodrama.”

Choose undisturbed clarity

Think of a stereo. When the speakers are blocked or muffled, sound becomes distorted. Vibrations turn into disturbance. But when the speakers are clear, the music flows freely.

Our perception works the same way. If we learn to allow sound to pass through without resistance, inner disturbance does not build. Instead of distortion, there is presence. Instead of blockage, there is resonance.

Clear speakers produce rich sound. Clear presence produces a richer resonance with life itself.

Making the game your own

So here is the practice: the next time a car thunders by, or a door slams, or someone sneezes too loudly in the next room—pause. Relax in the face of it. Let the sound move through without judgment. Notice what else arises, and let that pass too.

As Singer writes:

“All you have to do is notice who it is that feels the negative energy. The one who notices is already free.”

Noise is only energy. What matters is the noticing. What matters is letting the energy flow instead of storing it.

I’ve found this practice endlessly useful. It becomes a daily reminder, a string tied around the finger. Every sound can turn into a signal: a chance to return, a chance to practice.

Not every lesson needs to be long. This one is short, simple, and repeatable. Listen mindfully. Make a game out of it. See what happens when sound is allowed to pass, undisturbed, through the clear speakers of your awareness.

Explore more:

As mentioned earlier, mindful listening can come in many forms. It doesn’t have to be all about processing negative energy. In an article on Radio Art, Giota Eftaxia notes, “Especially during the period of Romanticism (1798-1837), the prevailing opinion was that nature is the mirror of soul.” This article on Medicinal Media also espouses some of the benefits of the sounds of nature. Feel free to visit if you are interested in discovering more. 

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