3.3.10. The Sound of Silence
“I entered into the stream of the self-nature of the sense of hearing, thereby eliminating the sound of what was heard. Now proceeding from this stillness, both sound and silence ceased to arise… At this point the absolute emptiness of nirvāṇa became manifest, and suddenly I transcended the mundane and supra-mundane worlds.”
— Avalokiteśvara’s method of enlightenment, Śūraṅgama Sūtra
Is it not remarkable that the very faculties drawing us into illusion can also guide us out? In all my searching, I have come to see how intimately tied our freedom is to these ordinary senses—our hearing, our seeing, our thinking. Of them, it seems that listening holds a quiet secret, a path so close we often miss it, yet so perfectly tailored to human nature that once glimpsed, it feels almost obvious.
In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Buddha turns to an assembly of enlightened beings and asks: by what means did you each first break through duality to awaken? Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, stands and describes liberation through the “ear door.” This, he tells us, is the most suitable method for beings like us in these degenerate times.
It is not hard to see why. Each of our other senses is available only intermittently. The visual sense fails behind our heads and depends on light. Taste, smell, and touch all require direct contact with their objects. But hearing is different. It embraces a full circle around us—unbounded, ceaseless—and more importantly, we can even hear the sound of silence itself.
The Buddha underscores this subtle point. In the sūtra, he strikes a bell and asks his disciples if they hear it. When the ringing stops, he again asks what they hear. They reply, quite naturally, that they hear nothing. The Buddha appears perplexed and repeats the exercise. Confused, the disciples ask why he seems troubled by their honest answer.
He explains: our hearing is unbroken. When we think we hear “nothing,” we are actually hearing silence—an objectified absence that reveals our sense of hearing continues regardless. We only notice hearing when it hooks onto something significant. Yet even when there is “nothing,” this points to a delicate stratum of empty awareness that underlies all.
Meditating on this subtle continuity—on the very sound of silence—is a practice we can take up anytime, anywhere. Even modest skill brings access to instant serenity. With diligence, progress is swift, though along the way one may encounter curious phenomena such as the “divine ear,” becoming attuned to sounds beyond ordinary range. Still, this method offers unusually direct access to the ālaya, the most refined layer of conditioned consciousness, without requiring years of advanced training.
Sense | Limitation | Why Hearing Stands Out |
---|---|---|
Sight | Partial field, needs light | Cannot see behind or in darkness |
Taste | Requires physical contact | Only arises with objects |
Smell | Requires nearby source | Easily overwhelmed or absent |
Touch | Limited to direct contact | Bound by bodily surface |
Hearing | 360° field, ever-present | Even “silence” reveals continuous awareness |
Those trained in vipassanā—cultivating exquisite mindfulness of mental events—can learn to distinguish hearing from sound itself. Once confident in this, they can rest awareness on the sheer act of knowing, moving past both object and subject, eventually opening to non-dual, non-cognitive awareness.
It may help to think back to before we learned language. As infants, we lived in a single, unbroken stream of experience. Each new word carved this unity into fragments, introducing layers of mental proliferation (papañca) over what was once simple and whole. A toddler hearing a popular song might sway with delight, oblivious to lyrics because meaning has not yet overlaid pure sound.
Much of what delights or frightens us is born of these hallucinated meanings. We instinctively believe our layer of interpretation gives mastery, but often it only complicates and burdens. Consider rhythm: it is not something that exists on its own, but a perceived pattern in sounds. Harmony too is merely our mind appreciating certain relationships among tones.
Words are sequences of vowels and consonants. When we hear sounds resembling words, a mental event (citta) arises, carrying meaning shaped by past karma. If the preceding mind-moment was wholesome, joy may arise; if unwholesome, displeasure. Almost immediately, our attention is swept from the subtle act of hearing into the richer drama of meanings.
Thus words are strangely hypnotic. They pull us from the raw, undivided experience into an inner theatre of thought. Learning to hear the sound but not the word—truly tasting the bare tone without leaping to meaning—is wonderfully tricky, yet remarkably freeing. It is a meditation one can practice nearly anytime (though perhaps not while driving). Even in conversation, gently shifting attention from meanings to pure sound loosens the mind’s habitual grasp.
The Śūraṅgama Sūtra describes twenty-five approaches to transcending duality, each focusing the mind on a single aspect of experience to reveal its emptiness. Among these, the ear door is held best suited for our human condition.
If you have the opportunity, watch skilled vocal coaches analyse singing. Observing all the minute distinctions of breath, timbre, resonance can broaden your conceptual sensitivity to sound, drawing attention back from meanings toward qualities. This alone is not enough—it merely replaces one kind of overlay with another—but it lays groundwork. From there, we train awareness to remain on the undifferentiated, until we sustain a clear mindfulness of “nothing whatsoever.” This is the ālaya, the mind’s most delicate canvas. From it, conditioned by karma, arise the whole parade of subjects and objects.
Is this beginning to come together? Keep searching—we are almost there. Listening beyond words, beyond even silence itself, we step closer to the subtle ground from which all things arise. In this tender simplicity, the mind begins to rest in its own luminous nature, quietly dissolving the walls we once thought so necessary.
This text is excerpted from the upcoming book Citrinitas: A Course in Modern Alchemy. The complete volume will include additional study guides, glossaries, and extended teachings. Learn more about the book here.