The Listening Book

You know that light you saw? Imagine it as a constant beam, with no flicker. Imagine the beings who might be that awake.

As sound is diffused and softened through space, so, when we listen to it, is our sense of self. We are spread out over the land, rarefied, free at last.

Build a protected zone of concentration around yourself, with the sound of your music as the wall. Listen more keenly and forgivingly to your work, and leave others to do their own work. Be an audience of one. This results in higher standards and is best for everyone in the long run.

The truth is, most of us have to learn specifically the single, pure act of listening to music.

Get a clean copy of a short piece (three to six minutes) of instrumental music that you can listen to wholeheartedly—classical, jazz, country, rock, anything you love—and play it twice in a row every day for about five days. Don’t do anything else when you listen to it: no read, no look, no sing, no think, no dance, no dream, no scheme, no mad, no

You will see that there is a joy in it; in plain daily talk there is a playful joy.

We need to hear machine music. It is an extension of our tolerance, our capacity, our vision of harmonious life.

It might take only a moment to drop in. Or it might take many moments of slippery wrestling. But the nature of sound works in your favor and rescues you time and time again from the tether of the mind.

We are hungry for it and it nourishes us. In a brief moment of quiet sitting we can realize how tranquillity is the precondition for listening.