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Meditation and Noise
I am still pretty new to meditation, although I feel like I am off to a strong start.
My catch is this - I feel I need absolute silence to have my best meditations. When it is completely silent, I am able to really get lost in the meditation and silence my mind.
However - most nights, my wife works from home as an online tutor - and she talks VERY loud. Loud enough that her voice carries through my closed door upstairs to where I can hear it.
The natural starts and stops of her conversations shake the calmness of my mind as they distract me and get internal dialogue started that wasn't there before. I have tried putting on my headset and playing white noise in the hopes of drowning out her voice. Unfortunately - I inevitably pick out rhythms of any streaming white noise and begin thinking about and anticipating the rhythm changes and that is distracting me from focusing on my breath and a silent mind.
Does anyone have any suggestions or practices they are able to use in a situation where they can't get silence while meditating? Any suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks!
EDIT: Changing my schedule isn't an option - night time is really my only window for a meditation routine.
My catch is this - I feel I need absolute silence to have my best meditations. When it is completely silent, I am able to really get lost in the meditation and silence my mind.
However - most nights, my wife works from home as an online tutor - and she talks VERY loud. Loud enough that her voice carries through my closed door upstairs to where I can hear it.
The natural starts and stops of her conversations shake the calmness of my mind as they distract me and get internal dialogue started that wasn't there before. I have tried putting on my headset and playing white noise in the hopes of drowning out her voice. Unfortunately - I inevitably pick out rhythms of any streaming white noise and begin thinking about and anticipating the rhythm changes and that is distracting me from focusing on my breath and a silent mind.
Does anyone have any suggestions or practices they are able to use in a situation where they can't get silence while meditating? Any suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks!
EDIT: Changing my schedule isn't an option - night time is really my only window for a meditation routine.
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Comments
The best thing to do if you truly need to go that route would be to tack something that will absorb the sound to the walls (and possibly the door) of the room. Friends I've had who had their own mini-studios normally used eggshell foam, but egg cartons, heavy drapes and blankets can also help block out the sound. If there's a gap under your door, you'll probably want to use a towel, blanket or draft guard to help block out the extra noise that can come in through there.
However, I think even after you do this, you will find it still isn't quite silent enough. There will always be noises and distractions while meditating. The important thing though is to acknowledge the distraction, let it pass and not get discouraged. It is possible to meditate through these things, it's just more difficult when you're learning. If nothing else, think of it as intense training and push through the distractions.
Good luck!
best of luck!
*namaste*
I agree with priyajiivana. Just let the sounds be; regard them in the same way you would bodily sensations or fluctuations in the breath. You could also use your situation to your benefit and practice mindfulness of sound. Alternatively, you might find another time or place to meditate. Perhaps doing so outdoors if the weather permits and you have access to a porch or balcony or yard or garden where you will be safe.
It's almost impossible to remove all sensory input while meditating, and even we could there would still be plenty on internal dialogue to distract us. So perhaps it's best just to accept that sounds will arise, there's no need to be irritated by them.
P
How about doing your meditation the moment you wake up?
I know what the other guys say about just labelling the noise and taking your mind back to the breath, but that's not easy to do; for me anyway.
Is it an acquired skill?
I've got a few things I've got to sort out, but I may try mediating with the family noise this evening; just to have a try. I've been meditating regularly for quite some time, eight months maybe, and apart from one occasion which felt very blissful, I have had no great 'happenings'.
I still do it though.
It's very rare in life that you get a perfectly quiet set of moments. So instead of dettaching yourself from it, why not just accept it and let it become part of you?
There's always noise going on...whether they are pleasant or distracting is a label placed upon it by yourself. When one meditates outside in "peaceful nature" you have the noise of the birds, the wind, other animals all with the same chance of distracting you as any other noise.
Or before you wake up?:D
P
Personally i like to meditate outdoors it feels better and also there is enough backgroundnoise so i dont get bothered with my tinnitus.
But to be honest i feel like cheating when i do this. Wrong intention i try to escape from the tinnitus whilst buddhism is just about accepting.
Hey i am just a beginner but if i am meditating and my tinnitus is bothering me i investigate what exactly is bothering me. if i look closely it is the idea oh my god this will not go, it will never go, poor me why can it not just be quiet. Then i have a few moments that i judge as, well hey that was good meditating i must try to hold on to that. GRASPING!
It is all there avoiding,judging, grasping. I follow my breath and see these things as they arise and what they do to me. I hope and guess with patience and training i will be able to progress.
I am not hardcore about this i still find it more enjoyable outdoors and i sometimes give in to this luxury. Don't force yourself go outside but try to do your practice also under conditions that are chalenging and look for what is really disturbing you.
I can only speak from the standpoint of what I have been taught in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Unfamiliar with other traditions, they may contradict this ... however:
To Tibetan Buddhists, the "best meditation" is when you can focus and concentrate surrounded by noise.
It's a common misconception among us Westerners that a good meditation is one that makes us feel happier and/or gives us "experiences". Maybe because yoga brought meditation to the West and yoga places merit on "experiences" from meditation. Maybe because meditation has been adopted by everyone who wants to promote their "how to be happy" school.
Tibetan Buddhism, however, seeks to be free from the happy-unhappy shackles (attachment-aversion), and the goal of meditation is not "happiness" or "experiences". The goal is to develop concentration and focus so you can start analyzing what your conceptions of reality and self. And to have the strengths of focus and concentration to rise above the instinctive reactions at the time of death (death is viewed as one of the optimal times to achieve enlightenment, if you are prepared).
I think, as others have mentioned, the key is to not let yourself get attached to the noise. And when you find it's simply too distracting and you can't help but get attached to it, try not to get angry with yourself, or the cause of the noise. I know from experience, this is far easier said than done!
What I personally find helpful is before I even start the meditation, I accept that there will be noise.
If I start to get distracted by a noise during the meditation, there are a few approaches I might take. If (for example) someone starts talking loudly on the phone, or turns on a tv in another room, I try to remind myself that they're not doing it just to be annoying and interupt my meditation
Another thing I often do when distracted by a sound, is without trying to label or attach any emotion to it, I allow it to be there while noticing the gaps between each fragment of sound, and realise that no matter how much noise there is, there are always more gaps (or more silence). I'm not sure if I've explained that very well though.
I'd like to meditate outdoors sometime, and there are lots of nice places to meditate near where I live, but my problem is that I can't seem to relax enough. I've tried to meditate while sitting on the beach on a couple of occasions, with no one else around at all, but as soon as I close my eyes I start to become paranoid that someone might suddenly be there and I won't see them. I don't know what I'm afraid of even if someone did walk past. Anyway, I wondered if anything like this has ever bothered you while meditating outside? Or do you have any suggestions of how to get around it? Thanks.
Voices can be really distracting to a peaceful meditation than other sounds because voices carry meanings and without knowing the mind grasps them. If possible it is best to avoid it.
In my case, I can't find a time away from voices or TV outside my meditation area, unless I meditate late at night, when everyone is sleeping, so that's become my time for practice.
Yes. In a way, I think I'm lucky at the moment. I don't think voices distract me much more than other sounds because any voices I can hear in the house are not of my native language, and although I understand French somewhat, it doesn't really come automatically to me yet. I have to concentrate to understand. So of course, this makes it far easier to not get dragged into their meaning. Although I hope not, perhaps I'll start to find it more difficult to meditate the more I understand of the language. It may sound strange, but this had never actually occured to me before.
So a tip... If you happen to live near any foreigners, ask if you can meditate at their house!
Then it sounds like a noisy environment is ideal for your meditation sessions.
But since the options were "meditate in the noise, or not meditate at all, I obviously want to choose the former.
I thought about ear-plugs, as my husband uses. They are effective but they create a very artificial world of silence, I personally don't feel it's best for my meditation. When I put them in, it's just "not right" for meditation, I'm not even sure I can describe it.
So then I decided to just work with the noise. So there's noise, no big deal. This is life. I have to learn to deal with life and I may as well learn the hard way.
I'm now working through learning to simply not become attached to these noises. It isn't easy, and it's a bit like someone who can't swim being thrown into the deep end (everything I've studied suggested silence for beginners and to only move on to dealing with noises at a later time), but the fact is: some people learn by being thrown into deep waters.
So I just have to be one of them
My mind is never silent anyway. I have an anxiety disorder, which means constantly my mind is trying to attach itself to various things or ideas. Throw in a few more noises, there's really not much difference from what I have to do on a regular basis (allow the thoughts and noises to simply pass without attachment).
I started to realize that the goal of my meditation should not be "silencing" my mind at any point anyway, but rather not forming attachments to the things that come to pass. In some ways, the noise is a good aid for me.
I agree that silencing the mind is not what we should be focusing on, and I have done my best in certain situations to meditate in spite of a noisy environment, but I just can't get past it for some reason and my meditation session suffers greatly for it.
I can take traffic outside, I can take dogs barking every now and then and car alarms going off every now and then, but it's loud on and off noises that I can't handle. The ones that go off and take my attention away, then go quiet for a while then on again and repeat. There's a drummer guy nearby who sometimes chooses to practice RIGHT when I set out to meditate, and that's one noise I can't get past too.
Talking by my family outside and their TV watching, is enough to get me off the meditating "mood" in a flash.
I COULD try to meditate in spite of their talking, but I've come to realize, those sessions aren't the best for me.
this is not concentration (samatha) meditation but can say (vipassana) insight meditation which actually helps open the mind to wisdom
THe rougher conditions you train yourself within the better you will be period...! It is the reaction that you have control over, not the noises or the source of the noises. You are in control....
Try noticing the way the sounds come and go. don't put words to the sounds in your head.
Just let the sounds come and go. Notice them, let them end and settle on their own time. They always will.
Don't let it become the focus of the meditation...but don't force them out of your head, either if it's inevitable.
The monks always say that they are the best teachers.
They allow you to observe your own reaction to them, in a very clear and obvious way, how you torture yourself.
annoying until you learn to let go.
Good idea
Using the sounds as a subject of your meditation, particually at the start, works for me (usually).