One Friday a month
This program is drop-in and offered “freely” with a suggested donation of $25, or a $10 – $40 sliding scale. A basket is set out for cash or checks, or use the BDC’s Venmo.
All funds will be split between the Dharma Center and the guest artist(s). Everyone welcome regardless of ability to contribute.
Due to the constraints of our space, we usually cannot accommodate lying down during these sound meditations. Cushioned chairs and meditation mats and zafus are provided.
Please help us keep a fragrance-free meditation environment. Thank you!
About SoundGate
The Buddha instructed his students to bring awareness and sensory clarity to each of the six sense “gates” of experience. Just as we can anchor in breathing, we can anchor in body sensations, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling or mindfully track the activity of the thinking mind.
These SoundGate Meditations offer a sound-scape of sensory experience to be your object of meditation, allowing you to linger in the experience of hearing (and take a break from other sense gates perhaps). A variety of sounds will be offered, bells and bowls, chanting, music, recordings of the natural world and soundscapes of our common humanity. While most are designed to be pleasant and carry beneficial intention, some will be neutral or varied in content.
You may simply relax and bathe in harmonious sound, or more intentionally bring elements of Insight practice to your meditation. See below for further ideas and instruction.
Check our listings below to see what will be offered when, or simply drop in with curiosity and explore.
September 6th: TBA
Stay tuned for details on our next SoundGate.
More on using sound as an object for Insight Meditation:
Sounds are a wonderful object to practice the key elements of a meditation practice. We can be aware of how they arise, change, flow and pass; aware of whether they are pleasant, neutral or unpleasant; and watch whether the mind creates commentary or judgements about them. In this way, we hone the skills of practice which can be brought to any and all sense gates in turn.
Ultimately we begin to notice that sounds, like all passing experience, have the “Three Characteristics” of all phenomena: they are Impermanent, Impersonal and Incapable of providing lasting satisfaction. This leads to the development of Insight and a wise relationship to our experience.
We often take our thoughts and internal sensations personally – they seem to be by us, or about us, and the mind often reacts with wondering what to do about them. Sounds are far less likely to be taken personally, though we may have a judgement that “this shouldn’t be happening” or strategize how to fix some of them. Many people find it relatively easy to cultivate a dispassionate equanimity with sound, which can then carry over to the other senses. Thoughts, for example can be experienced as simply internal sounds. These SoundGate meditations, while (mostly) lovely and soothing, can also be used to develop your range of meditation experience.
