Hearing

Today is Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva celebration. Today is the day to remind ourselves to hear not only the external sounds but the sound within. Our hearing ability is far beyond what we can imagine but most of the time, we have selective hearing. We hear what we want to hear and react to what we don’t like to hear. We don’t know how much energy we have spent on the words that hurt us. This can carry on for years or until the minute we step into our own graves. It’s funny though for the person we spoke the words that hurt us might have forgotten. While these words are imprinted on a piece of iron in our minds. Do we have to torture ourselves like this? We know how to hear but do we know how to analyse what we have heard? If someone said you are stupid you get angry straight away. Do you agree that you are stupid? Is this true that you are stupid? If you are angry that means have accepted that you are stupid. If you are angry then the person who told you that you are stupid has succeeded his/her mission. This is our habit of dealing with things that we like to react. When we hear people say good things about us, we react with happy feelings inside us; when we hear people say bad things about us, we react with anger and resentment. We have collected so much rubbish in our subconscious mind (Sankara) through our six doors – eye – seeing; ear – hearing; nose – smelling; tongue – tasting; body – touching; mind – thinking. What to do with all this rubbish we have received into our subconscious mind? We need to understand what we received through these doors are things that temporary brings us pleasant or unpleasant sensations. These temporary sensations keep changing and have no self. ("No Self" means that the concept of "self" has no referent which has absolutely independent existence.) Because we are lacking of the understanding of these temporary changing sensations we suffer (because we are attached to them) We think they are real to us. It doesn’t matter if it’s a praise or scold from someone; we are attached to these words. Most of the time we just take in what others give us and we have no second thought about them. Do we have to take in people’s insults? No, we don’t. We have the right not to accept them. There is a story in Buddha’s time. Buddha was once insulted by an angry man. However, he did not lose his temper. The angry man got even more angry and asked why Buddha was not angry with his insults. Buddha asked the man if he ever bought gifts for his friends. The angry man replied that he certainly did. Buddha had asked if someone refused to accept his gift then who did that gift belong to. The man replied, in that case, gift would belong to him. On hearing man’s reply, Buddha calmly said, “In the same way, since I do not accept your insults, they remain with you.” 

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva practises on hearing the world sound of sufferings and yet we practise on hearing all these like and dislike of words from others. We react to things we receive through our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. We keep feeding ourselves with aversion and craving which do us more harm than good. We can get out from the habit of reacting by simply being aware.