Eavesdropping on Your Mind

The purpose of meditation is, of course, to enhance awareness of things as they are.  It helps us to experience thought as thinking, and sensory experiences as real.  However, one of the biggest problems you're going to have when attempting to maintain this state of awareness in meditation is the tendency to get caught up in your thoughts.  Soon, they go from something you're observing to something you're "living in", and that realness of them can be extremely compelling, especially when you're trying to develop a mental discipline.

Well, one trick I have come up with is "eavesdropping".  In traditional eavesdropping, you can imagine a child with his ear to a door, struggling to hear what his parents are discussing in private.  Well, when using an eavesdropping technique in meditation, you're basically doing just that.  You are there, listening to what your mind, and the environment are "saying" in a detached manner.  For example, when thoughts enter your mind as you meditate, imagine that they are like voices in the next room, and listen to them as such.  When you eavesdrop, you do not try to control what is being said, you just passively take what comes.  You certainly don't involve yourself in the conversation, you just collect information.  You can do the same with sounds in the room, allowing them to enter your awareness without trying to involve yourself with them (like trying not to hear them, for example).

In chapter 5, I talk about meditation as a natural extension of listening, which is the most fundamental spiritual practice.  Eavesdropping, while not especially respectful of privacy, is a perfect expression of listening, with intention, to whatever is there to be heard.  There's no attempt at control, nor is there the urge to participate.  You just let whatever is there be, making no effort but to listen, so that you may be more aware of its presence.

Jim