Shamatha, or Calm Abiding

by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

As we outlined briefly in an earlier talk, there are two streams of meditation practice within Buddhism. Their Sanskrit names are shamatha and vipashyana. Shamatha means "to calm the mind," whereas vipashyana means "to look into the mind." Shamatha is usually translated into English as "calm abiding" and vipashyana as "insight." It means seeing clearly. There is a traditional example used to illustrate the differences between these two approaches to meditation. Imagine a lake surrounded by hills and snow-capped mountains. It is a clear mountain lake which reflects the surrounding mountains so accurately that it can be difficult to tell which image is the mountains and which just the reflection of the mountains on the lake's surface. But when this lake becomes agitated by the elements, various things happen. First of all, the surface of the lake breaks up so that it no longer reflects the mountains accurately. The image is still there, but it is distorted. In addition, because there are many waves and the surface is choppy, it is difficult for us to see into the lake to any depth. Not only is the surface of the water choppy, but the mud at the bottom of the lake is also stirred up. This pollutes the water, making it muddy and opaque. This state is very much like our ordinary everyday mind, which is continually being agitated by the winds of the six senses.

The six senses are sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and consciousness. In Buddhism, consciousness is regarded as the sixth sense. Our minds are constantly churned up by our thoughts and our emotions, by what we see, hear, taste, and touch. Because of this, they do not accurately reflect what is happening outside. In other words, when something happens outside, we immediately interpret it in accordance with our biases and prejudices. We do not see things as they really are, but rather as we interpret them. This happens so automatically that we are not conscious of what is going on. If you talk to a number of people who have experienced the same event, each one will describe it differently.

The individual nature of our experience is caused by our pre-existing views and prejudices. We distort whatever information we receive by means of our sense organs, just as the surface of the lake is distorted by the elements. If we try to look into our mind when it is so agitated, we won't see much. All we see is the surface chatter. However, if you were to take this mountain lake and allow the winds to calm down, the surface of the lake would eventually become still, like the surface of a mirror. It would then reflect its surroundings accurately. When we look into a clear and peaceful mountain lake, we can see right down to the depths. We can see the fish, the water plants and the rocks at the bottom. We can see all those shining pebbles on the lake floor. These lakes are so clear, they look as though they are only a few inches deep, but if you throw in a pebble, it goes way down. Likewise, when our minds are no longer disturbed by the winds of the six senses, the mind calms down and becomes clear.

When the mind is silent, we receive accurate information from the six senses. We see things as they really are, without distortion. In other words, the way they are before we jump in with all our judgements, biases, and mental chatter. We see things clearly and nakedly. By the same token, when we look below the surface, into the mind itself, we can see to very profound levels. The difference between shamatha and vipashyana hinges on this point. When the waters of the lake are calm, the mud sinks to the bottom, but it is still there. The weeds are still there. Any agitation will stir it up to the surface and the water will get dirty again. Likewise, when we practice only calm abiding meditation and go into deep levels of mental absorption, the mind becomes extremely clear. It becomes highly concentrated or one-pointed and very powerful. But the basic mental defilements are still there, although they have become quiescent. They remain dormant, like mud at the bottom of the lake.

After practising shamatha and reaching deep levels of absorption, we will appear radiant from the outside. But we haven't addressed those underlying negative emotions yet. In fact, because the mind is now so much more focused and powerful, when those negative emotions are stirred up they will rise to the surface in a much more virulent form. If we read early Indian epics such as the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, we will come across stories of rishis, or hermits, who have been meditating for centuries, sometimes for thousands of years. Their minds have become extremely controlled and powerful. They can remain in very deep states of meditation for centuries at a time. However, if somebody interrupts their meditation and rouses them from this state, their immediate reaction is anger, even fury. Because their minds are so powerful, they may even emit fire from their third eye to ignite the offending intruder. There are stories which tell of occasions when the gods felt threatened by these rishis who were developing such incredible mental power that they feared being overthrown by them. In order to defuse the power of a rishi, the gods sent along some exquisitely beautiful celestial nymph to tempt him. The rishi would open his eyes, see the irresistible nymph, and jump on her. Within a very short time, all his accumulated power would be consumed. It was like removing the lid from a pressure cooker.

The message for us is that even if we spend centuries in deep samadhi, unless we apply wisdom, we might end up worse than when we started. The Buddha realised this early on. After he left his palace, he went looking for a teacher. He found one. Then, when he had learned all he could, he left this teacher and moved on to another. Each of these teachers taught very advanced forms of samadhi or mental absorption, known as the "formless realms." During these meditations the mind passes through infinite levels of consciousness until it breaks through to a state of neither perception nor non perception, finally reaching a level at which there is nothing whatsoever. Both his teachers taught that this state was liberation. The Buddha practised these methods and quickly attained these levels. But he realised this was not really liberation. We have to come back down. This state is a very high, subtle level of the mind which will result in rebirth in extremely high levels of consciousness, but it nevertheless falls short of liberation.

After abandoning these practices and these teachers, the Buddha adopted asceticism for a number of years. But that also failed. Then he asked himself, "Where is this liberation? In what does liberation lie?" He remembered as a child watching his father, the king, ritually ploughing a field during the spring festival. He had been sitting under a crab apple tree and had quietly entered the first level of absorption. From this state, he had turned his attention onto the mind itself. As he sat under the bodhi tree years later, he realised that was the way to liberation. He had rediscovered an ancient path which had been hidden from view, and he had come back to uncover it again. This was the path of vipashyana, the path of insight, which I will talk about later on. The important thing to understand is that shamatha is the preparation and support for developing vipashyana.

What is shamatha? A high Lama once remarked to me that if we have a strong shamatha practice, the whole of the Dharma is in the palm of our hands. If we do not develop shamatha, no practice will ever be really effective. This makes sense. Anything we do with a distracted mind will lack power; it simply won't work. When we are studying anything, we have to apply our minds. If we are writing a letter, working on a computer, or whatever, we have to give our minds totally to what we are doing. At a basic level, this is what shamatha is all about: doing whatever we do with the whole of the mind — not with part of the mind thinking about something else, but totally. If we give our mind fully to whatever we are doing, it becomes effective very quickly. But if we give only half our minds to it, no matter how hard we work on it, we just generate inner conflict.

It's very important for us to motivate ourselves before we start to practice. Otherwise, when the initial flush of enthusiasm wears off, the mind starts to become bored and easily distracted. For this reason, when people start shamatha practice, they are advised to do very short sessions. We have to be skilful and work with our minds, not against them. There are two ways to approach this. One is to sit for one hour or maybe even three hours and just stay with it. Regardless of what arises, we don't get up and run out of the room screaming. We just sit there and go through it. The other way is to say to ourselves, "Let's be kind to our mind. Let's work with the mind." After all, we have to make the mind want to concentrate. If we are reading a book we find excruciatingly boring, it will be very difficult to remember what it's about. There will be this inner conflict — a desperation in the mind to do anything rather than read this material, and so it's very difficult for us. There is "me," and then there's this book which I'm forcing myself to read. But if we are reading something which really fascinates us, we are not even conscious that we are reading because it's a joy. We put the book down when necessary with great regret and can hardly wait to pick it up again. We can achieve something similar with our practice. Some people tell me that because they have very active minds which have been intellectually trained, it's boring for them to meditate. This is a problem many of us share.

The way to get the mind interested is, as I said, to keep the meditation periods very short when we first begin. The reason for this is that the mind can retain interest in almost anything for a short time. If we over-extend, however, it begins to get restless. It does this even if it is interested because it is not used to remaining focused on one point for an extended period. Then, when we try to meditate a gain, there will be inner resistance because the mind remembers it got bored last time. Whereas if we stop before we get bored, while we're still enjoying it, the mind remembers that it had fun before, and wants to do it again. Therefore it is often advised, at least in the Tibetan tradition, that our shamatha sessions be short but frequent. Short means whatever we feel comfortable with. Less than ten minutes would not be of much use. I think twenty minutes is about right. It takes about ten minutes just to get the mind to quiet down. If we stop the session as soon as the mind becomes quiet, it's too soon. However, if we keep on too long, the mind reaches its peak and attention starts to dissipate. If we stop it at that point, we've gone too long. It's really best to stop the meditation just as the mind reaches its peak and just before it begins to dip down. When you find the mind getting weary, you can stop for a few minutes, look around, then start again.

A one-pointed mind may be likened to a broad beam of light which is narrowed into sharp focus until it becomes like a laser beam. That laser beam, when it finally turns inward, can cut through many layers of the mind. If the light is diffused, it can only light up the surface without penetrating deep within. We are really trying to develop qualities which are already present and innate within our minds. We all have the ability to concentrate. We all have the aptitude for tranquillity. We all have some experience of how this can work. If we are doing something which really interests us, we do not have to make much effort to concentrate. Look at people watching a football match, or a good movie. They don't have to be told to concentrate. The key is to develop that faculty of mind which we all possess and to use it when we want to, in the direction we want. Meditation is about training the mind. When we embark on a course of physical training, our muscles ache and it's hard work. But if we persevere by doing a little bit every day, eventually our muscles start to grow strong. We find ourselves doing things which a short while ago we would not have believed possible. Nobody ever sat down and immediately started to meditate, not even the Buddha. Everybody encounters problems when they first sit. We all start out facing a wild, undisciplined mind.

Some people complain that their minds become disturbed when they meditate. There is so much mental chatter and so many memories and so forth. They think that this problem is unique to them. But in reality, everybody has this problem. Every single body and every single mind. Those who succeed are not necessarily spiritual geniuses, but they are the ones with patience and perseverance. These are the two main qualities required to make progress in meditation. Since the day we were born, and probably for many lifetimes before that, there have been very rare moments when we have tried to tame our minds. We are not generally encouraged to do so. 

Our minds have been saturated by information coming from the senses and by all manner of intellectual stimulation for so long. When we sit down and try to still the mind, relinquish all thoughts, and stay on one point, this is just not going to happen right away. It doesn't happen through just wishing. Very often beginners find that the mind is even noisier than usual. We tend to think it is worse than ever. This is because we are not normally conscious of all the chattering that goes on. So when we sit down and try to deal with it, we meet resistance. Everybody has the same problem. They have it now, they had it at the time of the Buddha, they had it five thousand years before that and ten thousand years before that. If we don't have one set of problems, we have another. That's why we need enormous patience. But if we are patient and just keep going, it eventually pays off.

How do we start? There are many methods for achieving this one-pointed mind. All of them work. The Buddha himself taught many different techniques, depending on the personality of the practitioner. It really doesn't matter; anything which enables your mind to become one-pointed and more concentrated is useful. I will go through two or three methods to give you an idea. The most commonly used traditional Buddhist practice, which can be found in all schools of Buddhism, be it Theravada, Zen, Tibetan, Chinese, or whatever, is the awareness of the in-going and out-going of the breath. We will talk about this because it is the method the Buddha himself used and through which he became enlightened. It is suited to all personalities, and we can carry it with us into every aspect of our daily lives. There are many variations of this practice. I will explain just one simple method. Many people teach that we should concentrate on the inhalation and exhalation of the breath. This conjures up a picture of standing back from the breath and looking at it. But actually, we need to become one with the breath, to become the breathing in and the breathing out, to not make this division between self and breath.

One of the problems we Westerners encounter in meditation is that on the one hand, we have the object of meditation, and on the other hand, we have ourselves trying to meditate upon it. Right from the start, we have this dichotomy. There is me, and there is the practice, and I am going to do the practice. It's like two mountains facing each other. And then people wonder why they don't make progress. We need to dissolve the boundary between the subject and the object. In other words, we have to become the meditation. Once we become the meditation, the results come immediately because the mind merges with its object. If we keep the mind separate from the practice, it's never going to come together, no matter how long we do it.

When we are doing a practice involving the breath, for example, we should drop all thoughts about the breath. We are the breath that we breathe in, we are the breath that we breathe out, and there's no separation. If we can do that, we will attain levels of peace, tranquillity, and one-pointedness very quickly. The importance of developing the one-pointed concentration is that the mind becomes very malleable. Some people claim that a mind that is one-pointed and concentrated becomes rigid. But this is a curious idea. Actually, when the mind is totally concentrated and absorbed in its subject, it becomes soft and fluid. If you want the mind to think this, it thinks this. If you want it to think that, it thinks that. It's just like a body. If a body is rigid, it can break. But if the body is supple, even if it has an accident, it is not hurt so easily. It can recover. Likewise, if our mind is supple and pliant, it will be able to cope with extreme traumas and difficulties. On the other hand, if the mind is stiff and rigid, it will snap.

We need to develop a mind which is tranquil, one-pointed and tamed. Then if we want to take that mind and apply it to this or that practice, it can adapt easily and the results will come quickly. We can say mantras for a million years, but if our mind is not one-pointed and fully absorbed in what we are practising, they will have no effect. On the other hand, if our mind is fully absorbed in our practice, even a few mantras will be effective. First, we have to learn how to make our minds workable. The Tibetans use the word le su rung wa which means exactly that, workable. The mind has to become workable so that it can accomplish whatever task we present to it with ease. This is what shamatha is for. It is not the goal in itself. The goal of Buddhist meditation is not just to be peaceful or happy, or even just to be concentrated. But if we have a peaceful, concentrated, supple mind, we can use it as an instrument to develop wisdom, compassion, and understanding. Practising shamatha is all about learning to use the mind. We all want to be peaceful, happy, compassionate, and kind, and we find ourselves agitated, stressed, irritable, and frustrated. We all have the potential to have a peaceful, happy, patient, and wise mind. But we have not exercised this potential. Shamatha works with the mind in this way. It makes the mind malleable so that we can use it to benefit ourselves and others. But it takes time.

If we really apply ourselves, it can be extremely helpful. If we hear a sound, it's just a sound, let it go. If thoughts arise, they are just thoughts, just waves on the ocean of the mind, let them go. Don't give them any energy. The important point with shamatha is not to be curious. Curiosity belongs to insight meditation. First, we are just concentrating on getting our minds quiet and one-pointed. If we become fascinated by the content of the mind, the mind will get distracted. So we don't do that. Nothing in all the world is more important at this moment than being one with the breathing. That's all we have to do.

Practising shamatha, even for short periods at a time, is beneficial. If the mind begins to get restless, we can open our eyes, look around and then come back to the meditation again. The mind gradually begins to understand, and we can train it progressively. It begins to remember that all it has to do during the meditation is be with the in-going and the out-going of the breath. We are intelligent beings, and the mind can learn. At the moment the mind is learning how to be distracted, how to think, how to intellectualise, how to rationalise. The mind has had a lot of training in the art of chatter. Now it has to be reprogrammed. This takes time and patience, but it can be done. When the mind begins to experience and appreciate peace and tranquillity, it starts to generate its own enthusiasm, provided we don't push it too hard.

One of the advantages of using the meditation on the incoming and outgoing breath is that we take the breath with us everywhere. We are always breathing. So even during the day, and especially when we are feeling stressed, we can bring our attention back to the inhalation and the exhalation of the breath. That's all. We don't have to think about it, we don't have to do anything with it. We don't have to judge whether it's nice breath or nasty breath. We just breathe ourselves out and breathe ourselves in. We can do this all day. We have countless opportunities during the day to bring ourselves back to the breath and get ourselves centred. We should be grateful for this.

Another way of generating one-pointedness is to give the mind lots of things to do, instead of trying to empty it. Tibetans are fond of this. Personally, for most Westerners, I think emptying out is a very good idea because our minds tend to accumulate so much junk as it is. It is nice to have a chance to let some of it go. We can think of our mind as a garbage heap and slowly start throwing out some of the garbage. This other method involves making our thinking extraordinarily complicated, but in a disciplined way. In Tibetan Buddhism, this entails doing extremely intricate visualisations of mandalas, deities, lights, mantras, and this sort of thing, which totally occupy the mind so that there is no room for distraction.

I remember being given a practice in which we had to visualize one hundred and twenty-four deities, all in consort relationship, all with six arms and three heads. None was synchronised with the others. They were each holding different things. The consorts were all different colours from their partners. And all of them had to be seen in an area which was between the top of the skull and the hairline. At the same time, they all had to be seen inside the heart of a small deity sitting at the centre of one's chest. All hundred and twenty-four at the same time. That's actually two hundred and forty-eight. By the time I went to see my teacher, I was cross-eyed. He told me to try to see them as clearly as possible. "If you can visualise them clearly," he told me, "your mind will become high and vast." He told other people to think about it just vaguely and roughly, but I wasn't lucky enough to get that instruction. I was told to see them very clearly. So I really tried. I remember throwing myself into this totally impossible task and really trying to see all these infinite mandalas within a space the size of a pin head. Of course, my mind became totally immersed in its impossible task. Trying to do this gave me a lot of energy. I wouldn't say my mind became vast and wide, but it did develop a kind of clarity. So this the other method. We either occupy the mind totally or empty it totally. For some people, one works better, for others, the reverse. Sometimes it's good to alternate between the two. Tibetans usually alternate. We'll go into this more when we deal with Vajrayana.

Right now we are dealing with more straightforward kinds of shamatha practice. Again, as they say, the important thing is to understand why we are doing this. Of course, we would all like to be more peaceful and happy, and that is not a bad motivation for learning to meditate. But it's not the ultimate motivation. The ultimate motivation is to become enlightened. Being enlightened means uncovering our infinite potential for wisdom, compassion, purity, and power in the sense of infinite energy. We actually possess all of this. We just have to uncover it and discover what lies within us. The way to do this is to meditate.

Why do we want to be wise and compassionate? If it's because we would simply like to be wise and compassionate, we are off course, because the "I" cannot attain wisdom and compassion. Wisdom and compassion can only be revealed once the "I" has disappeared. When we reach this level, we will be able to benefit others. In the meantime, it is the blind leading the blind. All true religions seek to gain access to that level of consciousness which is not ego-bound. In Buddhism, it is called the unconditioned, the unborn, the deathless. You can call it anything you like. You can call it atman. You can call it anatman. You can call it God. The fact is, there is a subtle level of consciousness which is the core of our being, and it is beyond our ordinary conditioned state of mind. We can all experience this. Some people experience it through service, others through devotion. Some even think they can experience it through analysis and intellectual discipline. Buddhists usually try to access it through meditation. That's what we are doing. Breaking through to the unconditioned in order to help others break through to the unconditioned. But we have to start where we are, from right here. We start with these minds, these bodies, these problems, these weaknesses, and these strengths.

We are each unique, yet our underlying qualities are strikingly similar. When people sit, they face two basic problems: either they become extremely distracted or they become sleepy and slothful. If our minds become too active, and this is a continual problem, we are usually advised to calm down. The methods for achieving this include sitting in a warm room, closing our eyes, eating heavier food, and by various means trying to bring the mind to a state of greater relaxation. The essence of meditation is to induce a mind which is totally relaxed and at the same time totally aware. If you get into a lovely, dreamy, peaceful state where you don't want to move and you feel you could just sit for hours, completely blissed out and peaceful, but in a vague fog, you have gone completely astray. It is very easy to do this. It feels very pleasant. Some people even think they are approaching samadhi, but actually, this is a state known as mental dullness.

If the mind is distracted, we have to learn to relax it. Just think of dropping everything and keep the eyes down. It is said that it also helps to eat a little. That grounds the mind because blood goes to the stomach, rather than up to the brain. On the other hand, if we have the problem of becoming sleepy, the answer is to be in a slightly cool place, keep the eyes open, and eat very lightly. Sometimes it is also helpful to stare into space. If the mind is distracted, one can visualise a black spot at the abdomen. Black dulls the mind. Also, bringing the mind down to the abdomen tends to make the mind more stable. If the mind is too sleepy, one can visualise a white light at the centre of the forehead. This raises the mind and lightens it. Somebody I knew who had a continual problem of sleepiness during meditation dealt with this by sitting on the edge of a well. He soon stopped feeling sleepy! Even Milarepa had this problem. He used to put a lighted butter lamp on his head. A friend of mine used to meditate with a bowl filled with water on top of her head. This straightens the posture and reduces the likelihood of keeling over.

The important thing is for the mind to be relaxed but alert. If you find that your mind is becoming more and more awake and more and more alert, it is like finding something inside you unfolding, waking up and becoming much more light and spacious. Then you know you are on the right track. After all, this is all about waking up. The word Buddha means "Awakened One." Anandamayi Ma, who was a very great Bengali Hindu saint, said it doesn't matter what meditation stage you get to, if you do not have clear awareness, it is the wrong state. The important thing is to maintain this awareness, consciousness, or knowing. This is enormously important in meditation.

We need to develop a balance. The Buddha said that if you take a stringed instrument and tighten the strings too much, you will produce a harsh sound and the strings might even break. On the other hand, if the strings are too loose, they don't make any sound at all. You have to tune your mind as you would tune an instrument. Not too tense, and not too slack, but just right. Balanced. It's like being on a surfboard. If you are too tense or too loose, you will fall off. You need to be poised. If you have that balance, then no matter how high the waves are, there is no problem. The mind is like that. We have to attain that level of balance.

It is also very important to have a regular time to meditate. I don't really have time to go into this now. I am not talking about shamatha from the point of view of your own practice, because you can always go to teachers to learn the methods. This is just a general overview. However, it is important for all practitioners to have a regular time and place to practice. We are creatures of habit. If we do the same thing every day, we get into the habit very quickly. We get up, we go to the bathroom, then we do our practice. We sit down, we light incense or whatever. Very soon, the mind begins to remember this is meditation time. It settles down quickly because it remembers what to do, whereas if we keep switching the time around, meditating a little bit here and a little bit there, then again and again we have to keep reminding the mind what this is all about and it takes longer to settle down, at least at the beginning. We should try to establish a rhythm. It's good to do even ten minutes at a regular time if you cannot manage more than that.

In the early morning just after you get up, if possible, sit for ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour, however much time you can give to it. It is good to start the day by centring yourself. Bring the mind into the room, into the body. First, connect with the body, then connect with the breathing in and the breathing out. It doesn't matter what your religion is or if you have no religion, this has nothing to do with that. It's dealing with how to come to terms with our mind. It's also a very good idea to sit for a while before we go to sleep at night, and if we have time, review the day. How aware were we during our day? How kind were we? What did we do that we think was nice? What did we do that we think was perhaps not so great? We are not judging, just having a look at it. What have we actually done with our day? Then we make the resolve to do better the next day, to become more aware, more conscious, more kind, more patient. And then we just sit for a while with our breath. Five minutes, ten minutes, just being with the breathing in and breathing out. Emptying our mind, letting it all drop away. Just being present.

We need to ask ourselves what we are doing with our lives. What we are doing with our days. What we are doing with the hour. What we are doing with this moment. Nobody is stopping us from meditating. Nobody is stopping us from becoming Buddha. We are stopping ourselves. We are dealing basically with mind practices because in the end, everything is our mind. Whether we are happy or sad, whether we are peaceful or agitated, it's nothing out there. It's in here. We cannot transform the world, but we can transform our attitude to the world. Once we have transformed ourselves, that will have ramifications for everything around us.

Once when I was in Switzerland, I spent time with some Catholic monks and nuns, Jesuits and others. They have a large institution in Zurich. The founder of this institution and also the people who are working with him, the nuns and monks, spent many years in Japan studying Zen Buddhism. Now they are in Zurich, where they have been for many years. They are very well known in Switzerland. Originally their area of influence was in human rights and helping drug addicts and street people. But now their main concern is teaching meditation to economists, politicians, bank managers, and a lot of top people working in the United Nations and so forth. Their belief is that these people should learn how to access their own wisdom mind and their own clarity and calm because they are the ones who control the economy and the world political situation and can therefore do tremendous good. I asked them how successful this program was, and they said it was successful beyond their wildest dreams. These monks and nuns are organising lots of courses and programs which are attended by hundreds of people. These people have great enthusiasm to learn how to practice meditation, even just to lower their stress levels, to develop more peaceful minds. This is not a selfish practise which helps only the individual. It has vast benefits. As long as we are entrapped within our own ignorance, greed, and anger, everything we touch is polluted. If we want to save the world, we have to save ourselves first.

Now I would like us all to sit quietly for about fifteen minutes. If your mind has strayed away, bring it back into this room. Then bring it into the body. If there are sensations in the body, just note them. Don't comment on whether you like them or dislike them. Just know that they are present. Know the body. When you have become settled in knowing the body, bring your attention to the in-going and out-going of the breath. Just be one with the breath as it flows in and flows out. Don't try to make the breath longer or shorter. This is not really concentrating, in the sense that we are not looking at the breath from a distance. We are just becoming one with the breath, knowing it as it comes in and as it goes out. When thoughts arise in the mind, don't be concerned. It is the nature of the mind to have thoughts. Don't give them any energy. Don't get caught up in them. Ignore them. If people try to attract our attention and we ignore them, eventually they will give up and go away. Thoughts may come and go, but we are not interested in them. We just bring the attention back again and again to breathing in and breathing out. We will do this for about fifteen minutes. When sounds occur, they are just sounds, just vibrations moving across space. No problem. Sounds are naturally there, and it is natural for the ear to hear them. Don't give them any energy. Go back to the breath.