Very interesting video by Rinpoche Mingyur.
But I feel there is something missing in his instruction.
This is not a criticism of his video considering the limited time available to him.
But it is worthwhile for us to discuss it further.
It sounds to me (sorry) like a technique for working with the hindrances by giving the mind something to do - similar to watching the breath or attending to the whole body. I imagine once one got the mind to settle down with this that they would give you some further guidance.
Sound meditation. There are two steps. How to listen. And sound meditation. Okay now first is how to listen.
[Bell]
Do you hear it? Now next is, when you begin to hear this sound, raise your hand. And when you cannot hear sound, then put your hand down.
[Bell]
Okay, good. That means you all can hear sound. If so raise your hand. Okay. Now finished, now you know how to listen. So you all pass. You all very smart you know. You all genius. Genius. Because when I teach and you got right away, you learned right away. What I am teaching is how to listen to sound and you all know how to listen because you hear the sound.
Okay now next is meditation. Sound meditation. The sound meditation is another secret. The sound meditation is – this are the big secret that is why I am a little bit nervous to tell you my secret. The sound meditation is – that was sound meditation. Finished now. You understand. Whatever you did right now, that was sound meditation. How to listen to sound is sound meditation. So I say that was, you raise your hand and you all say you hear the sound. This is it. That was sound meditation.
I tried it a little, the problem with using sound as an object is that there is no specific point to focus the mind; unlike visual object or touch where we can focus on a specific location.
On the other hand, this seems like a great idea for practicing recollection. Using a headphone and looping a track on buddhanussati, etc. we can easily practice recollection meditation.
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I think this is a good way of teaching people to meditate, yet not “push” or “force” too much… Rinpoche does this alot in his teachings. He feels many people try too hard to meditate because they are trying to make something happen and are uncontented and restless with their meditation.
This seems to me to be a wise decision by Mingyur Rinpoche
Maha metta