Sonic Meditation: Practicing Happiness
For any number of participants who can speak and be heard by each other.
Listening Meditation
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As often or not often as you like, Listen internally and externally and say words and/or vocalize what you hear, feel, think, imagine, or see.
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At the same time, reiterate: sing and/or vocalize all of the other words and vocalizations you hear from others around you. A ‘cloud’ of words and sounds from the group will result.
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Stop when asked.
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Remember the words and sounds. How many were positive thoughts or feelings? How many were negative?
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Everyone breathes deeply, five times in a row.
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Again, listen internally and externally and say words and/or vocalize what you hear, feel, think, imagine, or see.
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This time, reiterate only the positive words and vocalizations. Do not reiterate neutral or negative: do not reiterate them.
Reasoning
For survival strategies, our parasympathetic nervous system looks for, registers, stores recalls, and reacts to unpleasant experiences. “it’s like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones” [p 68 Buddha’s Brain, Rick Hanson, and Richard Mendius]. Even when positive experiences outnumber the negative ones, it’s the negative ones that we remember and associate with most often. The collective emotions associated with memories implies our default emotional state.
By 1. turning positive Facts into positive Experiences 2. Savoring good experiences and 3. Imagining that we are absorbing the good experiences into our mind and body, we can eventually replace enough of the negative implicit associations of being alive with positive ones.
