Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at different ways in which mindfulness is practiced through listening to and silencing of sounds, and its attendant potential to impact understandings and imaginings of humans’ relationship with their lived environment.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at different ways in which mindfulness is practiced through listening to and silencing of sounds, and its attendant potential to impact understandings and imaginings of humans’ relationship with their lived environment. Silence on the part of the practitioner is presupposed as a condition for mindfulness. This is however, often accompanied by intentional silencing of other human noise, with high value placed on “nature” sounds, either by practicing in a non-built setting or through recordings. Parallel to this type of practice, and at the heart of mindfulness through listening, is the non-judgmental listening to all sounds – including human-produced sounds, which not only includes human noise, but may even foreground it.

Drawing on popular and academic literature on mindfulness, as well as accounts from interviews on the topic of birds and bird sounds, I consider these different ways of practicing mindfulness through sound and address inherent contradictions between them and the potential they each hold. I critically analyze the high value placed on “nature” sounds – both elemental and bird sounds – whether in-situ or as human-mediated recordings, as well as the role of the imagination. While silencing human-produced sounds offers an idealized or decontextualized setting for mindfulness practice, listening to all sounds offers a greater awareness of the relationships between human-created and non-human sounds. I discuss the varying ways these practices allow people to connect with and imagine their lived environment, and implications for our relationship with – and responsibility to – the world we live in.