In the Perfect Penetration Through Hearing practice, you simply listen without attachment to sound, to silence, or to the contrast between the two; there’s no attachment at all. If you are able to listen in this way, you will eventually reach a point when listening still occurs, but it no longer has an object. In other words, there is still awareness, but that which you are aware of is empty. The Shurangama Sutra says, “when both awareness and the objects of awareness become empty, then emptiness and awareness merge and reach a state of absolute perfection.”
Source: The Way of the Heart: Teachings of Dharma Master Hsin Tao
PS: Learning to hear silence in the midst of noise is – wow. This practice also teaches one to be breath. One follows their breath, but goes beyond, ceases thinking and becomes breath itself – empties into awareness of breathing. “There is no longer any difference between “being” and “nothingness.” And now you are nothing 🙂
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