Turn the Hearing Inward to Hear Your Own Nature
Turn the hearing that chased outer sounds back to hear your own nature; that nature becomes the highest path.
Always listening to outer sounds — have I ever once heard the voice within?
📝Reflection
The heart of this practice is reversing direction. Our ears are always open outward. Praise and blame, rumor and reputation, the world's endless sounds — chasing them, the ear never rests. The teacher says: turn that hearing around. Do not hear the sound; hear "the very faculty that is hearing." At first I could not grasp it. But meditating, I suddenly understood. When attention, dragged about by outer sound, is gathered inward, a strange stillness comes. Whatever the rumors clamor, the I that hears them stands apart. That place is unshaken by praise or blame. The world is always loud; I cannot block every sound. But to turn the direction of hearing inward — that I can do. From the noise without to the stillness within.
🌱Apply It Today
When others' judgments or rumors drag your mind today, close your eyes a moment and gather attention back to "the I that hears them." You cannot block the noise, but you decide the direction of hearing.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
