Hearing or Listening Meditation.

A leap of faith,is all it boils down to. As you walk up close to the abyss and looking ahead at what lies ahead as emptiness of just space, you make your choice to step beyond or cling on to who or what you think you truly are. I is not relevant of what you have accumulated your entire life, what thoughts and ideas, what belief and systems you have learned, it is time to let your heart speak for itself, jump! Embrace your fate, your destiny your whatever and have your one pointed faith in it albeit God or Buddha, in a belief system or an ideology. in a You Tube Guru or a Michio Kaku. They all will have an explanation from each their own perspective and intelligence, their insights and wisdom, but you have to dance with the demon within, you have to come to your own conclusion as to where you stand at in the matter of faith before you can let go.

Fear will always be the key. We do all that we do in order to avoid fear, to avoid paranoia, delusions and most of all our own ignorance; we stand forever on thin ice when it comes the matters of the soul. Our conditioned mind is not going to give in into our effort to silence it without an all out struggle and thus it is by skilful means that we can try to coax our dual thinking mind into acceptance and become the tool for liberation than an obstruction of  this effort. Unveiling all the truths that is hidden from our perceptions is the key towards mental dissolution, meditation is the most effective practice to achieve this. I will never tire of saying this, no matter what you may know or have learned it is in the practice of sitting meditation that you will find your answers slowly but surely; learn to quiet the mind.

I always marvel at my elder sister who is never seen without her 'tasbeh' or prayer beads, and i often wondered what verse or if it is simply Allah! Allah!, the she is chanting in her heart. I am sure more than a few billion of the faithful all around the world are doing the same in their own ways as their faith and religions dictates, the Tibetans chanting Om Mun Padme Hum and the hindu chanting silently Ram Ram, and the Buddhist Namo Amida Buddha or Nam Myoho renge kyo and so forth, whatever the prayer are for they are a very strong form of meditation that lessen the mental intrusions of the mind. It is a form of hypnotic endeavor, but still is effective in bringing the mind to a focussed state instead of allowing for too much mental activities. Where breathing exercises fails to bring the mind into silence, chanting with prayer beads helps, However i feel that learning to develop a strong feel of one's breath and the proper movement of one's inner energies is the best 'soulution'.; it is the most natural healing process for the human mind. 

When chanting it is best to know and understand what is being chanted, know the meaning of every word and what it stands for or you are merely doing something mechanically and would defeat the purpose. I used to enjoy chanting with my  fellow students at Green Gulch Farm, especially the Mak Hanya Harimita Shingyo or better know as the Wisdom beyond Wisdom Heart Sutra. I enjoyed the sound of it as I chanted in Sino Japanese and more so when I chanted it in English where I realized the meaning of what i was saying, and it made a whole lot of sense. The Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra is the sutra that is adopted by the Soto Zen School of Buddhism and it is at the Heart of Zazen Practice or sitting meditation. The chantng does not only bring the mind to a collected center of focus but also helps to practitioner to feel the vibes and energy flow while doing so, it is like feeling the motion of sound waves and the silence in between. When the chant came to an end i always felt a sense of lightness of being; empty. Even for a moment of split second, this feeling felt is still felt today when my mind dwells on healing myself inside out.

One day a group of tibetan monks came to visit Green Gulch and performed a chanting sounds form the throat that they were famous for. I stood just outside the door to the Zendo and listened with all my heart as the sounds permeated my mind and body like flows of water. My body and mind was frozen in time and space and i felt like I was floating in a lake aimlessly with my head turned up to the skies until no more sound penetrated my being, just silence.

Tibetan Buddhist chanting is a subgenre of throat singing, mainly practiced bymonks of Tibet, including Qinghai (Khokhonor) province Tibetan plateau area,Tibetan monks of Nepal, Bhutan, India and various locations in the Himalayan region. Most often the chants hold to the lower pitches possible in throat singing.

Overtone singing - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone_singing

  
Today listening to various sounds and music on YouTube can help one find this moment, your choice of verses and your ability to stay focussed, is who you are; be in this state of presence, in the here and now; the perfume of this presence is, Peace and Tranquility. A wholesomeness of Being without attachment or clinging.