Sound Meditation: Definition, Benefits, & Instruments

Occasionally a train would go by, and the sound would continue on for what seemed like forever. Practices such as these can be very easy ways to create more calm. They help reduce our mental chatter, which is the origin of most of our stress. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into what sound meditation is, its benefits, and where sound meditation may lead you.

In meditation, we are generally guided to choose an object to focus our attention on. You may have heard of focusing on your breath, noticing the details of a grounding object like a stone, or paying attention to the sensations in your body. In sound meditation, we focus our attention on sound (or sound vibrations). We can do this with a formal meditation practice (i.e., by sitting on the floor on a mat), we can do it during our daily life, or both. For example, we may do a deliberate sound meditation for 5 minutes each afternoon and also pause to listen for a moment when we hear a specific sound. 

Sound Meditation Triggers
​Using specific sounds as “sound meditation triggers” can be helpful in reminding us to do sound meditation each day. For example, sound meditation triggers like rain, a train, wind, or wind chimes can be great reminders to us to pause for a moment and listen. All you have to do is choose a sound, and when you hear it, just pause for a few seconds to pay attention to the sound (one in-breath and out-breath is enough).

Sound meditation can have many benefits. For example, one study showed that after undergoing sound meditation, participants reported significantly less tension, anger, fatigue, and depressed mood (Goldsby et al., 2017). Another study showed that sound meditation resulted in greater relaxation and less acute stress (Philips et al., 2019). Overall, sound vibrations appear to be a powerful tool for reducing emotional distress (Ramnanan, 2021). The benefits we experience will often depend on how long and often we practice. 

​Sound Meditation Can Be Done Anywhere
The best well-being practice is the one you’re actually willing to do. That’s why people often benefit more from easy or accessible practices, even if other practices are more effective when used. Sound meditation might just be the easiest meditation practice because there are sounds everywhere. You can pause at any moment to listen and pay attention to the sounds around you. If your mind stops even momentarily, then you’ve just done a short meditation. Personally, I found this to be an easy and accessible way to build meditation into my life.

There are a bunch of different ways to start a sound meditation practice. The key to success is to choose sounds that resonate with you. 

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Sound Meditation Bowl
Sound meditation bowls provide a soothing humming sound when struck or the rim is rubbed with the accompanying mallet. If you choose this tool for your sound meditation, be sure to choose a singing bowl that you can play or devote the time needed to learn how to play the bowl. Crystal sound meditation bowls and Tibetan sound meditation bowls have different sounds and can both be good objects to focus on in your sound meditation. 

Bell Sound Meditation​
As I already mentioned, my first introduction to sound meditation was from a Nepal Cymbal (Tingsha) bell. I think this is a really good beginner’s tool for sound meditation because it only takes a few seconds to listen to the sound of the bell ring and fade into the distance. You can ring it just a few times a day—that’s a pretty easy meditation practice!

Really, you can use any instrument for sound meditation, and a variety of instruments are used across different cultures. For example, some more common sound meditation instruments include the gong, didgeridoo, chimes, and hand pan. The sistrum rattle was used in ancient Egypt (Wikipedia, n.d.), and drums are commonly used across many cultures. If you pay attention to how you feel when you hear an instrument, you can likely identify the sound-healing instrument(s) that are the best fit for you.

In addition to instruments and nature, a sound meditation practice can be created from your favorite types of music. The key when using music for sound meditation is to focus on it intently—so much so that your thoughts subside. This can be done by attempting to hear each instrument, feel the music vibrating your ears or body, and feel the bodily sensations that sounds produce for you (goose tingles anyone?!)

Sound Meditation Songs​
In addition to listening to your favorite songs, you might also listen to “sound meditation music”—or music that was created for the purpose of sound meditation as a part of your practice. Because these songs are created with the goal of helping us increase awareness through sound, they may help increase your attention to sound. When listening to this sound meditation music, be sure to pay attention to how your body and mind feel. If it feels good, then use it. If it feels bad or weird, then it’s not a good fit for you and that’s okay. 

Here are a few of my favorite sound meditation songs: 

Although most people don’t practice sound meditation long enough to begin to hear the “inner sound”, this is ultimately where sound meditation is leading us. And, according to spiritual traditions, hearing these inner sounds is a gateway to enlightenment (Yogananda, n.d.).

Om Sound Meditation (Aum Sound Meditation)​
According to Paramahansa Yogananda (n.d.), the sound “Aum” (or Om) is the mother of all sounds. By meditating on Aum and inwardly following the sound of Aum, we discover numerous inner sound frequencies that make up the inner sound, Aum. These sounds may be heard like the humming of a bee, a flute, a harp, a bell, a distant sea, and a cosmic symphony of all vibratory sound (in the next section I’ll describe how I hear them).

As one begins to hear these sounds, the goal then becomes to hear the constant vibratory sound in all things. To achieve this goal, we begin to slowly shift our attention away from the external sounds used in our sound meditation practice to focus on these internal sounds.

Unstruck Sound Meditation (Anahata Nada)
The sound Aum is also sometimes referred to as Anahata Nada (or the unstruck sound). All sounds in the material world involve one object striking another. Aum (or Anahata Nada) is unstruck because it exists without the interaction of two material objects. 

To put it another way, physicists have shown that everything in our world is made of vibrations. Aum (or Anahata Nada) is the combined sound of all those vibrations—it is the sound of all that is (Yogananda, n.d.). It’s kinda like the “white noise” of our reality. 
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The discovery of Aum (or Anahata Nada) can be quite a shock—the universe was humming along our entire lives and we simply failed to notice it! Indeed, the concentration and listening skills we develop through sound meditation reveal hidden sound secrets of the universe. 

Here is an audio of an Anahata Nada sound meditation.

In this article, I started with my recollection of a short sound meditation with a tingsha bell. Personally, I went on to do sound meditations with other instruments, music, and nature. Although I previously had struggles with other types of meditation in the past, sound meditation was the perfect fit for me and I quickly became an avid user of it. 
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Below is a description of what happened to me over the course of about one year of consistent (almost daily) sound meditation. I do not know if this is a normal timeline. More probably, the timeline will vary from person to person.

Example of Discovering Aum (Anahata Nada) Using Sound Meditation

1. First, I listened to the rising and falling of physical sounds, like a bell ring, the wind, or a train moving past.
2. Two-ish months later, I noticed my first inner sound—a pleasant bell-like ringing while lying in bed at night. I asked my husband if he heard it and he said no. I might have thought I was going crazy except that the sound was oddly comforting. 
3. Shortly after, I realized I could hear two sounds (a medium tone and a high-pitched bell ringing). 
4. Then I started hearing a rumbling sound that felt to be coming from lower down in my body. And then I heard a static sound (kind of like TV static) coming from the top of my head. 
5. These 4 sounds—the bell, the tone, the rumbling, and the static—became ever-present. I could hear them any time I paid attention to hearing them. 
6. Then I started hearing the 4 sounds loudly and all day long. They were loudest at night, but anytime I shifted my attention inward, there they were.
7. Occasionally, I heard other inner sounds. My favorite is the inner sound of waves crashing (this is just as Yoganada describes it). My least favorite is a buzz like an electric doorbell. The most subtle vibration I notice is the vibration that occurs right before my ego starts an inner monolog. And the most crazy sound I hear is the sound that makes dreams—beeping-like sounds that I hear occasionally right as I’m starting to dream. It jars me awake, so I can never listen to it for more than a second or so. Indeed, the entire world is made of sound vibrations, and if we are just quiet enough, still enough, and attentive enough, we can hear the entire world.
8. As I increasingly focused on these inner sounds, they became just as loud as any external sound. I was no longer able to hear silence at all because any time I looked for silence, I only found sound (I do miss the sound of silence). This was interesting, but also occasionally annoying.
9. As I continued to listen to the sounds (in meditation and in daily life), the more vibrational they became. You know like when you feel the base of a loudspeaker vibrating your whole body? It’s very much like that. My whole body vibrated along with the inner sounds.
10. I have no idea where this is heading, but I just keep listening and I’m sure I’ll find out one day.

Sound meditation is, in essence, just active listening. Instead of actively listening to other people, we’re actively listening to the world. We put our full attention on the sounds we hear and aim to maintain complete presence so that we can fully absorb them. In doing so, we may experience greater relaxation, a feeling of being more connected, and a reduction in psychological stress. 
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Further along the path, we may discover the delightful landscape of inner sounds, which at the least, are fun to explore, and at most, may deliver self-realization and enlightenment (Buddhaghosa, 2020). I hope this brief overview of sound meditation helps you pursue your own sound meditation journey with greater understanding, resources, and insights.

• Buddhaghosa, B. (2020). The path of purification: Visuddhimagga. Pariyatti.
  
• Goldsby, T. L., Goldsby, M. E., McWalters, M., & Mills, P. J. (2017). Effects of singing bowl sound meditation on mood, tension, and well-being: an observational study. Journal of evidence-based complementary & alternative medicine, 22(3), 401-406.
  
• Philips, K. H., Brintz, C. E., Moss, K., & Gaylord, S. A. (2019). Didgeridoo sound meditation for stress reduction and mood enhancement in undergraduates: a randomized controlled trial. Global advances in health and medicine, 8, 2164956119879367.
  
• Ramnanan, S. A. (2021). The power of a sound mind: Exploring meditation and sound therapies for treating the emotional impact of tinnitus.
  
• Wikipedia. (n.d.). Sistrum. Retrieved 7/2/2024 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistrum
  
• Yogananda, Paramahansa. (n.d.) Aum Technique. Retrieved 7/1/24 from https://yogananda.com.au/g/g_aum.html