Meditating with Noisy Neighbors
How can we work with aversion and judgment when loud conversations disturb our meditation?
Note: The following exchange uses practices and terminology from The Playful Path to Awakening (TPP) and The Mind Illuminated (TMI). No prior familiarity with either is needed to follow the practical advice on working with noise, judgment, and aversion during meditation.
A Meditator’s Question:
I regularly meditate in an old apartment building, where I often hear the neighbors speaking loudly or yelling at one another. All the windows are closed, yet I can clearly hear their voices through the walls. I notice that I dislike this and judge my neighbors for making so much noise. I recognize this as aversion and would like to outgrow it.
How can I become non-judgmental in such challenging circumstances?
Oded’s Answer:
Your awareness of the aversion that tends to arise toward loud people is quite the bonus here.
Cultivating and strengthening Equanimity begins with acknowledging and allowing judgment to be part of the meditation. Like any other phenomenon - let it come, let it be, and let it go. We can't force ourselves into a non-judgmental state. All we can do is become familiar with judgment, see the sense of ownership over it as the illusion that it is, and not identify with it. It's not that "I'm judgmental"; it's judgment that makes an appearance.
Practically speaking, I first suggest setting this way of cultivating Equanimity as a Reasonable Goal for the meditation session, as part of TPP’s Mountain Route (its second Meditative Game, corresponding to the Six-Point Preparation for Meditation outlined in TMI).
Secondly, I suggest including "loud conversations" in your list of Reviewed Distractions. This way, you expect, and even anticipate, a visit from these powerful distractions, and work with them as you would the kind of challenging material encountered during Purification of Mind: Acknowledge, Allow, and Accept. In fact, it IS Purification of Mind, with the key difference that it's triggered by the present moment rather than the welling up of past memories.
As they say in the world of tech - "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" These challenging sessions with your noisy neighbors could prove even more beneficial than some of the peaceful, pleasant sessions you have when they keep quiet.
With Metta,
Oded
