An Introduction and Script for Bringing Listening Meditation into the Classroom

As educators, we often talk about strategies for engaging our students deeply in their learning. One way to do this is through listening meditation, a form of embodied learning that takes our attention away from our thoughts and towards our bodies and sensory experience in order to facilitate experiential curiosity and inquiry. As a longer-term practice, it has direct benefits including easing anxiety, improving communication, and as Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in Happy Teachers Change the World “it brings our mind back to our body” (XVIII).

Listening meditation is a form of mindfulness practice that draws our attention first to sound and then to our whole environment including our five senses. It often starts by noticing sounds in the immediate environment and transitions to global listening, where the attention is placed onto the experience of sound rather than one sound in particular.

Bringing mindfulness practice such as listening meditation into the classroom can guide students into a state of deep listening, where they might begin to notice more details of the sensory world around them. In turn, this can inform their creative practice by fostering curiosity and wonder, as well as giving them the opportunity for deeper insight into the relationality of all things (Wong, 271). In this sense, it is a form of self-reflection where students are encouraged to use their whole body as a way of knowing and learning, potentially gaining insight into their lives, well-being and learning through practice.

Note: If you have students who are deaf or hard of hearing, you can adapt the following exercise to use other senses (sight, smell, touch, etc.)

Listening mediation is a practice that can be brought into the classroom at the start of class, before critique, after a break, or at any point where a pause or transition might be needed. You don’t need any specialized qualifications or experience to bring it into the classroom.

• Start by creating an environment for students. It might be as simple as letting them know that they are going to do a quiet or silent exercise for 5 minutes of the class. For students that may not want to participate you can invite them to do something silently for the duration of the practice such as sketching or writing.

• Invite the students participating to settle in their chair and/or space. Guide them through a few deep breaths and ask them to start to notice their body and invite it to relax.

To help students enter a state of deep listening, you can follow the script below or adapt it as needed:

• Begin by asking them to start paying attention to the sounds in the room: that might be the sound of nature, the studio, people talking, or building sounds. That may also be listening to the thoughts that are arising in their heads.

• After a few moments, you might ask them to listen to more distant sounds like footsteps, doors closing, hallway chatter, tools.

• After a minute or two invite them to listen to sounds that are the furthest away that they can hear.

• At this point, they are listening to the whole of their environment, and it may take on an acoustic quality.

• As students listen, you can ask them to notice the way their other senses are taking in the environment, maybe feeling the skin's contact with the air or fabric, or potential smells. Allowing them to get curious about listening with their whole selves not just with their ears.

• Rest in this silence for a few moments.

• Direct them to start to draw their attention to their inner environment, thoughts, sensations, feelings—receptive to what is arising yet letting go of attempts to change the experience.

After the 3-7 minutes, invite students to write or draw something that they noticed from the listening. Perhaps invite a brief conversation about how to take this more relaxed open space into their creative process or critique.

1. How do you feel after that experience? (written or verbal)

1. How might this experience inform what we are doing next in class? (critique, discussion, creative practice).

Listening meditation provides the opportunity for students to get further in touch with the habits of their minds, offering them the opportunity for new perspectives on how they engage with themselves, their art practice, and those around them (Aicher and Owen, 228). If you would like to learn more about incorporating mindfulness or contemplative practices into your teaching reach out to the Teaching and Learning Centre at tlc@ecuad.ca

Nhất Hạnh, et al. Happy Teachers Change the World: A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education. Parallax Press, 2017.

Owen, Renee, and Danae Jones Aicher. “Using Neuroscience and Mindfulness to Form New Habits of Mind Around Race.” Contemplative Practices and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies for Higher Education, Routledge, New York, NY, 2022, pp. 217–230.

Wong, Yuk-Lin Renita. “‘Please Call Me by My True Names’: A Decolonizing Pedagogy of Mindfulness and Interbeing in Critical Social Work Education.” Sharing Breath: Embodied Learning and Decolonization, AU Press, Edmonton, Alberta, 2018, pp. 253–278.