Got a Minute   

In our house we have a cat that is greatly affected by my singing. She rushes up, great green eyes peering at me when I sing or chant. Some sounds appear to please and she settles down close to my throat, other sounds have her pawing at my face in concern.

Now quite some time ago I attended a harmonics workshop. This wonderful experience taught me how to vary vowel sounds and as the fundamental note is issued from my throat, strange flute like noises resonate from my nasal and face bones. I used to sit in the bath and chant, it drove the cat crazy, but what it did, apart from clear my sinuses, is showed me how every note was actually made up of several other notes. Just as sunlight is made up of the coluor spectrum, so too is each sound  made up of a spectrum of other sounds which is of course the sound beyond the sound. This is why a note played on a trumpet for example is different from that same note played on a flute. Each instrament amplifies a different set of harmonics and gives a characteristic quality of sound which is called timber.

The Mongolians and Tibetans use this overtone chanting to quieten the continual mind talk or "namtok" an to merge there conciuosness with all that is around them.There can be no "me in here" versus "all that out there" if you are producing a sound from your very being and hearing it both internaly and externally. So using self produced sound is a very simple meditation that anyone can use. Even people who have hearing disabilities.

When you chant a sound,one pure clear note, listen to it very carefully all the way through from the first pre-sound silence to the emergence of that sound, the waning and finally the absence of any sound,youdo several things:

Firstly:      You regulate your breathing which creates a calm and peaceful state.

Secondly: You cease all internal dialouge

Thirdly:     You hear, in that one sustained note the harmony of all the notes that  make up  that one note.

Fourthly:   You are absolutely in the present moment.

Fifthly:You are one with all that is, for in this moment of chanting there can exist no division between "in here" and "out there". 

Now thats not bad for one simple, no cost, no equipment exercise and all it took was a minute

Carys