Meditation 1: Listen for Where the Ringing Ends and the Silence Begins

 

Listen for where the ringing ends and the silence begins.

This will force your mind to tune into the present moment.  Be aware of the moment you are in; do not surrender this present moment to the past or the future. Let this remind you to turn off distractions that pull your attention from being in the moment. 

From Medium, 

Are you listening?
Do you take the time to simply stop and listen — to yourself?
Our world has so many distractions. Some are important. Most can be a total waste of time and genuinely rob us of who we are meant to be. 

Distractions rob us of our ability to be at our best. Research indicates that silence gives us the space to be creative and think deeply about what matters. And yet, where do we find silence today? And, do we even want to experience silence? Modern studies indicate we do not. Why?
Our brains are constantly seeking dopamine. These distractions can use up all of our time and keep us from knowing what we should spend our limited and precious time on. What is the solution? Silence is our best hope for success.

From Huffington Post Listening to Silence; 

Silence speaks the international language of reflection. In many ways, it allows us to become more self-aware, to think about profound and trivial matters. Lawrence Durrell, a British author, said, "Does not everything depend on the interpretation of the silence around us?" Most of us have experienced conflict that can arise from a lack of restraint in speech. Are there such faults associated with silence? Gandhi said, "It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart." If you see the wind in its calmness, it has a peaceful and pleasurable quality to it but the same wind once in motion can turn violent in stormy weathers. The same can be said of words.

 

From Time magazine,

Across disciplines—from neuroscience to psychology to cardiology—there’s growing consensus that noise is a serious threat to our health and cognition. And that silence is something truly vital—particularly for the brain.

“Noises cause stress, especially if we have little or no control over them,” explains Mathias Basner, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in sound processing and rest. “The body will excrete stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that lead to changes in the composition of our blood—and of our blood vessels, which actually have been shown to be stiffer after a single night of noise exposure,” Basner says.

From TED, When Did You Last Take Some Time to Do Nothing?