Listening Without Finding

Sometimes what stays with us isn’t what we were listening for. It’s the listening itself.

Calm water with subtle ripples beneath a softly glowing misty horizon, with faint distant land at the right.

During meditation, I listened for my inner sound.

Sometimes it felt like a tone.
Sometimes like movement.
Sometimes like nothing I could name.

It changed when I adjusted my posture.
It changed when I breathed differently.
It changed when I started thinking about it.

What stayed consistent wasn’t the sound.
It was the listening.

At one point, I stopped trying to identify it.
I wasn’t searching anymore.

And something softened.

Not into answers.
Into presence.

I noticed that when I stopped trying to find my sound,
I hadn’t stopped listening.