Hearing the Dralas at Play

The following article will appear in the March/April 2012 issue of the Halifax Shambhala Centre newsletter

Hearing Aids: A personal reflection

The steering group on aging has been meeting monthly for more than a year. The meetings are held in the Garuda Room. There are only five of us who have been consistent members, so we have come to know each other quite well. We are all over 60two of us, including myself, are 70). At the most recent meeting I notice that three of us were wearing hear aids. Perhaps I noticed because it was the first meeting since I had started wearing one.

My hearing was tested two years ago and showed a significant loss of the high frequencies. The audiologist suggested I try a hearing aid, but the cost put me off. The hearing aids started at several thousand dollars and went up from there. My health insurance covered only $600. I decided my hearing wasn’t bad enough to require a major cash investment. Nonetheless, over the past two years I became more and more aware of how much I was missing due to my hearing.

The most obvious loss for me was in conversations with people, especially if there was background noise happening. Sitting in a restaurant, for example, and trying to hear what people were saying across the table was noticeably difficult. Even at home I frequently had trouble understanding what my wife was saying if she was any distance away, or if the TV was on.

I was particularly concerned by the fact that I began to nod and smile at people, as if I had heard what they said and agreed with them, when actually I had no idea what they had said. This usually worked in the sense that the conversation continued on and people didn’t seem to realize that I had missed what was being said. But I had the sinking feeling of faking it and wondering whether my response had, in fact, been appropriate. Was I agreeing with things with which I actually didn’t agree?

So when the hearing clinic called and said I was due for a two year follow up testing that would not cost me anything I went. The results were not much different this time, but my inclination to try hearing aids was different. My wife was very supportive and encouraged me to go ahead and spend the money.

The hearing aid device itself was remarkably small and light. It was easy to wear and most people didn’t notice the difference. But I certainly did. From the moment I put on the hearing aids I became aware of a level of sound that I had simply not noticed, perhaps for years. While the hearing aids clearly made it easier to follow conversations, it was the emergence of little, seemingly inconsequential sounds that surprised me. The crinkling as a piece of paper is folded in half, the rustling of leaves in the trees, the swish as I put on my down jacket and the sleeve rubs across the body of the coat.

Hearing those sounds evokes images of coincidence, the complex unfolding of phenomena, this bumping against that, the simple energy of phenomena that attracts the Dralas. Hearing those sounds evokes a sense of confidence and relaxation with things as they are; a sense of basic goodness.

They say that isolation is one of the dangers in old age and that staying engaged with the world can help to keep a person healthy, physically and mentally. Reflecting on my experience over the past several years, with increasing difficulty following conversations and missing (although I did not realize it) the symphony of small sounds that have the potential to communicate the nature of reality, I can see that hearing loss can easily contribute to a sense of isolation and withdrawal into oneself.

In the Shambhala teachings the senses can be used as a powerful means for waking up to the nature of reality, to the basic goodness of oneself, to the basic goodness of others and to the basic goodness of society. As the senses become less sharp with age, as they so often do, it would seem wise to use whatever aids are available (hearing aids, glasses, cataract surgery) to preserve these channels of connection with the world; the better to hear the Dralas at play, the better to hear the teachings, the better to hear what our companions have to say on the path of enlightened society.

--David Whitehorn (Mountain Drum)