Connection through listening

At the start of each meditation session, our teacher will say a few phrases in Chinese to the effect that "Thoughts are related to or can not depart from (离不开) the past, the future and the present. Thoughts are just thoughts. When thoughts come to your mind, just lightly blink your eyes and drop them." We are then told to focus on our breadth feeling the air in and out of the nostrils touching the upper lips. When aware that thoughts arise and having noticed them, gently drop them and refocus on our breadth.

For me, the start of the session is usually fine. Somewhere in the middle I can be lost in thoughts even though I am still feeling the breadth. I will then go on a rendezvous before finally become aware again of the drifting mind.

Of late I gather from another source that when the mind keeps on drifting during meditation, one can try listening to surrounding sounds intently to achieve mindfulness before reverting back to the breadth or whatever point of focus. So I tried it. The host of multiple sounds in any one short duration was amazing. First there was the whirling fan and the tickling clock in my house. I could identify not less than 5 types of birds calling, some from the trees and poles nearby and others somewhere in the distance. A car, a truck, a motorcycle passed my house. I could hear the backdoor of my neighbour being closed. Some faint drilling sound floated in. Footsteps and people's banter passed my front gate. A far away child's high pitched short cry was matched by a single pounding from a distant construction site. The quiet stretching of my cat brings me home again.

Suddenly I feel me, my cat, the birds, my neighbour's maid, the passers by, the child and the one who drills, the one who pounds, the one who drives the car, the truck, the motorcyclist and in fact all the birds, all my neighbours, all the workers in the construction site and all the people in the vicinity are "engaged" simultaneously in the world.

A strange but somewhat good feeling. Is this what they call being connected?