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Every now and then, I come across an album which has "music for Zen meditation." Is there any tradition of meditating while listening to music? Actually, I find that close, absorbed music listening is a form of meditation, but I never do it on the cushion.
Well, music is music. And I love music. Shikantaza is shikantaza. Not mixing is best.
Mantra recitation is a form of musical meditation, many indian ragas are inspired by devotion, performing- listening are also Hindu practices, shakuachi playing was a form of meditation by these monks with heads covered by bamboo baskets and playing away very sad- spooky tunes...
In our tradition, we sit. And from there, many things may arise:brush work, body work, sounds, music, words, life itself.
Zazen listening to music is not zazen anymore. You give it a taste. In the real zazen Coltrane, Bach and Hendrix are friends. Play one of them and this is broken.
Gassho
Taigu
I think listening to some special music is good for meditation but not zazen. I read a quote by a zen master that "zazen is not meditation - it's alive" :)
Interesting discussion. One of my shakuhachi teachers has an album called Shakuhachi Meditation Music. He is a Zen practitioner and I don't believe he listens to music while sitting, but I think many things can be labelled "mediation practice". However, I think it's in the semantics of what we practice in Soto-shu vs the generality of meditation. Shikantaza is shikantaza, meditation is meditation.
Also, in the case of shakuhachi, the instrument has a long history of being used for meditation practice, called suizen. Mendicant monks would beg for alms as they played on the flute. Somewhat like takuhatsu.
For me, shikantaza is my Zen practice. Other forms of meditation such as shakuhachi, sewing, playing with my kids, gardening, and such are meditative but not my Zen practice.
Just my random thoughts.
Good topic though!
Gassho,
Dokan
Music connects directly with movement/emotion for me, and it colors the world. Not sentimentality and personal memory (unless maybe it is nostalgic music) but a kind of deep feeling movement with the music. I actually don't listen to music as much as I used to because of that. I love it.. and deeply respect musical talent .. but need to be sparing. Zazen and music only go together if there happens to be music playing during Zazen, but it is not transportive if heard during Zazen.
Gassho, kojip
Like Dokan said, shikantaza is my zen practice ... but I also find rocking climbing, sewing, playing with my dog, kayaking, and biking to be meditative. Music for sure ... when I am picking away on the old guitar I can have some amazing "In the moment" experiences. :)
Gassho
Michael
My dad is a musician and I grew up listening to all kinds of music from around the world.
I remember those lonesome teenage nights that I used to loose myself, with closed eyes, to a nice Kitaro or Vangelis album. Like it was said before, music is good for meditation.
I find music as distracting as listening to the TV or a conversation.
So I like my zazen raw, with no music. Just me, my improvised zafu and the wall. :)
Gassho,
Kyonin
I have enough music in my mind going on in Shikantaza. hahahha
So true ... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Risho
Gassho
Michael
Wait, you got music? All I get is a clusterfuck of neurotic thoughts and static.Quote:
Originally Posted by Risho
Must be my karma, I guess. ;)
Chet
Hello,
although I also am of the persuasion that it's best (at least for me) to take my Shikantaza straight, no ice please and no music....music has a great power to touch us humans irrespective of sectarian differences. If something lifts you up, it lifts you up, if a tune allows you to transcend and embrace ecstasy...than it just does that. No questions about religious/sectarian compatibility there :) Unless one thinks that all Rock'n'Roll is Satan's work...bring on some Bon Scott AC/DC!!!!
Gassho and thanks for bringing up this topic,
Hans Chudo Mongen
:)Quote:
Originally Posted by disastermouse
Willow
Normally I'd say most things are better with a soundtrack, but I'm afraid I'm another who just prefers the sound of the room, whatever that is (when I sit). Voices and melodies are certain distractions for me.
Gassho,
Chris
Well now that you mention it... Sometimes I sit with a song playing endlessly in my mind. Not AC/DC, but something along the lines. More like Blind Guardian.
The thing is, when that happens, I get all distracted and it's hard to let go of the song.
That's why I avoid listening to the same song many times.
Gassho,
Kyonin
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hans
Hello Kyonin,
obviously Blind Guardian is an exception to the rule since their marvelous German speed metal songs and ballads come straight from the Buddha fields of Maitreya (kind of). :)
Guardian, Guardian, Guardian of the blind.....
Gassho,
Hans Chudo Mongen
I do qigong to music, but i take my zazen raw :)
My spouse often interfuses her daily activities with "motivational" music....of all sorts.
She is surprised that I just get along with it being quiet (i.e. just what it "is-ness") and she asks, "Don't you like music when you're working on something?"
And I have to honestly convey an answer something like "Well, I do have a kind of music going on....f.x. when I am cleaning up the kitchen it is the sound of water, and wiping, and dishes clinking and 'frig doors swooshing open and closed." And her reply is, "Uh huh....yeh...that sounds really :p motivating."
You know, it's funny that you mention it.
From about four or five years to these days, I have noticed that the more I practice and sit, the less I need external stimuli. Like music, TV and such.
My dad was a musician, so I grew up listening to old rock and roll (specially Elvis). So as an adult I used to listen to music from dawn till dusk.
Now I am really comfortable with just the sounds of my surroundings, even if its traffic or machinery. When I go out to run every morning, I avoid using headphones. I love the noise of this city waking up.
I'm not saying I don't like music. Quite the contrary, but I feel I just need it less than I used to.
Gassho,
Kyonin
Quote:
Originally Posted by YuimaSLC
Thats exactly how it is. Why would one want music, other than to take us out of this wonderful symphony.Quote:
Originally Posted by YuimaSLC
_()_
Myoku (is not kidding)
Music and Zen
Not one, not two
Burn oneself completely
Straight, no chaser
Zafu, wall, non-thinking
Riffing on nothing
The music of the open hand
Jazz of no thought
Cycles and loops
A quiet room
_/\_
Eika
Sent from tapatalk
I sometimes sit with a song stuck in my mind so I don't really need to listen to external music :D
Where I sit, we have screechy bluejays, tittering sparrows, wood-pecking flickers, acorns pinging the roof, wind shuffling past pines and manzanita, complaining cieling fan, creaking floors, occasional yammering guests downstairs in the dining hall, the odd sneeze, forbidden sniffles, creaking bones, wheezy breathing. Trying to erase that music is like trying to silence a yammering monkey brain's yack yackity yacking. Brains think. Life sings. Who needs other music when you just sit?
Right now, "A Stranger On The Shore" is stuck in my head. Sadly, the only cure, "The Girl from Ipanema", is worse than my present song-stuck illness. Maybe time for a piano break, time to riff on Eika's jazz of no thought, mixing it up with Taigu's not-mixing.
Gassho,
Ken (肯）
I'm with Hans. I like my zazen like good bourbon: no ice, no mixers. I get enough distraction as it is.
Ah, somebody once posted a video around here of a guy trying to sit but Lady Gaga kept popping up his mind. Anyone remember that one?
Yup that was me. :)
If music is playing heard down the hall, we sit with that. If a car engine is back firing, or bird is chirping, or a baby is crying, or a helicopter is noiselessly flying overhead, we sit with that (actually, in the case of the crying baby, we made need to briefly get up to change a diaper ... but that is Zazen too). If no music is playing, we sit with that.
But no need or benefit at all in putting on nice music or bird songs to facilitate Zazen. In fact, quite bad if we feel it ultimately necessary to hide the car engines and babies and helicopters in order to sit Zazen.
Time for a repost of Suzuki Roshi on noise ...
Gassho, J
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNyCAJXUXE