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Chrono
7th August 2003, 04:47
How do you feel about listening to music while meditating? Do you feel it enhances and helps meditation, or is it another distraction?

Jon

Prince Loeffler
7th August 2003, 06:38
Jon,

When its hard for me to focus and relax, I would often play soft or new age music to help me settle down a bit. I find playing soft music in the background helpful.

However, playing metallica to meditate might be a different story or even result !:p

dirithtai
7th August 2003, 18:18
That would be an interesting study:

"Thrash metal and its effects on the meditative experience."

My parents bought me a collection of traditional japanese shakuhachi flute music a few years ago, its very nice and relaxed, and helps me calm down a lot when meditating.

Chrono
8th August 2003, 04:28
Originally posted by dirithtai
That would be an interesting study:

"Thrash metal and its effects on the meditative experience."


Indeed, it would. I'd rather not be the one to try it, though.

Jon

RDFittro
8th August 2003, 07:21
Wouldn't you call that "listening to music" instead of meditating?

Chrono
8th August 2003, 16:15
Originally posted by Sharp Phil
I have a "singing bowls" CD that is perfect for meditating. It's not music at all, but tones of various depths. You need not really "listen" to it, but it helps all the same.

Don't the sounds of nature CD's do the same as that?

Jon

Don Cunningham
8th August 2003, 16:32
I have always been under the impression that the goal of meditation was to focus on the now by eliminating as many external and internal distractions as possible by mental exercise and control. Relaxing and listening to music is fine and serves a different purpose. However, you might as well be playing video games during meditation. Those who rely on external imagery to "enhance" meditation are just new age wannabes. If you find you need some external distraction, you probably don't have the intellectual capacity to meditate in the first place. They've missed the whole point of meditation. Of course, Shunryu Suzuki and I may be totally wrong here.

Prince Loeffler
8th August 2003, 17:35
Originally posted by Don Cunningham
I have always been under the impression that the goal of meditation was to focus on the now by eliminating as many external and internal distractions as possible by mental exercise and control. Relaxing and listening to music is fine and serves a different purpose. However, you might as well be playing video games during meditation. Those who rely on external imagery to "enhance" meditation are just new age wannabes. If you find you need some external distraction, you probably don't have the intellectual capacity to meditate in the first place. They've missed the whole point of meditation. Of course, Shunryu Suzuki and I may be totally wrong here.

No Don, You and Suzuki are not wrong. I use the music to calm myself first. sometimes it is difficult for me to come home and go straight to my room to meditate. As soon as I start doing some basic chores around the house I would play these "new age" type musics. I also consider doing chores as part of the meditative process.

actual Meditation starts right before bedtime for me, where everything has around the house is calm and quiet.

CEB
8th August 2003, 17:52
This doesn’t relate to meditation, But I have used music when playing chess. It seems to help me block out external distractions. I have played very nice chess while listening to metal music such as Accept or WASP on my little Sony headphones. Once I tried to play chess listening to some Allman Brothers and my Game went totally to pieces. Allman Bros. are more interesting musically and the nuances of their music severely distracted me from my play. Where as Wild Child by WASP really doesn’t provide much more than audio barrier to the noise in the playing hall. I wonder if listening to a pink noise or white noise generator would have the same beneficial effect on my game.

dirithtai
8th August 2003, 18:33
I would suggest that music can be used as an inroad to meditation, block everything out but the music, then block out the music. That;s how I've always used it, anyway.

Mr. Cunningham-
Not wrong, just different methods. For instance, certain tibetan buddhist sects meditate by chanting. Its perfectly acceptable to lose oneself in music in order to lose oneself, so long as self is lost, the goal is accomplished, isn't it?

illusions117
14th August 2003, 12:13
Hi all! I agree with dirithtai about starting with the music to block out the external noises and then blocking out the music. When I meditate, I listen to the music of my choice and after a short while, I block it out.

kage110
14th August 2003, 14:08
I don't meditate all that often but I have done a lot of studying to music. I started out (when in my late teens) by listening to classical music from composers such as Mozart, Beethoven and JS Bach and found these to be very effective when needing to do an 'all nighter' to get an essay finished for university. Now (in my late 20s) I tend to listen to what I call 'Euphoric Dance' music (the sort of music played in the clubs of Ibiza) and this works even better. I have also tried various other types of music including Gregorian Chant (which worked nicely) and rock/pop (which made me fidgety and lacking in concentration).

I find that I need to have this sort of background music to concentrate fully otherwise I kep listining out for all the noises going on aroud about me. This is good from a MA perspective as I am pretty alert but it doesn't help the study!

I read an article a few years ago that described a link between the particular melodies and rythym patterns present in music from the likes of Mozart and how these rythyms matched the mental rythyms present when optimum brain activity is present. I can't remember much of the details but it is a similar effect as that of chanting/rythmic drumming to help induce a trance like (meditative) state. Has anyone else heard of this link?

Don Cunningham
14th August 2003, 14:14
I don't mean to be confrontational, but listening to music is not meditating. It's fine to relax to music, prepare for meditation, or just enjoy the sounds. However, it is not meditation.

I enjoy relaxing to music. I enjoy listening to music when doing other activities, including studying. Sometimes I need the mental distraction to focus more clearly on whatever else I am doing. However, meditating to music is equivalent to meditating to daytime soap operas on TV. You're not meditating, you're just enjoying a form of entertainment.

dirithtai
14th August 2003, 17:20
So, what are you saying, Tibetan buddhist monks don't know how to meditate? Cause all that chanting sounds to me like music.

Zazen is not the only meditation out there. What, exactly do you think the rosary is? Or chanting the buddhas 1000 names? Or the mantras? Its all aural and verbal meditation.

That said, in the previous posts, nobody ever said music WAS the meditation, its a method to get there. Maybe you should read a tich more carefully?

kokumo
14th August 2003, 18:56
Originally posted by dirithtai
So, what are you saying, Tibetan buddhist monks don't know how to meditate? Cause all that chanting sounds to me like music.

Zazen is not the only meditation out there. What, exactly do you think the rosary is? Or chanting the buddhas 1000 names? Or the mantras? Its all aural and verbal meditation.


Welll.......those Tibetan monks generally have a solid grounding in both shamatha (tranquility) and vipassana (insight) meditation methods, as well as extensive academic study of the appropriate "view" necessary to not take a wrong turn during meditation. Within tradition, it is widely believed that this grounding (both practical and scholastic) enables them to maintain a level of meditative stability while chanting, clanging cymbals, making hand signs, and the like.

As a lay practice, counting the rosary or chanting the buddha's 1000 names (or chanting one of the buddha's names thousands of times), while it may be regarded as a meritorious activity that builds the necessary conditions for entering into explicitly meditative practice or ritual sadhana practice, is generally not regarded as meditation per se, but as a "preliminary practice."

For instance, the Dzogchen tradition is oriented toward a very natural sort of realization which doesn't divide this gross realm of samsara from the elevated realm of nirvana. But it also involves a few hundred thousand repetitions of various "preliminary practices" with extended periods of "just-sitting" thrown in for good measure.

All of that said, if sitting and listening to music helps someone let go of various compulsive patterns that afflict them, that's great, but it isn't quite complete in itself as a path or completely in accord with tested methods.

From this point of view, keeping the terminology clean regarding what is and isn't "meditation" is more than just an academic exercise.

At some point, every wannabe meditator finds him or herself in a situation where all of their usual props are gone. The practices labelled as "meditation" which demand extensive props (like say, a stereo system or a full set of cymbals and thigh-bone trumpets) are generally regarded as either preliminary basics or very advanced practices, not least because one merely leads to the possibility of "prop-less meditation" and the other can only arise from a certain amount of seasoning in "prop-less meditation."

This is the reason its a good idea to find a qualified teacher.

Prescriptions for appropriate meditative practices are often quite individualized, like medical prescriptions. It is best to find a skilled diagnostician you trust, who has an understanding of a range of methods, listen to his/her good advice, and practice accordingly.

Hope this helps,

Fred Little

Don Cunningham
14th August 2003, 22:29
Mr. Streett:

Are you a Tibetan Buddhist monk? Do you have some special knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhist practices in general?

Maybe you should stop listening to the music and pay more attention to what you're reading...

dirithtai
20th August 2003, 18:37
DC:


Originally posted by Don Cunningham
[B]Mr. Streett:

Are you a Tibetan Buddhist monk?




no, are you?



Do you have some special knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhist practices in general?


special knowledge? Not as such, however as I did spend considerable time researching Buddhism as a prospective religion (philosophy, whatever label you choose to attatch) and did run across a large bit of information on meditative preactices in general, zen practice in specific, and assorted mandala, mantra and muhdra, I feel I am qualified to say that you are wrong in asserting that anyone who does anything but silent, seated meditation has no idea what they're doing.

And, while D. T. Suzuki knows a lot, and I've enjoyed his books, he is by no means the sole authority on meditation. So no, you and he are not wrong, but you seem narrow-minded. Zazen is great meditation. I enjoy it immensely.

I also enjoy the meditative state I get to (which is almost identical to the state I reach in zazen) as I run through kata, or walk home some nights, when I'm doing those things for the purposes of meditating.

There are also all sorts of other ways to access the same sense of spiritual freedom. Your categorical denial of that is, well, rather tired.




Maybe you should stop listening to the music and pay more attention to what you're reading...

oooh, I assume your non-confrontational disclaimer no longer holds? I love the assumption that because I disagree with you, I'm stupid and inattentive. Very enlightened view. No Really.

kokumo:

I agree, that non-zazen meditation isn't mainstream, and like all things, should be taught by someone qualified. Most excellent points in your post. My ONLY contention in this entire thread has been Mr. Cunningham's insistence that Meditation cannot be done to music, which, as you've stated, is patently false. Is it for beginners? Probably not. Is it the best way to do it? Depends. Is it Done? YES. Thanks.