Music mediation:
- Select your favorite melodies and put them on a playlist with a duration of about 30-40 minutes.
- Go and sit in a comfortable position.
- Start 'truly listening' to this song - to every beat and every word.
Rules: :)
- Not allowed to sing along.
- Not allowed to imagine things from the past that might pop up in relation to the song.
- Not allowed to think about anything random.
- In case you realize that any of the above happens, stop doing it immediately and come back to 'truly listening' to the song.
- Simply listen intensely to every beat, every word being uttered in every song and do nothing else.
Initially this might be hard but with practice its easy to sit comfortably in simple awareness of the song being played! Enjoy the delightful freshness, calmness and peace at the end of the 30-40 minute duration. Pay attention to the choice of the songs. Melodious songs with lyrics that are neither violent nor lustful are preferable in my opinion. Pure instrumentals without any lyrics are also great. This kind of supported meditation helps to slowly move towards unsupported meditation where one can sit simply with awareness without any specific external object (like music in this case).
6 comments:
:)Being a music lover,I guess this might be easier to practice than bus meditation which i found extremely hard !
From my personal experience with such being-in-the-now with music, I think the passive-active listening barrier is entirely artificial, and has nothing to do with being-in-the-now. One can design all manners of exercises for being-in-the-now ofcourse, but I believe we are discussing the ones to be preferred. If anything, active listening is to be preferred, and this is why I think, learning an instrument/singing a song - creating & being present among the music - is orders greater (easier, more meaningful) than just passive listening. With singing, which is my instrument for now (The Good Lord save the rest of the people!) you create (literally) observe, and enjoy. At each moment, there is something new to do, something original (for yourselves) which tremendously aids being-in-the-now - the automaton literally runs with the enjoyment - while the objective is to stop it & consciously create, observe and enjoy (be one) with the music!
- A (born again) bathroom singer!! :-D
I must also add an implication of my above argument - not recommended to indulge in the 40 minute listening (if as a challenge, thats fine!) or even listening to individually packaged songs/albums per se. Work from the music already in your mind - strains of music, and melodies to start - random strains your mind throws up into 40 minute sessions and who knows, full songs soon enough! :)
I think the perspective here is about simply to be with awareness without the intermediate barrier of thought :)... and not staying in the now (although it is related)...
its totally possible to do that when we sing also.. we could simply suit ourselves... :)... i am not sure why one is more or less preferable...
Missing the point is all I am going to say.
hmmm...? lets chat about it!
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