The talks by Ajahn Sona on music may have some relevance to this thread. His opinion is contested in the thread…
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Hi! I’ve played music my whole life, have worked as a professional musician since I was a teenager, and am currently preparing to ordain. I don’t intend to speak for anyone else or to offer any opinions on what the “right” thing to do is, but I can offer some reflections about my own experience in the hopes that they are helpful for others. Also, I’ll limit my comments to the subject of playing music rather than listening since that’s where I may be able to offer more.
Like another poster mentioned, there came a point in my practice where I could feel the dispassion toward music developing and it scared me. So much so that I stopped meditating for a few months. Later, when circumstances led me back to the Dhamma, I found that pretty soon after starting to meditate again the desire to perform or make music faded dramatically. This was a very difficult phase emotionally, but also incredibly positive and freeing. I still enjoy music and think its a fine pass-time all things considered, but there can be an incredible amount of selfing and suffering around the act of artistic creation, or there was for me at least, as being a “musician” had been core to my self of self and purpose for my whole life. Letting go of it was very frightening, but I described the experience to a friend at the time as stepping off of a set of train tracks and suddenly being able to travel in any direction, 360 degrees!
I’ve since come to a new understanding about what music and the arts in general have to offer (for the musician, listeners is another discussion). Basically, I think there are some of the “goodies” of samadhi like joy, concentration, etc. as well as a thrill of “creating” something which at its best doesn’t feel like something one does, but something that just happens. Unfortunately, this is a high that’s difficult to replicate in other situations in lay life, and so it can lead to a sort of addiction. Like any addiction, or sensual pleasures in general the highs are not reliable and tend to diminish over time. Another risk is that the self gets constructed around the activity. Meditation on the other hand provides many of the same benefits but is onward leading.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with music, or any other sense pleasure for that matter, but it IS addictive, and so will most likely become an obstacle to the path at some point. How much of an obstacle likely depends on temperament, personal history, kamma etc. Wether or not one is ready to give up music is a personal matter and I don’t think feeling pressured to take that step before one is ready would be helpful, but nor do I think it’s helpful to pretend that an attachment to music isn’t working in opposition to the deepening of the path.
As for the precept, I like to think of them (particularly the 6th, 7th and 8th) not as moral rules, but as signposts for attachments worthy of investigation. Why is it challenging to keep them? I think asking this question and then working with what comes up is kind of the point (aside from the fact that when I engage in music too much it directly interferes with quieting the mind in meditation).
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Thank you for this very thoughtful post.
I certainly agree that there is nothing inherently wrong with music; it’s always seemed odd to me that monastics are not supposed to listen to Mozart or Beethoven but detective novels are fine…etc. etc…
Well, novels didn’t exist at that time, right? It’s an open question how to apply the great standards. Some monks don’t consider detective novels allowed. Some do.
Even in the case of music, the rule is about going to see a performance. In Asia it’s not uncommon for musicians to come to Buddhist temples and play at ceremonies or funerals or festivals. Different monasteries and even different monastics will have different takes on these issues (as the above linked discussion shows). And that (to me) is “fine.”
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yes, certainly the rule is about attending a performance- recordings didn’t exist at that time as well !
yes, everyone can draw their own conclusions on these ‘rules’.
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If you have ever broken this rule and listened to an old favourite song, you will know how horribly persistent it is when placed on a blank canvas of a sense restrained mind. Forget ‘ear worm’ it’s more like ‘ear king-cobra’. It doesn’t matter if it’s a love song or the blues.
This being said, there is nothing immoral about listening to, or performing music. It can create a wholesome kind of worldly happiness. It’s just that one has to pay the cost of extra sensory stimulation. The higher levels of training are designed to aid in the development of meditation. Pick them up and try them out.
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Respectfully, I have to say that there can be more to listening to music than just “worldly happiness”: listening to great works of art such as late Beethoven string quartets, Mahler symphonies, etc. can help us understand important things about the human experience; certainly as much as reading a great work of literature or viewing great painting.
Fortunately perhaps, Tolstoy and Rembrandt do not suffer the same restrictions as Bach and Beethoven !
Personally, I feel very lucky that I am surrounded by these wonderful works of art on a daily basis due to my profession, far more wholesome than most lines of “work.”
Spending time listening to a Mozart symphony or viewing a Vermeer painting is not entertainment, it is deeply profound experience.
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What I was referring to in terms of ‘worldly happiness’ is happiness experienced by the sense world. Which is in contrast to the happiness of jhāna. Within the happiness borne of the sense world,
I agree there are fine things to be had in books and music. Personally, i take the restriction on entertainment to include novels. I remember when a friend lent me a novel she had been recommending. I sat down to read the first chapter and decided that I definitely did not want all these extra people inside my head. It was very hard to explain to her why I hadn’t read this highly acclaimed book she lent me.
Having those kinds of fine works around you on a daily basis is surely more wholesome than most lines of work. I rejoice in your good fortune and hard work to be in such a position. I am not critising such things in any way. I’m just saying that there are better things.
“There are, mendicants, these two kinds of happiness. What two? Sensual happiness and the happiness of renunciation. These are the two kinds of happiness. The better of these two kinds of happiness is the happiness of renunciation.”
AN2.65
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Yes, certainly renunciation is the highest goal.
This would not only include renouncing art, but most worldly interaction including politics, social justice, most of the internet, and anything that moves a person away from samadhi.
One thing I’ve always wondered about is the large amount of verse in the Pali canon. What we in the West would call poetry. Why is this? Was the patterned speech simply for ease of remembering? (but there is plenty of prose)
Why did some Elders choose to express their ideas about the Dhamma, as well as seemingly the Buddha himself, in verse- a form of art?
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While also warning that dhamma would be ruined with poets. Interesting dilemmas! 
I think music is just another form of semantic communication. As such, data transfer is data transfer. There is useless, empty talk, there is useless, empty music. There is meaningful dialogue and wisdom in words, there is meaningful dialogue and wisdom in music.
With that said, I think Buddha would be even utilitarian with spoken Dhamma, as he tells us to let go off the raft. So perhaps we should be careful not to cling to anything, to music or to words, and finding ourselves not needing such supplies. A poet once told me “The merit of a meaningful poem is measured with the silence it commands afterwards.” So we should not seek cheap, fast food, but soul nourishing words and sounds.
And I would still argue that some music is as soul nourishing as spoken dhamma. See for example, I can hear the first truth in this song clearly, but perhaps I’m just weird like that. 
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Wow, Venerable, this is an amazing way of saying what is largely inexpressible. I really appreciate your feedback on this thread. 
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That’s a good way of putting it and I can relate to that. I went from being a very avid reader to a once-in-a-while-reader and mostly reading authors that write short stories which I like. I feel like ‘witnessing’ the character’s struggles and strifes in lengthy novels is most often not worth my time anymore. I’m a hobby writer but I only write short stories and only occasionally. I still read nonfiction quite a lot, though.
As for music, I find myself listening to less music and increasingly more of the type that doesn’t envoke strong emotions. Less (post) punk - more ambient 
And I don’t know if this is due to Buddhist practise or getting older - but there are very lovely videos on youtube of birds chirping and twittering or water sounds (rain, waves) that I put on.
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Dismiss. Considering one of my earliest introductions to Buddhism was training in the tea ceremony.
If you can be involved with the arts even for a short period and not break the fifth I think that is quite uncommon and should be a source of rejoicing.
A question as well, I suppose: do you have the ability to put the music down? The riff or fill or musical part or work of genius or the horrible hook would often repeat in this mind long after the band stopped playing.
if you have the skill of putting down the score even for some brief moments while you do not hold an instrument i also think this is uncommon and worth rejoicing.
Sahdu
I made the mistake of listening to a song from a quite unique 90’s lounge band recently whom i frequently enjoyed previously. The miccha piti arose for a little while but it was not worth it. The replay in the mind lasted for days and becrame increasingly less pleasurable.
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This would be in line with @Dogen’s thinking that anything related to sense-pleasures can lead to being intoxicated - not just drugs and/or booze (as the standard meaning in the fifth precept.)
I can relate to this esp. when it comes to music. That we have a word for music that keeps playing in your mind (and which can get quite annoying as others have pointed out), speaks volumes of the addictive nature of it. Sometimes - out of the blue - I recall lines that I liked from reading poetry or novels but with music it’s ten times worse.
I still don’t know how to handle it, though, because some music does transcend reality. It might be miccha samadhi but I can’t help but indulge in it a bit even though this is becoming less and less.
Buddhist practise is quite diametral to the arts it seems - or the other way around 
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Certainly, if one is able to live in seclusion, in the forest or a cave with few possessions including electronic devices- perhaps as Vens. Ñāṇadīpa or Ñāṇananda have done most recently, it is wonderful.
But to exist in the world as most do, following the daily news on the internet, commuting daily to an office space, attending social functions, marching for social justice, etc., and think that listening to a Mozart symphony will be the thing that disturbs one’s samadhi, this seems to me to be a bit misguided.
This may also be of interest:
https://zmm.org/our-programs/zen-arts/
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“But the history of creative expression within the tradition of Zen Buddhism goes back many centuries and includes highly developed styles of brush painting, calligraphy, poetry, ceramics, and more. At our practice centers, this mode of engagement with creativity is not intended to emulate the voices of others, per se, but to give each individual an ever-unfolding access point to their own depths.”
https://zmm.org/our-programs/zen-arts/
The arts are, and always have been, an excellent way to explore the nature of being in the world.
Also:
https://adrianfreedman.com/articles/on-playing-an-instrument-of-zen/
" Then I began to study the shakuhachi, and I found that the instrument had been used by Zen monks as a tool of spiritual enquiry, not simply as a way of making music. And I repeatedly came across certain enigmatic phrases that were associated with the instrument such as … ʻabsolute emptiness ’ … ʻspirit breath ʼ … ʻ absolute sound ʼ … ʻ become the Buddha in a single tone ʼ … ʻ Monks of Nothingness and Emptiness ʼ …
This, combined with the uniquely expressive power of the music itself, was deeply fascinating to me. Since that time when I began my studies on the shakuhachi I have associated its sound and music with an intimate connection to the teachings of the Buddha, and especially as interpreted through the schools of Zen."
I very much like the idea of a musical instrument as a “tool of spiritual enquiry.”
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I’ve played multiple instruments for 50 years. I played weekly in an improve group for 8 years until I moved too far away. After that I began to really observe all of my motivations, intentions, feelings and mental formations involved in playing music. My desire to play just kind of evaporated and I don’t miss it. I will pick up and play occasionally but it doesn’t hold much sway with me, I can take it or leave it.
In the same way, over the last 15 years I have almost never turned on music in my car. When I hear music, particularly music from this century, it all seems to sound like different versions of the same thing; repetitions of structure, themes and empty subject matter chattering on. I can be in situations where music is playing and I can find some instrumental genres like classic jazz melodic and pleasurable and other genres less pleasant but they just kind of pass through one ear and out the other.
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Perhaps try the music of Sofia Gubaidulina, who has just passed away.
A great figure in 20th-21st century music.
https://www.therestisnoise.com/2025/03/for-sofia-gubaidulina.html
“Her compositional voice, rigorous and sensuous in equal measure, spiritually noble to its core…”