Heavenly Music?

[Gillian]

@karl_lew

Turn off the sound to your computer. This is important! Turn off the sound.

Now look at this [video … She is quite mindful. Immersed and unswayed by the world.

Now turn the sound back on and listen to the music. What changes in the hearing of that music?

Oddly this video, with or without the sound, inspires me to meditate in silence.

I was with you up until I turned the sound back on … then there occurred an overwhelming rush of intense negative vedana that inspired me to do a whole lot of precept-breaking actions …
Then I remembered a conversation I had with @karl_lew ages ago. His sort of music conditions the arousing of overwhelm, stress and rage in me, while my sort of music (classical), Karl says, “has too many notes.” …

This leads me to conclude that it’s not the music itself, but the way we relate/react to the music. Our reactions are the product of individual patterns of conditioning. Georg, says it well:

@georg

I think what you said is pointing to the essence of listening to music. It is about the awareness of the present moment, not being distracted by thinking about the past or future. A true musical experience can give you a taste for samadhi. If you take the sense experience away then one might start as well to meditate.

Seen like this, music is just another sense experience to be noticed, that can draw some people into meditation. But like all sense experiences, it carries the danger of our grasping after it and wanting more, or disliking it and pushing it away. These are equally unskillful reactions.