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Good day people, hope you’re doing very well this time.
After reading AN 5.148, I came across this sentence: “…the five refined kinds of sensual stimulation”. What are those? Are there any suttas where the Buddha explain those? I couldn’t find a note that talked about it.
Your answers are very welcomed.
Blessings!
There’s a whole chapter on it in SN 
The only other place I could find refined (uḷāresu) sense pleasures mentioned is AN 9.20. I would guess it’s a general term it referring to sense pleasures that are of a relatively higher quality. Like food made with excellent ingredients by excellent chefs as opposed to food that is ultraprocessed slop. Or like beautiful music played by masterful musicians as opposed to crude music played by poor musicians. Or like sense pleasures the sense-sphere devas enjoy as opposed to sense pleasures humans enjoy. You get the idea.
Good day people, I hope you’re doing great.
Today’s quetion is about the five kinds of sensual stimulation, especially music. Talking about that last topic, I love listening to music (to be more specific, electronic music). The energy and the stimuli it gives me it’s something I find “desirable and arousing”. But, yesterday I’ve read a sutta (can’t remember the exact one) that talks about the five hindrances: in these, the five kinds of sensual stimulation (e.g sounds likable by the ear) are included.
After reading that sutta, now I feel like, “okay, what am I doing now? shall I stop listening to music, or shall I continue?” The reason why I find this delicate is because for years I found a strong love for music, and considering to stop doing so it’s a huge task for me right now, especially when I have the intention of playing it too (just from time to time; I mix songs).
Anyway, my question is, if the Buddha was right here listening to this topic, what would be his honest answer? I’d really like to know it…
That’s it. Wishing you all the best!
To quote myself:
The Buddha taught a gradual path. Take it one step at a time. Eventually you may get to a point where meditation is satisfying and energizing enough for you that you don’t need to consume music for an emotional boost.
Maybe because this is just an instruction, like someone told you to do something. And you are not convinced.
Intellectually, you may understand the reason, the disadvantages, why Buddha said to give up music etc. But it’s hard to do, and your heart doubts it.
In my experience, I realized the danger of music when I started practicing meditation. When I tried to calm my mind and focus on the breath, all of a sudden a memory of music played in my head. It’s hard to turn that off.
Weirdly, that mind music player doesn’t turn on when I do normal daily activities. I also can’t deliberately turn it on. But when I practice meditation, sometimes it randomly turned on,playing random music from my memory. And the mind instantly got attached to it, forgetting about meditation object.
Now I still listen to music sometimes. But I feel I have less obsession with it. Enjoy the moment, but try to let it go when it end. I don’t want to program my mind to play it randomly later.
Here is a perspective that I resonate the most with:
I’ve was a non-professional musician for over 50 years. I was in an improvisational group for many years until I realized how deeply connected my sense of self was tied into making music. The ever so subtle “I’m” coming up with this riff, melody, arrangement, “my” creativity and how “I” might be seen by the group. Once I really saw that, I simply lost enthusiasm and interest in it and stopped the group. The more time goes on, the more free I feel from the pull of music. I still keep a guitar out and sometimes noodle around with it just to kind of feel feelings.
About a month ago, I passively heard “Honky Tonk Women” by the Rolling Stones and thought about how I could never figure out how Keith Richards played that. So I looked on YouTube and learned that the secret was in retuning the guitar from standard tuning to drop-D tuning. It wasn’t hard to master it, it took a few days of noodling around. I was aware the lyrics are reprehensible, so I ignored that, but the problem instantly arose because the “hook” of the song invaded my mind so relentlessly that I had to put a stop to the whole thing. It stuck with me for weeks, even in meditation, and it was awful.
I was talking with my neighbor and he was saying how the first thing he does in the morning is turn on music and he listens to it all day. That would surely drive me insane!
For more opinions about this common question, there are lots of questions and discussions on Sutta Central Discourse, Dhamma Wheel and Reddit. These sites’ search functions are very helpful.
If one unpacks AN 5.148, it is primarily about explaining how the modality of doing the deed (kamma) of gift giving relates to the quality of the subsequent result (vipaka).
This sutta should be read in conjunction with AN 9.20 (as Mkoll mentioned), DN23 (re. the rebirth of Payasi as compared to Uttara), as well as the preceeding sutta AN 5.147 .
In AN 5.148 we find the following associations: -
| giving gifts in this life | result in next life |
|---|---|
| out of faith | become attractive inspiring faith |
| carefully | subordinates want to listen to you carefully |
| at the right time | your needs are well satisfied in timely fashion |
| no strings attached | enjoy refined 5 sense stimulation |
| without damaging oneself or others (stealing) | your property doesn’t get damaged (stolen) |
Hence, IMO ‘refined sensual stimulation’ can also be understood in the added sense of ‘without strings attached’.
Having been reborn as a rich, affluent and wealthy person on the strength of the karma of gift giving it is but natural that they will have access to the very best that life has to offer in terms of sensual pleasures. They enjoy those pleasures.. but they are not hooked onto them. IMO - its an Abundance mindset.
This also ties in with the Buddha’s teaching in another sutta (MN 66) where gentlemen from a good Family find it easier to renounce their wealth for the ascetic life as compared to a poor person with few belongings (just a broken down hovel and a single wifey)…. shades of Maslow’s hierarchy?! 
How can you use this sutta wisely? Well, only you can answer that question but here are my two pennies anyway…. 
**********************************************************************************
See the beauty in giving. Give… give freely of your gift of music. Use it to uplift the hearts of others, to relieve them of their cares… and allow music to do the same for you! As you walk the Path, the day will come when you will transcend what you hold so dearly now… but it cannot be forced to appear. Be content - don’t push, don’t hold back (AN 6.55) … let the melody of your life materialize spontaneously. 
What about attachment to quiet, stilness, peace?
I wonder if other (ex?) music lovers will agree with this – I find that the enjoyment of music really requires getting “caught up in features and details” of the sound, so it is maybe impossible to enjoy music and practice “guarding the sense doors” at the same time.
My favorite music usually includes some type of vocal harmony, but to really perceive the harmony and get a big hit of dopamine, my mind has to really attend to that particular feature of the sound in the song.
On the other hand, when I perceive music to be bland or uninteresting, oftentimes I (literally) can’t even hear it after some time. It’s like my mind won’t bother to create the sound-consciousness if the sound has no interesting features or details to attend to.
I think it can be useful to make the connection between music and the way its pleasure necessitates “attending to the features and details” – which is a lack of sense restraint that leads to abhijjhādomanassā, which is (afaik) the same abhijjhādomanassā that one is supposed to be free from when doing satipaṭṭhāna/mindfulness meditation.
In other words, it’s not so hard to give something up if you think that it’s going to create a lot of benefits to do so. The point of sense restraint is basically to make meditation good (see the gradual training).
But I think it can be a bad experience if it’s coming from the sort of “I’m a bad Buddhist if I listen to music” type of guilt-shame complex. If someone had that tendency I think it’s wiser to practice a lot of self-compassion. (It’s also just wise in general to practice self-compassion! 
)
So true! I think it’s more dispassion for me; I rarely choose to listen to music but if I hear it, I don’t grasp it, as often it just sounds like noise to me. Not grating, like the drone of a leafblower, but just ambient noise.
There’s a tiny super high-end jazz club in our town and last year some friends invited us to a show. I sat about five feet from the trio and really enjoyed the experience. I certainly didn’t feel like a sinner!
For sure. It’s just like how Venerable Sariputta explains “corresponding engagement” in MN 28:
Reverends, though the interior eye is intact, so long as exterior sights don’t come into range and there’s no corresponding engagement, there’s no manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness. Though the interior eye is intact and exterior sights come into range, so long as there’s no corresponding engagement, there’s no manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness. But when the interior eye is intact and exterior sights come into range and there is corresponding engagement, there is the manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.
The form produced in this way is included in the grasping aggregate of form. The feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness produced in this way are each included in the corresponding grasping aggregate.
They understand: ‘So this is how there comes to be inclusion, gathering together, and assimilation into these five grasping aggregates. But the Buddha has said: “One who sees dependent origination sees the teaching. One who sees the teaching sees dependent origination.” And these five grasping aggregates are indeed dependently originated. The desire, clinging, attraction, and attachment for these five grasping aggregates is the origin of suffering. Giving up and getting rid of desire and greed for these five grasping aggregates is the cessation of suffering.’ At this point, much has been done by that mendicant.
Though the ear … nose … tongue … body … mind is intact internally, so long as exterior ideas don’t come into range and there’s no corresponding engagement, there’s no manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.
Though the mind is intact internally and exterior ideas come into range, so long as there’s no corresponding engagement, there’s no manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness. But when the mind is intact internally and exterior ideas come into range and there is corresponding engagement, there is the manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.
The form produced in this way is included in the grasping aggregate of form. The feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness produced in this way are each included in the corresponding grasping aggregate. They understand: ‘So this is how there comes to be inclusion, gathering together, and assimilation into these five grasping aggregates.
But the Buddha has also said: “One who sees dependent origination sees the teaching. One who sees the teaching sees dependent origination.” And these five grasping aggregates are indeed dependently originated. The desire, clinging, attraction, and attachment for these five grasping aggregates is the origin of suffering. Giving up and getting rid of desire and greed for these five grasping aggregates is the cessation of suffering.’ At this point, much has been done by that mendicant.”
That’s what Venerable Sāriputta said. Satisfied, the mendicants approved what Sāriputta said.
“Singing is regarded as wailing in the training of the Noble One. Dancing is regarded as madness. Too much laughter, showing the teeth, is regarded as childish.
A person with the disease of rāga manifests it outwardly through singing and enjoyment. People with the same disease who hear it are delighted; some even take that disease as their profession. But the Buddha said that singing is the crying sound of a person afflicted with rāga. When it shows its poison through dancing, wiggling eyebrows, shrugging shoulders, lifting feet and hands, tossing the head and tail — acting like someone possessed by a spirit — the Buddha said that is the behavior of a mad person.
Yet people with the same disease find it amusing and laugh heartily. Sometimes they even pay money to watch that laughter — which is one symptom of the disease of rāga. The Buddha said that behavior is like that of an infant.
These are wise attachments to have.
I see this topic has been solved, but it looks like there have been more additions, so please allow me to add this.
For me, something happened a few years ago. I was at a concert and somehow I suddenly perceived the sameness of it.
I was trained to sing in the classical, jazz and modern styles. I enjoyed almost all types of music, except ‘dubstep’, it’s a bit too much for me. But, I loved all different styles. Bach, Mozart, Religious Choral (some of the most moving music), Zydeco, Etta James, Granna Louise, Pink Floyd, Madonna, Prince, Lil’ Kim…the list is endless and varied. I felt the music and the expression of the bands.
At that concert, I realized, I’d seen all of these people before. I’d seen the drunk girl who was wearing too little and dancing too hard, I’d seen the older man who was ‘just there for the tunes’, I’d seen the ‘local guy who always comes to the Friday night concerts’, I’d seen the wallflower who wants to engage but doesn’t know how, I’d seen the same group of college guys, and the same group of college girls…Then while I was listening to the music I realized I’d heard it before too. I’d seen the band, the instruments, the rugs, the hats, the tiredness of performing the same music night after night.
At some point after that, all music kind of started melding together. I’d hear a rap song and it would morph into Mozart. Or I’d hear some Zydaco and it would morph into soul music. I’d hear some blues that would morph into a hamburger commercial. That was when I realized, all music has been played. There are a finite number of combinations that can be made, and there are only so many words that can be spoken.
This is what happened for me with music, and with television as well. But, I 100% agree with Erika_ODonnell: You’re not a ‘bad Buddhist’ if you listen to music. It’s just not your time yet to do something different.
Much peace and ease