The Song of Life

Carl

hmmm...


something tells me that I need to ask you what Tao Master you are referring to. Are you in some sort of Tao religion or some sort?

Carl

Isn't it curious how everyone loves music. I've long wondered why. Currently I suspect it has to do with our lack of mindfulness in the 'eternal moment' - now! The mind is a 'big space' roaming between an illusionary 'past' and 'future'. Music pulls it into a 'tidy corner' of the moment,... momentarily. The downside of music's 'corner' is that it is but a tiny, if 'tidy', corner of the whole 'eternal moment'. There is a world of [chref=1]mystery[/chref] beyond music which can't be heard if we turn to music's corner for refuge. Simply said, [chref=12]the five tones make man's ears deaf[/chref] (五音令人耳聋). Opps, I forgot; it is that [chref=6]mysterious[/chref] 'big space' that drives us into the corner in the first place. Ah, sucks. I guess, to put it another way, lack of [chref=44]contentment[/chref] drives us to desire, [chref=37]desire[/chref] drives us to leave the 'here and now'. Difficulty in being 'here and now' makes us less [chref=46]content[/chref], which... It is like a dog chasing its tail. Ohhh... I'm getting dizzy. :roll:

Lynn Cornish

I've thought about why I love music so much. I thought maybe it's because it measures out the moments; once a note is gone, it's gone and here comes another note right behind it, oh that's gone and so on. There's no reverse. When I listen to a band rehearsing and a wrong note is hit, there's no going back, no regrets, just keep the song moving forward....putting notes out into the universe and letting them go, not trying to "keep" them, possess them. There's a fluidity that is like life itself. The breath.

I think that's why music is so comforting. It keeps you in the moment. A nice cozy moment, maybe just part of the 'big space', but better than spinning off in your head discursively.

Wait...isn't all contact with the big space in a tiny moment?

What do you think?

Carl

[cite] Lynn Cornish:[/cite]What do you think?

Are you sure you want to ask me that... well, okay then...

I see humanity’s universal attraction to music as a symptom of something we are either lacking (or full of). Attraction is emptiness’s pull (nature abhors a vacuum), while I suppose repulsion is fullness’s push. When we are hungry, we are attracted to food. When we are contentedly full (balanced), we aren’t. When we feel stuffed, we go on a diet.

If music eases chaotic thoughts and bring us a sense of balance we will listen to it. If our mind is just ‘empty’ and we feel disconcerted, we will listen. If our mind is empty yet we feel balanced we won’t. If our mind feels stuffed, we may listen to music to ‘empty it’.

If we feel lonely or melancholy we’ll listen; music can be a companion with which we share the void. If we feel socially packed we’ll listen to music to escape perhaps, or as a means to be on the same wave length with everyone else, like music at a party.

That covers a few possible causes of our attraction to music. There is also the social bonding role – people drawn to the same music is a milder version of people drawn to the same ‘god’. And, how about our mind’s need for organization. Music organizes sound into a handful of discrete pitches arranged in an artistic order which helps fulfill one’s need for order, and in the process [chref=12]deafens[/chref] us to the rest. I’ve got to stop thinking now or I’ll just think up other needs which music fills. Then my mind will feel stuffed and I’ll have to go listen to music to replace thoughts with simple melodies.

As heretical as this sounds, music is not the wondrous phenomenon we believe it to be. Like other symptoms of human ‘deficiency’ or ‘surplus’, we praise music as one of our ‘superior qualities’. Of course, by ‘deficiency’ I mean an inner void we all share that needs to be filled, one way or the other. And by ‘surplus’ I mean the complicated convoluted thinking our mind can spiral into.

There now. Aren’t you glad you asked? And keep in mind, as always, I'm just speculating. As to “big” and “tiny”: They don’t exist ‘now’; they are companions of ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Lynn Cornish

So we agree...music makes us feel more comfortable.

I think music is a replacement for our mother's heartbeat that we heard when we were in the womb. lub blub lub blub lub blub. Say that to yourself 10 times and see how you calm down? Mommy! :roll:

Carl

Why sure! After all agreement is closer to truth than disagreement (re: correlations). The tempo of music's beat exists in the neighborhood of our heart rate which probably indicates a link, either to in utero, or ongoing, or both.

But why the intense emotional grab rhythm has upon us? I suspect it has much more to do with 'now' than any past experience. Rhythm gives the mind and emotion something to grab onto instead of falling into facing [chref=41]the great image has no shape[/chref].

Oh, it just occurred to me that my speaking 'ill' of music, can be interpreted as saying that music is '[chref=2]bad[/chref]'. But, I'm not really speaking 'ill' of music. I'm just poking around in wonderment why we are so drawn to it.

Lynn Cornish

Re speaking ill of music, I think that if music is used to escape reality then it can be said to be decreasing awareness and if we want to wake up, music used that way puts us to sleep. But it's all relative: if music calms the savage beast that's "good" when you have savage beasts running around. On the other hand, if it's your savage beast, the best thing is to face it head on and see what it's all about rather than calming it down from outside.

I'm starting to go in circles here.

Carl

[cite] Lynn Cornish:[/cite]I'm starting to go in circles here.

I recall how my young sons would run round and round the table. It seemed almost that was their way of getting drunk. Why do we desire to get drunk - to escape reality or return to it?

And what best describes reality, a straight line or a circle? So, perhaps going in a circle is a way back to reality.