Media with dark subject matter?

pyramidsong

Hi all, haven't been around for a while but lately I've felt reconnected to discovering a spiritual path, so am back.

Anyway, lifestyle-wise I do ok- I don't drink, smoke, or take drugs. I exercise and I eat a diet that is 100% vegetarian and about, oh, 90% vegan. I've cut back on ego-boosting, negativity, sarcasm, falsehood and gossip. Still working on caffeine and sugar, but hey.

One thing I am wondering though is about the media I consume. I love movies (these days I don't tend to watch much stuff that is disturbing or violent, and am losing interest in mean-spirited humour and empty reality-show stuff and celebrity tabloid tv) and music. I mostly listen to indie rock and folk, but my absolute favourite piece of music is the opera Don Giovanni. I've loved it since I was a kid (I'm 33) and I can't get enough of it. Musically it is sublime. But it is very dark subject matter (guy is a complete jerk to everyone around him- lies to and cheats on women, treats his servant like trash, kills a guy, refuses to atone or feel remorse and is ultimately sent to hell). Is it damaging to continue listen to/watch it? It's my absolute favourite and I really can't see myself giving it up!

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Jeffrey

I like Indie rock and folk too. Just keep practicing and absorbing buddhist teahings.. The voice that tells you "I can't give this up".. is totally false. That much I can tell you. However it is your choice what music to listen to. If you discover something wrong with it your insight will make it less appealing to you and for awhile you will habitually still listen. But its like that bread or milk that is 'still good' eventually you get up and there is mold or sour and you spit it out. Not saying that spitting out will happen with this thing or if it's that much of a problem in your life. I was thinking about the Godfather movie series this week it was coming up in my meditation.. So the moral is I guess even if you give it up it will still come back to plague you in your meditations years from now! :rarr:

Invincible_summer

Practicing Buddhism doesn't mean one has to have no pleasures in life whatsoever. However, it does mean that one should be aware that they are just preferences and impermanent. In other words, don't be too attached to it or let it guide your actions.

Lady_Alison

I'm glad this was posted I have been dying to television the past year. Idk why but now I don't recognize celebrities in the tabloids...good sign.

Ask yourself why you like it? Is it culture?

I love shakespear and jane austen even if it plays on the passions but they are literary classics.

It comes down to what is your intention?

I doubt it will corrupt you.

Zero

Time is precious... upload to ipod and multitask...

There are worse things out there than Don Giovanni... as long as you lead a balanced life with interests and activities other than Don Giovanni then you should be alright...

ThailandTom

That sounds great that you have 'upped the anti' in your spiritual life style. Although I would like to just quickly point one thing out that has stuck me in this moment. I remember something that the Buddha is meant to have said. He stated that one should not find any sight pleasing, but also not to find any sight disgusting. He went on to to speak in a similar fashion for the other 4 senses of the body. Maybe a part of deveolping your spiritual life is not to shun yourself away from such things, but to accept them for what they are and be 'middle way'd' about them (which is not even a real phrase), but anyway you may get what I am trying to say.

aura

It is a magnificent opera, a morality tale,
and the 18th century equivalent of Fosse's self-incriminating "All That Jazz,"
which I would also recommend.
Can you sing any of it?
If you might yourself suffer the issues of either tale, it might help to remember
that when anyone will do...
what's missing
is you.

DaltheJigsaw

In my opinion, as long as you are mindful of what you are listening to, then that would be the first step. I suggest you start there and see what happens.

pyramidsong

Thanks, guys. Some thought-provoking responses here.

Lady_Alison, I just like the music. It's so beautiful.

Aura, I can't sing any of it *well*. But I can and do sing along to the songs. I'm learning Italian and French because of my interest in opera and it's beautiful seeing my understanding of the pieces unfold as I start to understand the language. I don't see it as a destructive force in my life but I probably am a bit attached to the enjoyment of it, yes. I guess I'll just keep up mindfulness practice and see what happens.

Cinorjer

I agree with the posters that a morality tale like this isn't a problem. It's just a story set to music. The guide I've found over the years for myself is, if it makes me uncomfortable to watch or listen to, then I avoid being exposed to it. Nothing of great significance beyond that. My wife, for instance, loves horror movies, the bloodier and more screaming in them the better. My grown daughter loves rap music filled with what seems to be an attitude that women are sluts. I avoid both, because it upsets me. No big deal.

aura

Aura, I can't sing any of it *well*. But I can and do sing along to the songs. I'm learning Italian and French because of my interest in opera and it's beautiful seeing my understanding of the pieces unfold as I start to understand the language. I don't see it as a destructive force in my life but I probably am a bit attached to the enjoyment of it, yes. I guess I'll just keep up mindfulness practice and see what happens.

Opera is intense exercise, and not generally something that people do as much for sheer personal enjoyment as much as it is done to practice an extremely demanding physical skill for the benefit of self and community.
(OK, maybe none of us sing it well enough to be anything more than members of the international "Nessun Dorma sung in tile showers society" ) but opera, well presented, can move personal karmic issues and their associated toxic emotions up into awareness and processing by the consciousness of an audience faster than psychotherapy or personal argument. It is an extremely healing thing that helps people contemplate life's lessons without having to experience the suffering of a lifetime to witness them.

Case in point: Les Miserables

pyramidsong

Wow, I never thought about it like that! It's true, it's impossible almost to listen "casually" the way we can with other music genres, as it heightens the emotions and sometimes (for me anyway) results in even a drug-like or trance-like state. Never thought about it as meditative before, though, or healing. That's really cool.

aura

I was confronted by a clinical psychologist in the audience after a children's theatre show I had produced. Nothing phases the man; he has literally seen it all in the course of his work. I asked him how was the show.
He said that he was completely awestruck...
because in the course of the show that audience had been laughing, and crying, and hugging, joyous, fearful, grateful for life and holding their children close, and that they were all hugging and talking with each other about it all through intermission and after it was over, and he asked me how it was possible to achieve that...
when hour after hour, day after day, year after year patients endlessly sat in his office
exactly because they couldn't laugh, they couldn't cry, they couldn't hug, they couldn't hold their children close, and they couldn't communicate with one another, not even those closest to them.
"Do you realize what this does for people in this community? It is effective therapy! It benefits the entire community! How is this possible?" he asked.
Such is the power of music.
Such is the power of music.
Such is the power of music.
You strike the right vibrations, you strike the right tonals, and you will move that energy. Human beings are patterns of vibration you see...
their bodies, their histories, their issues... arise and fall and all as patterns of vibration...
and you can hit those vibrations, those tonals, those resonant frequencies...
and you can help them move their stagnant energy up into their conscious mind...
and you can help them heal.
Such is the power of music.
Close your eyes and mindfully observe where it resonates the human body...
and its connection to its issues, past, present, and karmic... see how that vibration moves those connections?
Close your eyes and mindfully observe where it resonates...
You'll see.
Here, try this one:

feel that resonance at the high heart and down the back of the throat?
that resonates truth on the human body
guardi le stelle..... look at the stars...
he knows the truth... and because he knows the truth, he will win back his life that was forfeit...
and so do you know the truth
guardi le stelle.

Dakini

It's the music you're getting off on, right? There's music from certain operas that I love, and I have no idea what the opera's actually about. But the music soars! So...what's the problem? enjoy

pyramidsong

Funny you mention "looking at the stars", Aura- last night I was listening to this:



Dakini- yep. The subject matter is almost beside the point. It's all about the music. In the Don G overture, for example, there's a bit at about 3min in where the strings go nuts. The things that does to me...

aura

Yes, of course...
the strings...
you feel that vibration, that resonance,
and it resonates and brings your heart wound up to consciousness.
A curse?
No.
A gift.
To help heal you.
To help you learn to use the gift to help heal others.
You'll see.

As for that heart wound...
people do not know how to love, you see...
not themselves
nor anyone else
it is what we all came here to this life to learn...
to resolve our karma and our ignorance.
It is a slow process.
mettta

pyramidsong

Beautiful words, aura. Thank you.

Lady_Alison

@aura I can't understand what andrea is singing but when he goes into the chorus I feel a cool vibration or brain goosebumps...also on the limbs of arms and legs that cause physical goosebumps.

I have always wondered why I got these feelings ...almost physical manifestations.

Thank you .

Zero

I feel a cool vibration or brain goosebumps...also on the limbs of arms and legs that cause physical goosebumps.
I have always wondered why I got these feelings ...almost physical manifestations.

Thank your hypothalamus...

aura

It occurred to me that perhaps you might not be familiar with the singing bowls,
traditional meditation tools of Buddhism which are likewise based on the phenomenon of harmonically resonating and raising the consciousness: