Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Monks Against Music?
MindGate
United States Veteran
The 7th precept says that monks can't listen to music. Whyyy? 
0
Comments
Same as all other precepts.
Try meditating when your head is full of guilty thoughts about having harmed other living beings, having stolen something etc...
Try meditating with the annoying music stucked in your head.
Prevent all the attention and time spent on planning any of theses activities, defending them (lying to protect himself), justifying them etc..
The point is to reduce the distractions to a minimum so the monk can focus as much of his attention and efforts as possible on his meditation.
The food many monks eat generally isn't of the sort that encourages attachment (gourmet foods, sweets, and the like). Usually it's extremely simple fare.
attachments are sources of distractions.
the key is in reducing distractions as much as possible. Not completely eliminating them as it would be virtually impossible.
Thank you, MindGate, for a good topic.
Here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/13/134455191/buddhist-nun-shares-the-sound-of-music
I have listened to some of her music and I find it lovely and moving and helpful to my practice.
Perhaps there's a point to be made, as patbb said, in avoiding distractions. But...distractions from what? Well-chosen music can enhance one's practice, I think, rather than distract from it. Oh well--this is an argument that will probably not get anywhere. :-/
Or you're going about you're chores and you hear music, and you look over the monastery wall and there's a drummer and a couple of other musicians and some guys dancing, and they seem to have all the slick moves and you wish you had those moves.
Or you look over the monastery wall and WHOA NELLY! THOSE ARE GIRLS! Abhi, Parin, come here! Look at the dancing girls! OMG! Look.....at.....that.....move!!! Whoooooooaaaaaaa! What? No sir! No sir! We're not looking at the girls, we're listening to the music! Yes sir! Right away sir! It's just that they are very skillful. We're not looking at them because they are girls! Abhi, look at the girl on the left. I think she's looking at me! Yes sir! Immediately! As soon as they finish this dance!
If this goes on for a while the people in the neighborhood start commenting that the holy life seems to involve watching a lot of entertainments and monks seem to have a lot of spare time for things other people don't have time for.
So, no music, dance, or grotesque mime.
see how it could possibly be harmful.
It just a harmless enjoyable activity.
But once again, its about creating the best condition for meditation.
Try no music for a few days and meditate, see if it works for you.
If there IS any music played while I meditate it is almost always something very quiet and very ambient without any lyrics. The only songs I may listen to with lyrics are not songs at all, but rather varied chants.
You need some time to 'detox'.
IMO you're starting to split hairs.
what about monks that sing mantras?!
Good question. I dont know. Is chanting music?
In meditation I read that the left hand is held cradling the right in a typical mudra. But the buddha is depicted cradling the left hand in the right.
As a lay person not much, but for monks and nuns, yes. They live a very different life and the monks/nuns that practice properly will not need to listen to music, let alone try to prevent themselves from doing so.
The food side to this discussion is pretty silly, food is essential, music is not. Monks eat very little and a lot of them live long long lives. To me, this shows a healthy mind is more beneficial than a healthy body.
Going back to the 7th precept, the buddha stated that some people he came ac ross should remain as lay people and keep the 5 precepts, this is down to mental disposition, and others are mentally equipped for the way of the monk, and have many more precepts.
Now they do chant because it is music that teaches and makes them remember the Dhamma, so that changes the goal of music. It's not about sensual pleasure anymore, but about the mind. In some traditions they also have instruments to do the same thing.
Nothing wrong with enjoying the sun if and when it shine; there is something wrong about craving for the sun if and when it doesn't shine.
Sometimes we have to give up things, but if we are too attached and identify with them, it may be very difficult.
For example, if someone had identified himself with dancing (dancing is my life, it's who i am), if that person would have any injury that would permanently prevent him/her from doing this activity, this person will suffer greatly.
Perhaps this is a good opportunity to realize that we are not the activities that we partake in. we are not our habits/cravings etc...
- but giving music up wholesale is just not who I am.
- but giving jogging up wholesale is just not who I am.
- but giving smoking pot up wholesale is just not who I am.
- but giving playing video games up wholesale is just not who I am.
- but giving dancing up wholesale is just not who I am.
- but giving sun bathing up wholesale is just not who I am.
- but giving eating meat up wholesale is just not who I am.
- but giving hunting up wholesale is just not who I am.
Hyperbole to illustrate the point.
What is the monastic path for?
Unshakeable deliverance of the heart.
Your immediate response to my statement as being one aimed at belittling you is saddening. I am simply illustrating what I consider to be the rationale behind the monastic path. They are sacrificing the candy to save their lives: to awaken to the Deathless.
It's not about ripping out pleasure. It's about reaching more refined levels of peace and contentment, until the Deathless is witnessed.
Music is a really blatantly transient contentment based on my own experience, though. I prefer the contentment of reading Dhamma. Feels better for me.
Then again I plan on bhikkhu ordination, so I'm not very much like you, I suppose.
The Old Testament codes of law are only comparable to the bhikkhu Patimokkha by the fact that they are codes of discipline: that is a most tenuous connection. Even if a bhikkhu were to flagrantly violate all four of the Parajika (the defeating offenses), the punishment is to be expelled from the Sangha, not physically harmed in any way. Furthermore, the Patimokkha rules are voluntarily undertaken by the bhikkhu: they are not a set of moral commandments for the entire society.
There's a line about the Buddha from the Katthaharaka Sutta ( http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn07/sn07.018.than.html ) in Thanissaro Bhikkhu's translation that reads: "Where no song is sung, where no music is played, alone in the wilderness: the forest-dwelling sage. This looks amazing to me — that you live alone in the forest with rapturous mind."
Then there's the Visakhuposatha Sutta ( http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.043.khan.html ): "For all their lives the arahants refrain from dancing, singing, music, going to see entertainments, wearing garments, smartening with perfumes and beautifying with cosmetics; so today I refrain from dancing, singing, music, going to see entertainments, wearing ornaments, smartening with perfumes and beautifying with cosmetics. By this practice, following after the arahants, the Uposatha will be entered on by me."
It happened by itself.
thanks. Katthaharaka Sutta seems more about a description of the wilderness.
With listening to music, I try to be mindful when doing so by focussing on what is happening with the music moment by moment and not (as is so common these days) hearing the music as a background to some other activity (as opposed to actually listening). Listening mindfully can be a satisfactory practice in itself and reveal musical delights previously missed. Its well worth trying (assuming you are not planning on monasticism).