Manas, the Monkey Mind, and the Fall of the Album

 

By Rob Argent

 

When I was at school, my extracurricular activities were limited in the evenings, especially when the nights turned cold and the idea of wandering around or playing football lost its appeal.

There was TV, but I had to watch whatever my parents were watching. There was homework, but come on. And there was the pile of books, magazines, video games and albums that I accumulated over the years through painstaking household chores (okay, maybe the chores weren’t that bad).

For some reason, listening to albums over and over was always more preferable to me than endlessly rerunning films or rereading books, so each night I would pick an album and sit diligently next to my stereo and listen to every second of whatever was on rotation that evening. Sometimes it would be a mellow classic like Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks; something new and have a such as Tool’s Lateralus. But no matter what it was, I took the time to just be present with the music, no distractions.

Nowadays, it’s much easier to get new music quicker, so you don’t have to wait to go to the shop to add to your collection.

And with playlists and phones with sizable memory, you never have to debate which album is leaving the house with you—they all are. We’re being overwhelmed by our own choosing, and this is what leads us to a short attention span and a lack of focus. Being able to focus is a key part of our practise, leading us into calmness, insight, and ultimately liberation.

The Buddha taught that the use of right mindfulness (or sati) required being attentive to the present moment—if in doubt, get on the cushion and return to your breath. The peace and self-control that arises from this practise in turn helps us to see more clearly into the true nature of reality; impermanence, suffering and the understanding of no self are revealed and their hold on us is diminished.

This ability to stay focused is an essential tool that transforms us.

Instead of being caught up in the past (for example “why was the last At The Drive-In album just not that good?”) or the future (“please let the next At The Drive-In album be good!”), we can sit comfortably in the present (“I’m just glad that At The Drive-In are a band and I’m happy with some of their music, but not all of it”).

Staying in the here and now illuminates what is around us, and also what’s going on inside us, right here and now. We can observe what thoughts are coming up, along with the emotions they inspire and what habits develop with them. Over time our concentration span grows from this practise, giving us the ability to see things as they truly are and not what we want, or fear, them to be.

Now, I’m not a fan of people who say that listening intently to music is their form of meditation—what they’ve done there is confused listening to music with actual meditation! But when you’re not on the cushion, why not bring a little of that insight and determination into your enjoyment of music? Playing an album from front to back, start to finish, will make you listen to the songs that you might usually skip, and you’ll have to listen to it in the order that the artist intended, but is any of this a bad thing?

Maybe we get what we need when we don’t get what we want…

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

Did you like this post? You may also like:

The Surreal Life of Mind: Using Music to Remember Who You Are

Enlightened Playlists, or Why Listening to Albums is Good for You

 

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