[Buddha-l] buddhist music

[Michael Wilson]

--- On Fri, 2005-04-29 at 15:36 -0700, Michael Wilson
wrote:

> My guru Richard wrote:

"Good grief, Michael!"


- Don't kid yourself, Dr. Hayes, you are the heaviest
cyber sangha head honcho (ok maybe you don't like the
label guru) that I know of. And alas, who I thought
was my main guru has gone on to the great on beyond
Zebra.

"I don't know how something can sound ancient..."

- I read that an emperor's tomb in China was dug up
dating back to 2000 BC.  On the walls were discovered
musical notation for a kind of harp string instrument,
precursor of the piano.  From this notation the
"ancient" music of some 4,000 years ago could be
played again!  My brother envies that.  An Irish
harpist, he has been trying to find any musical
notation recorded for celtic harp before the 18th
century.  Apparently volumes upon volumes of this
music - once the delight of kings, queens, poets and
aristocrats - was never written down.

"Some apparently expect to find beauty in Buddhist
chanting, or find it even if they don't seek it.
Beauty seems to me an oddball thing to be 
seeking in Buddhism, which, as I understand it, is all
about getting over attachment to sensual pleasures, to
ideologies and to all the various
things that prop up unwholesome senses of self."

- Exactly, and if a buddha were living in a time when
music was leading to too much indulgence in sensual
pleasures - leading to various unwholesome sufferings
- he would either have prescribed a music that was the
antithesis or have ruled that kind of music not be
allowed for the practitioners.  Unless they found ways
to score music that was condusive to meditation, and I
am sure Phillip Glass has been sniffing down that
alley for some time.  


Michael J



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com