Discussed on Sunday, August 28, 2005

“Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.”

Music comes in many moods: sunny major keys, gloomy minor keys and many other flavors in between. Some musical instruments are naturally happy while others have a somber timbre. Each will find its own audiences in response to their likes and dislikes.

For example, the Chinese urhu (ur-hu), a two-string instrument played with a string bow, has a natural sad bitter tone but can produce very moving music. It is a melancholy instrument by nature although it can be used to play cheery tunes. Urhu was a favorite instrument for blind street-musicians in China. Some suggested that it is not a very suitable instrument to play exclusively, especially if one does not have happier diversions. It creates a depressive atmosphere unhealthy to the mind.

The Buddha taught us to cultivate a cheery and serene inner life. It is important to create a peaceful and joyous environment inside and out. Nurture is just as important as nature, sometimes even more so.

For example, some cultural traditions dictate widows to wear black for the rest of their lives. It is a rather repressive and inhumane practice, also damaging to mental health. No one should be condemned to such a dreary existence for the rest of one’s life. Along the same vein, teenagers should not listen predominantly to raucous or sad music. And violent video games are potentially harmful.

We know that children growing up in a happy, cheery, safe and secure environment tend to have higher self-esteem and confidence. Of course, more than just protecting and nurturing children, they need to be taught to discern right from wrong.

A distinction should be made between “guilt” and “shame”. When one has done something wrong and hurtful, one should feel guilty and make an effort to change and make reparations. However, sometimes children feel “shamed” for something they have no influence or control, and this is very unhealthy. For example, children easily feel ashamed for the poverty of their family, their physical handicaps, abuse by others or for their parent’s problems, etc. It is not their fault and they should be taught to understand that this kind of “shame” is unwarranted.

From the Buddhist perspective, even “remorse” is an unhealthy mental state when it casts a constant shadow in one’s life. One should deal with the problem and then move on! Unfortunately, many religions and parents use “guilt” and “shame” indiscriminately. Fear is another negative mental energy that is easily manipulated by some religions, politicians, and parents to control others. The threats of hell fire and brimstone have no place in Buddhist teachings.

Instead of fear and shame, one should learn to be a critical thinker, to discern cause and effect. In Buddhism, wholesome actions are those free from craving (lust), ill will (hatred) and self-delusion (ignorance). Wholesome action begets wholesome result, and unwholesome action begets unwholesome results.

Each human being is a bundle of life-force energy vibrating with infinitely complex overtones and frequencies similar to the harmonics of tones. Some vibrations are positive, such as the feelings of joy, friendliness, kindness and compassion. Other vibrations are negative, such as anger, sadness, lust, hatred and hostility.

All Buddhas taught purification of the mind. It is important to amplify the positive energy and remove the negative energy. Metta meditation is a rudimentary practice for all Buddhist, to cultivate an intimate experience and the constant presence of loving-kindness, of friendliness. This is the base for further meditation training, including living in the moment. When practicing metta meditation, it is important to “feel” kindness vibrating in every part of the body.

Each human being is a unique vibrating life force. Each will resonate with similar forces. As the saying goes: birds of a feather flock together. People gravitate towards those with similar frequencies: i.e. similar taste, interest, preferences, values, etc. One can be more or less judged by the company that one chooses to keep. It is how cliques are formed. Thus all religions sooner or later split into sects, and all nations have conflicting political views from opposing political parties.

Karma means action. Individual choices aggregate into collective choices. People “deserve” the government they get because the community as a whole accepted a decision based on collective preferences. Unfortunately, the minority who objected to certain choices will suffer the consequence just the same. Nevertheless everyone must do one’s share to make a positive change to improve the world even when the action seems useless.

For example, there was a time everyone accepted secondhand smoke as inevitable. It takes many years for some activists and communities to change this wrong perception. Now smokers must smoke outdoor. Hopefully one day they will give up the addiction all together. Similarly, we must fight all kinds of injustice and prejudice based on gender, race, sexual preferences, age, etc.

The question of karmic justice always comes up. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are some children born with certain physical defects or born into a dysfunctional family? Why are peace-loving people forced to fight invaders and die for their country? Why do hurricanes and tsunami destroy good and bad people indiscriminately?

From the Buddhist perspective, the so-called karmic justice should not be seen as retribution or punishment for bad deeds. Karmic consequence must be understood through the concept of Conditioned Origination (Dependent Co-Arising), the natural law of existence.

People who strengthen their positive energy will gravitate towards positive environment, and conversely those with negative energy will be attracted to negative vibes. Good things tend to happen with good vibes and bad things tend to happen with bad vibes. If one is prone to greed, lust, anger, hatred and delusion, bad things tend to follow. If one is kind, friendly, compassionate, joyful, discerning, good things tend to follow. This is how karmic justice works.

Positive and negative conditions alike can take a long time to mature and reach fruition. A rich man with a beautiful seaside villa might enjoy this luxury for years and even generations. However, few will notice the Teutonic plate below the earth’s crust is shifting all the time and might erupt into a strong earthquake and tsunami at any moment, destroying everything in split seconds. Our human perception of time is too limited to see the true reality of life and complexities of conditions. We must learn to see cause and effect of actions with a longer time span and from all angles.

For human beings, as an ever-changing bundle of life energy, in reality there is no birth and no death. Nothing is created, nothing annihilated. All are merely shifting conditions. One could regard the momentary existence as a series of births and deaths, or rebirths. Ours is an unstable existence, driven by urges, desires and delusions. Our existence requires continuous sustenance, feeding the five body-mind aggregates with four types of nutriment required for survival. The process of feeding goes on all the time. We need to practice mindfulness of the moment and act accordingly. While one develops full awareness of the moment in meditation by detaching the mind from the past and future, in everyday living we must pay attention to cause and effect that develop “in time”.

The Buddha’s teachings focus on human suffering and the ending of suffering. Period. This teaching is therapeutic in the ultimate sense, i.e. to get out of the cycles of rebirth. The Buddha proclaimed that there is a “deathless” state. It is timeless. Nirvana is the result of purging all unwholesome mental conditions, the negative vibrations of greed, lust, anger, hatred, fear, confusion, ego, etc. When there is no more negative condition how can bad things happen? The cultivation of wisdom, a direct insight, is the only way to reach the deathless state.

Bhikku Bodhi wrote in the introduction of “The Numeric Discourse of the Buddha – the Anguttara Nikaya” the cultivation of wisdom. Here is the passage from the book (page 11-12):

......"The systematic training designed by the Buddha to nourish the growth of wisdom is called vipassana-bhavana, the development of insight (14, 72). While the texts recognize the possibility of attaining insight first and then developing tranquility afterwards (72, 83), the classical paradigm of the path treats tranquility as the foundation for insight. Thus a med­itator intent on following the path to its consummation first masters the practice of concentration to a degree sufficient to make the mind calm and unified. Then, with a still, luminous mind, he or she attends mind­fully to the field of immediate experience, beginning with the body (11). As mindfulness becomes sharper and clearer the meditator learns to distinguish the five aggregates: matter or physical form (rupa); feeling (vedana), the affective tone of experience, either pleasant, painful or neu­tral; perception (sanna), the factor responsible for noting, distinguishing and recognition; volitional formations (sankhara), the intentional aspect of mental activity; and consciousness (vinnana), the basic awareness operating through the senses. The meditator attends to these five aggre­gates as they arise and pass away (59), thereby uncovering the mark of impermanence (anicca). The insight into impermanence brings the real­ization that the aggregates, being unstable and constantly disintegrating, are really concealed forms of suffering (dukkha). And whatever is imper­manent and suffering cannot be identified as a truly existent self. Thus when rightly viewed the five aggregates, which we cherish as "I" and "mine", are seen as "not mine, not I, not my self" (anatta).

Impermanence, suffering and non-self are, for the Buddha, the three universal characteristics of phenomena (48). The three are inextricably interwoven, and insight into one leads naturally to the others (142 §§5-7). To contemplate them deeply is the essence of insight meditation, the knowledge and vision of things as they really are (138-40). As the knowl­edge born of insight penetrates to deeper and deeper levels, it engenders a profound revulsion towards conditioned existence (nibbida). The mind turns away from all the formations (sankhara) comprised within the five aggregates, which are seen as "a disease, a boil, a dart". Instead, it focuses upon the deathless element, Nibbana, perceived as the only true security and peace. This revulsion blossoms in dispassion (virago), the fading away of lust and craving, and dispassion in turn culminates in lib­eration (vimutti), the mind's release from all fetters (128, 182, 183)." ......
[The numbers in brackets refer to the suttas in this anthology.]