Music and Buddhist Monastics

Absence of sound is not the end of hearing,

And sound when present is not its beginning. 

- The Śūraṅgama Sūtra

The denial of the value of music in the Vinaya

In the Vinaya, the part of the Buddhist scriptural canon that regulates the conduct of monastics, the performance, enjoyment, and teaching of music is prohibited. The seventh precept of the dasa-sīla (ten precepts) forbids the monastic member to participate in or enjoy music. A term as vast as the contemporary English word music—a term that encompasses a wide range of sonic practices—did not exist in ancient India. Many forms of musical practices available today were not present at the time of the Buddha. We can, therefore, only speculate about how Śākyamuni would judge many of the cultural practices that today are called music. We do not know how Śākyamuni would react upon hearing the subtle, poetic music of someone like John Cage. As the terms for musical activities in India were much more narrow than our English term music, we should not be too quick to assume that the Vinaya bans everything we today refer to as music. As we will see in this text, a closer reading of the Vinaya suggests that the main target of the mahāmuni's (the great silent one—a telling epithet for the Buddha) ban on music seems to be music that we today specifically might call entertainment music. In Sanskrit, the term viśoka appears in conjunction with the banning of music, and this word has the literal meaning of being something happy and free from grief (Liu 2018).

The prohibition of music in the Vinaya does not, however, ban the melodious chanting of Buddhist liturgy—which in today’s English would fall under the wide term music. As Paul D. Greene and Li Wei (2004) write in connection to Southeast Asian Buddhism:  

"In the settings of Theravāda Buddhism, it is common to deliver liturgical speech or chant in florid, music-like forms that are, for the purposes of following the seventh precept, not considered "music." " (Greene & Wei 2004, 1)

In traditional Buddhist conceptualizations of sounding aesthetic expressions, music for entertainment was thus clearly separated from music for religious purposes–i.e. chanting. This, however, did not mean that religious chanting was unregulated. Even this form of music was relegated to its appropriate contexts. It was not automatically accepted just because it used a religious text; the recitation of the prātimokṣa rules was, for example, not permitted to be recited in a melodious intonation (歌音 geyin).

In the Vinaya and its commentaries, the ban on music seems to be explained by primarily two types of arguments. The first type of argument has to do with regulating the outwardly observable behavior of monastics in order to win the support of the laity. Monks and nuns were supposed to uphold higher virtues and show supreme moral conduct. Seeing this conduct embodied by the clergy would convince the laity to support the monastics with food and material goods. The monastics had to make themselves be seen as valid recipients of such offerings so that donating to them would generate meritorious karma for the donors. Maintaining a supportive and mutually dependent social contract between monastics and the laity was thus one of the important functions of the Vinaya. It was important for monastics to clearly, and visibly,separate themselves from the laity by their outwardly observable conduct.  

An important distinction between the monastics' conduct and the laities' was that monastics were to refrain from sense pleasures. In the Pāli Vinaya, one case story describes a group of nuns attending an arts festival. Upon arriving, they receive criticism from a lay audience member asking: "How can nuns come to see dancing (naccam), and singing (gītam), and music (vāditam), like women householders who enjoy pleasures of the senses?" (Liu 2018) The mahāmuni heard of cases such as these, with the direct result being a ban on instrumental music (伎樂 jiyue) and song (歌 ge) (Liu 2018). Similar case stories appear in the Chinese translations of the Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, and Mahāsāṃghika-Vinayas. Followers of the Buddhist path are supposed to work towards becoming free from attachment to sense pleasures and entertainment; being seen playing or listening to music drew harsh criticism and disappointment from the laity that supported them.

Yet, delivering the liturgy and sermons in a melodious voice was not a problem for the laity. Sources like the Sapoduo bu pini modelejia (薩婆多部毘尼摩得勒伽) and the Mūlasarvāstivāda-Vinaya Kṣudrakavastu even indicates that the laity actively requested a more melodious and aesthetically pleasing (i.e., less boring) recitation of Buddhist scriptures. This request is what resulted in the mahāmuni’s permission to recite the scriptural canon with a 'good voice' (好聲 hǎoshēng i.e., a melodious voice) rather than only with a plain voice (凡聲 fánshēng) (Liu 2018).

If the first reason for banning music was to maintain social boundaries and distinction between monastics and laypeople, the second reason was related to the actual distractions that aesthetic practices such as music and poetry could cause to monastics who were trying to achieve awakening.

In Tang dynasty, the monk and poet Qíjǐ (齊己, 863-937) would famously bear witness to the reality of this latter concern in his writings about how the 'poetry-demon' (詩魔 shīmó)—a term believed first to be used by a century earlier by Bai Juyi (白居易, 772-846) (Protass 2016, 97)—interfered and disturbed his attempts at practicing meditation (Mazanec 2017, 298). Just as the demon Māra tried to seduce the Buddha away from awakening, the poetry demon seduces Qíjǐ to move away from the Buddhist path.

Later in the Song dynasty, the Buddhist follower Sū Shì extolled the practitioners who had managed to "forget words" (忘言) and had transcended the need for language, while lamenting that he himself was still addicted to poetry. As Sū Shì wrote in a verse dedicated to a Buddhist monk:

This Master has long forgotten words, has truly found the Way.

But if I give up writing verse, I'd have nothing left at all! (in Grant 1994, 68)

In the Mahīśāsaka-Vinaya, it is this kind of phenomenon of being addicted to or distracted by art that is mentioned as a reason to ban music for monastics. This text tells the story of a group of nuns who went to a music performance (similar to the story mentioned above from the Pāli Vinaya). They got so attached to what they heard that upon returning to the monastic community, the practice of Buddhism no longer had the same appeal to them as before. The reason for this is explained in more detail in later Sanskrit sources. The Indian master Kamalaśīla writes that song, dance, and instrumental music "will cause self-aggrandizement (rgyags [རྒྱགས]) and arrogance (dregs pa [དྲེགས་པ]), and secondarily, they will keep one in a cyclic existence" (Liu 2017, 63). Vinītadeva, commenting on Śākyaprabha, writes that "since dance and so forth cause one to become extremely happy, but not become sad, for this reason, genuine happiness is the cause for cyclic existence" (Liu 2017, 63). Again, just like the usage of the term viśoka reveals, it seems that the problem with music is its entertaining, joyous aspect. Music and art create an illusion of saṃsāra as a happy place. Cuilan Liu explains that according to Vinītadeva,

"the performance or consumption of song, dance and instrumental music can bring happiness and dispel sorrow. For this reason, one who watches such musical performances would be content with worldly life and fail to see the peril of attachment to cyclic existence." (Liu 2017, 63)

So far in our review, it might seem like music from a monastic perspective has few values on its own. The early Buddhist communities only recognized the mundane, practical effects that the chanting of liturgy in a melodious voice had; it could help the listener concentrate on the meaning of the text and could help her remember it more easily. Although not mentioned in any texts that I am aware of, the monastic community must also have recognized how the chanting serves to calm the listener and create a more serene setting that in turn helps in developing faith in the Buddhist teachings. As Wei Li (1992) notes, 

"music for sense-pleasure is against Buddhist moral tenet, thus, is not tolerated; monastic chanting, rather than being a conventional notion of musical performance, is a utilitarian vehicle for religious ritual and a means for individuals to regulate their behaviors." (Wei Li 1992, 83) 

The value of music is thus only as an upāya. It is a skillful mean—a pedagogical teaching method. This idea relates to the classical notion of the arts as "the sugar-coating of bitter medicine". Such an attitude to the arts goes back to the view on literature expressed by the Indian Buddhist author Aśvaghoṣa (80-150) in his famous second-century poem Saudarananda. At the end of the poem, Aśvaghoṣa addresses the audience directly as an author: 

“This composition on the subject of liberation is for calming the reader, not for his pleasure. It is fashioned out of the medicine of poetry with the intention of capturing an audience whose minds are on other things. Thinking how it could be made pleasant, I have handled in it things other than liberation, things introduced due to the character of poetry, as bitter medicine is mixed with honey.” (in Reich 2016, 388)

Such a utilitarian attitude toward art was again expressed by Mahimabhaṭṭa, the 12th-century Kashimrian aesthetician famous for his Vyaktiviveka. Reich (2016) summarizes Mahima’s view as follows: 

"under ideal conditions, a poem would be written without any figures of speech or literary qualities at all, in the style of a śāstra, and that literary figures and beautiful language are at best a concession to the weakness of the reader, who would otherwise be distracted. Their purpose is not to enable an experience that couldn’t be obtained any other way, but to enable an experience that should have been obtained in other ways, had the readers been more intelligent and disciplined" (Reich 2016, 389). 

The fruit—that is the effect—of śastra and poetry is exactly the same, and ideally only the former would be necessary. 

When reading the Buddhist Vinaya and its commentaries, it seems like the attitude toward music is the same as Mahima’s and Aśvaghoṣa’s attitudes toward poetry; under ideal conditions, the monks would not have to chant the text in a beautiful, melodious manner—it would simply suffice to deliver it in a plain voice. It is only because people need help to concentrate and develop an appropriate atmosphere of devotion that they reluctantly have to beautify their delivery.

The affirmation of the value of music in chant

As musicians, our deep experiences of sound might propel us to question the view expressed in the Vinaya about whether chant merely is a 'necessary evil' used to draw our attention to the recited words. We might argue that being musically attuned is not simply indulging in carnal sense pleasures but something much more wholesome. Yet, it has been a common theme in spiritual traditions all over the world for religious professionals to be suspicious of art. As Watsuji Tetsuro wrote: 

"This tendency appears in all countries in all eras where there is religious tension. Paul opposed the sculptors of Greece. Savonarola opposed the authority of the Medicis. If one assumes that artistic pleasure accompanies carnal pleasure, then it is natural that art is balanced against this kind of religious faith as a "one or the other" sort of decision." (2011, 83)

The important thing to understand is that appreciating art doesn't have to be about seeking pleasure through the senses. As a musician, I believe that immersing oneself in music can lead to experiences that go beyond mere entertainment and provide insights similar to, or even on par with, those gained from meditation practices. The satisfaction we get from music is more comparable to the fulfillment from meditation rather than satisfying a sensual desire. Pi-yen Chen, who spent years studying chanting in Chinese Buddhist monasteries, supports this perspective in an interesting article titled "Sound and Emptiness: Music, Philosophy, and the Monastic Practice of Buddhist Doctrine". This offers a view of music's soteriological value that starkly contrasts the view of Mahimabhaṭṭa. Unlike the literature reviewed in the previous section, Chen is not emphasizing chant as an upāya (a skillful teaching aid) for the listener but is writing about chant as something that, for the practitioner, serves as a valid instrument for cultivating insight into cardinal Buddhist truths such as egolessness (anātman) and emptiness/dependent origination (śūnyatā/pratītyasamutpāda). According to Chen, Buddhist chanting can "serve to advance an idea of decentered, cognitively ununified subjectivity, the kind of subjectivity desired in enlightenment and approached in meditation" (2001, 27). Exactly how chanting can impart such wisdom is discussed by closely elucidating two aspects of the musical experience. The first aspect is the spontaneity found within what Chen calls free chanting, and the second one has to do with the act of hearing itself.    

Free chant, improvisation, and present moment experiene

As a first answer to the question of how chanting may be soteriologically beneficial, Chen mentions the spontaneity that monks perform in the moments of free chant in the communal liturgy: 

"During free chanting, in addition to improvised melody, chanters emphasize sound in and of itself, outside the melodic progression. They pursue sound, in other words, free from the conceptual confines of music. This spontaneity is the point at which form meets formlessness in Chinese Buddhist music." (Chen 2001, 35)

According to Dharmakīrti, the immediate experience is said to be "free from conceptualization" (quoted in Thupten Jinpa 2020, 65), and Chen's point seems to be that, by way of emphasizing sound in and of itself, the chanter does not superimpose this immediate experience with the "unreal web of concepts" (Dunne 1996, 535) that, according to Chen, a conventional musical composition brings to the experience of sound. Instead of only being caught up in connecting sounds in order to create a musical composition, this non-conceptual engagement allows a heightened awareness of the momentariness of mental states (Chen 2001, 36)–the chanter becomes aware of the moment-to-moment fluctuations of mental phenomena rising and falling.  

It is important to note that Chen describes this way of observing as "reflective" (Chen 2001, 36). With the usage of this word, I interpret Chen to have in mind the kind of pure reflection that a mirror provides, not meaning 'deep in thought' (the other meaning of this word). In other words, it is not an introspection where the chanters reflect on their momentary 'inner' experiences as objects. The reflective nature of the momentary phenomena means that they are perceived reflexively–no subject perceiving an object but the mere experience of phenomena arising non-dually. I will discuss this reflexivity in more detail below, as it is this reflexivity that constitutes Chen's second answer to why chanting can impart wisdom.

According to Chen, the act of performing spontaneous, free chant provides a heightened non-dual 'access' to the underlying momentary rising and falling of mental phenomena that we usually, in everyday life, do not pay attention to. If the chanter were to every day repeat the same melody over and over again, the chanter would start doing it habitually and mindlessly instead of mindfully aware: "[r]epetitious chanting may draw chanters into an unreflective state of mind, depriving them of the ability to detect their inner situation" (Chen 2001, 36). The act of creating musical variation when chanting is thus, according to Chen, something that directly tunes the monastic community in accord with "the underlying theme in Buddhism that the world (both internal and external) is constantly changing" (Chen 2001, 35-36).

I believe that most musicians involved in improvisatory practices will feel a resonance with Chen's descriptions of how improvisation can serve as a skillful method through which we reflexively–without thinking and without making our experience an object of our perception–become aware of the decentered flow of moment-to-moment rising-and-falling mental phenomena. I am, however, suspicious of the statement that chanters "emphasize sound in and of itself, outside the melodic progression". Such a formulation implies that the chanters only focus on the present moment, unaware of past and future musical events. Not only is this an inadequate stylistic description–in this music, it does not sound as if sounds are completely unmelodic or unconnected–, but it also deprives the situation of its greater soteriological value. Saying that improvisation is 'all about the present moment' effectively conveys some of the aesthetic qualities of improvised music. It is, however, ultimately an incomplete description. It captures the essence of the moment-to-moment arising and ceasing of phenomena, but it does not describe the situation fully.

From my own experiences of improvising, what I find soteriologically valuable is not that improvisation forces one to dwell solely in the present moment. Instead, it is how it allows one to dwell in an experience where a radical interfusion of past, present, and future happens. Improvisation is more about recognizing the boundless interpenetration of the three times rather than just focusing on the 'present moment'. This interfusion is not about overlaying the direct perception of the present moment with conceptuality, as Chen implies. Instead, this interfusion is the phenomenal content of emptiness according to sūtras such as the Avataṃsaka, where emptiness is equated with the radical interpenetration and non-obstruction of the three times. While being able to be only in the present moment has soteriological value for the beginning meditator who needs to be able to put an end to relentless mental time-travel that happens in the form of daydreaming about the future and past, a more profound meditation is possible when such a single-minded focus on the present moment alone is replaced by, as Fǎzàng describes it, seeing that past and present are without distinction and "penetrate each other without obstruction" (in Gregory 1991, 155).

Another profound soteriological value from collective improvisation that Chen gesticulates toward is how collective improvisation allows the chanters to experience Mind as fundamentally communal. Improvising does not reveal Mind as the personal, "innermost being" of an isolated Self. Instead, improvising reveals Mind as something non-dual, empty, and relational. As Chen emphasizes, it is not about "one's own" spontaneous decisions of musical variation, but about taking part in an intersubjective, ego-less musical practice—to achieve interpersonal harmony with the monastic community. Such a state is radically different from our saṃsāric mode of operating as individual agents. 

The nature of hearing

Chen’s second argument for why chanting is soteriologically valuable focuses on the nature of hearing itself. This argument has two parts. The first part of the argument is that focusing on sounds can be a meditation in and of itself:

"While chanting, sangha members are supposed to concentrate wholeheartedly on one single intent, like water pouring down to a fixed point. The concentration is to be seamless. The monks can practice this concentration by listening to their voices, for each distinct sound and word. By concentrating on the sharpest faculty—the hearing—the sangha keeps other faculties from straying or becoming sluggish. In this way, sangha members attain the single concentration more steadily and therefore arrest deluded ideas and the straying mind." (Chen 2001, 36-37).

This part of the argument suggests that hearing is a suitable object for something like a śamatha-like concentration practice and is, therefore, an "expedient for samadhi" (Chen 2001, 45). By giving the mind an object to focus on–in this case, sound–, the scattered turbulence of the mind can calm down. This allows the chanter to enter a meditative absorption–a samādhi.  

For śamatha with sound as its object to work successfully, it needs to be performed in a specific way that relates to the second part of the argument why chanting is soteriologically valuable. The concentration on sound has to be so "seamless" (Chen 2001, 36) that the sounds are not heard as separated from the chanter; there can be no distance or seam between the chanter and the sound. That the concentration is performed "wholeheartedly" means that the chanter's very self becomes, as Wallrup (2012) explains, "wholly a play of sound" (104). It is not merely about observing sounds dualistically but becoming them. This is a necessary feature for achieving śamatha with musical sounds because, as Wallrup explains, it is "only in the total engagement with the music that irrelevant thoughts be purged from the mind" (Wallrup 2012, 104). It is only by wholly becoming sounds that the mind stops wandering. In other words, for the meditation on sound to be successful, it has to be non-dual. If the chanter imposes a subject-object structure onto the experience, the mind will continually wander away from the meditation.

According to the Śūraṅgama Sūtra (首楞嚴經, Shǒuléngyán jīng), a non-dual way of hearing is the very nature of hearing before artificial dualisms are superimposed. According to this sūtra, the true, non-dual nature of hearing is nothing other than the nondual nature of Mind itself. In this scripture, Mañjuśrī describes how "[a]bsence of sound is not the end of hearing, And sound when present is not its beginning. The faculty of hearing, beyond creation And annihilation, truly is permanent." (in Chen 2001, 47). In other words, hearing is nothing other than Buddha Nature–the ground from which all phenomenality and non-phenomenality arise. Hearing the faculty of hearing itself is described as the same as perceiving the non-dual nature of Mind. Drawing upon these claims from the Śūraṅgama makes it possible for Chen to suggest that chanting in a musically non-dually attuned way is the same as recognizing–literally 'hearing'–the mind in its natural state:

"In this concentration [upon sound], monks also experience the nature of their hearing when they chant. That is, when the sound appears, there is sound; when the sound disappears, there is no sound. Our hearing, nevertheless, is neither produced nor destroyed by the appearance or disappearance of the sound. The nature of our hearing the sound is like a mirror that reflects the objects, but it is not transformed by them; the substance of the mirror is always the same, no matter what it reflects. One’s own nature is just the same; it is neither produced nor destroyed by what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think. […] It is thus important for chanters to keep in mind that they should turn back their hearing from pursuing external sonic objects to hear their own nature." (Chen 2001, 37)

The faculty of hearing is the luminous awareness that exists before the superimposition of false subject-object dualisms. Saying that "hearing" is "neither produced nor destroyed by the appearance or disappearance of the sound" and that it is like a mirror that "is always the same, no matter what it reflects" does not mean that it somehow exists behind sounds as a substrate–some kind of 'Self' deep down. Mañjuśrī in the Śūraṅgama indeed uses a formulation that might suggest such an interpretation when saying: "To hear your very Self, why not turn backward That faculty employed to hear Buddha’s words?" (in Chen 2001, 48). But 'Self' here is just a positive synonym for the no-self of Buddha Nature; it does not mean that Buddha nature exists behind phenomenality–that it is something we hear only when all sounds are gone. Rather than being something that covers over the nature of the mind, sounds are mind; they are "wonderful functions" that occur "because of the revolving of the mind" (Mǎzǔ Dàoyī in Jia 2006, 78). Sounds are how Mind expresses itself, and it is through hearing sounds that its nature is heard.

Vimalakīrti calls nondual perception 'nonperception' (anupalabdhi or anālambana), but this does not mean a lack of phenomenality but rather a lack of grasping and objectification: "The internal subject and the external object are not perceived dualistically. Therefore, it is called nonperception" (in Thurman 1976, 46). The wakeful state of nonduality is not devoid of phenomenality. As Chen said, it is pursuing external sonic objects that should be abandoned, not sounds themselves. Experiencing this for oneself is what the Śūraṅgama points to by talking about hearing "hearing". Hóngzhì expressed this beautifully in a passage that references the Śūraṅgama:

...genuine hearing is without sound. So it is said that perceiving without eye or ear is where the wonder is verified and fulfilled. Light streams forth from there and many thousands of images appear. (in Leighton 2000, 42-43)

According to Chen, monastics are explicitly instructed to go beyond experiencing hearing as something direct toward objects–something that registers sounds as external–and instead hear 'hearing' itself. They approach chanting with a non-dual awareness in which all sounds arise reflexively. By doing so, they will 'hear' their nature–the practice of śamatha leads to vipaśyanā. 

This description reminds me of a beautiful scene from the Edward Burger documentary One Mind about monastic life at the Zhenru Chan Monastery. In this scene, a monastic describes how to drink tea with the following words:

"When you drink tea, be mindful of the place from where mind arises. If there are thoughts there, then when you drink tea, you won't taste Zen" (2016).

In other words, when engaging with the senses, the monastic puts into practice the instruction of the Śūraṅgama by, in this example, tasting 'tasting' in a nondual and non-conceptual manner. By doing so, the monk is mindful of the "place from where mind arises"–the unconditioned Tathāgata store free from conceptualizations. It would be consistent with this view that the same monastic approached chanting with a similar mindset.

Revealing or constructing Mind

At this point, by following Chen's second argument into the Śūraṅgama, we have arrived at a perspective of monastic chant that is far removed from that of the Vinaya's consideration of it as sugar-coated medicine. Not only does the practice of chanting support the development of meditative absorption (samādhi) by cultivating a focused concentration on sound. By allowing a sustained dwelling in the nondual experience that is hearing itself, it also offers a gate into hearing the nature of Mind. 

If this is what is truly soteriological about monastic chant, we quickly realize that these qualities also can be achieved in music other than 'Buddhist' chant. Even Christian chanting achieves these same qualities. Because of this, one might ponder whether the Buddhist context provides something that makes the 'Buddhist' hearing different from the 'Christian'. 

A critical reader might say that the institutional 'Buddhist' context is what prepares or sets up the Buddhist chanter/listener for certain types of 'Buddhist' listening experiences and insights. The Buddhist chanter's familiarity with Buddhist epistemology and ontology will guide her to hear 'hearing itself' precisely through the (Buddhist) conviction that the mind is 'nondual, empty luminosity'. The Buddhist discourse shapes and influences the experience in a very particular way; the practice of chanting coupled with an instruction to 'hear hearing' is not simply a neutral method of revealing the mind 'as it is' in itself. The critical reader might instead say that it is something that institutionally and socially constructs the mind. 

If this critical reader is correct, then this institutionally constructed mind would not be the same as the unconstructed Buddha Nature that the Śūraṅgama (and many other sūtras) describe as uncreated and that which is actualized by merely being 'exposed' or 'revealed', in this case by hearing "hearing". Hearing "hearing" would then just be one particular (constructed) mode of listening instead of a revelation of that fundamental non-dual awareness that makes modes of listening possible in the first place. Either the Buddhist ontology coupled with a practice of chanting constitutes a kind of 'transparent' tool that leads to a state where the Tathāgatagharba is exposed—a way of revealing Buddha Nature—or it is simply a culturally specific mode of listening, something that is constructed.    

In his book why i am not a buddhist, Thompson addresses a parallel tension that exists between, on the one hand, the popular rhetoric found in contemporary meditation communities about meditation as something that reveals the mind or aspects of it, and, on the other hand, the insight gesticulated to above that the contexts for meditation are something that actively shapes the mind. Given that meditators often are provided with rich conceptual systems through which to interpret their meditative experiences, Thompson questions how these systems possibly could not construct and shape what we experience:

"On the one hand, mindfulness meditation is a practice that shapes the mind according to certain goals and norms, such as making the mind calmer and less impulsive. [...] How are these two ways of thinking about bare attention—as disinterested disclosure of how the mind truly is versus as shaping it according to a value standard—supposed to be related? They seem to be in tension. To disclose something requires not changing it as you disclose it. To shape the mind is to change it. How can bare attention reveal the mind if it also changes it?" (2020)

In his analysis of the rhetoric surrounding modern Buddhist practices, Thompson sees that in contemporary mindfulness communities, it is not uncommon to present meditation as a tool for revealing the mind as it truly is. However, Thompson argues that attention and mindfulness cannot reveal the mind without affecting it. Instead, he suggests that meditation "provides insight into the mind (and body) in the way that body practices like dance, yoga, and martial arts provide insight into the body (and mind)" (2020). 

Thompson points out that this discussion parallels the debate within Chán about whether awakening is gradual (i.e., 'constructed') or sudden (i.e., 'revealed' or 'exposed'). According to the Mahāyānottaratantra Śāstra, the mind is without beginning and end; it is unconditioned, unconstructed (asaṃskṛta), spontaneous presence, and only realized through self-awareness (we can not know it as an object, only by a form a reflexive illumination). But as already sufficiently stressed above, it is important to not interpret this in a dualistic manner where the unconditioned Buddha nature is juxtaposed with 'ordinary' phenomena. In this regard, the teachings of a Chán teacher like Mǎzǔ Dàoyī—an influential proponent of the view of awakening as sudden—are important to bring into the conversation. Mǎzǔ argued that the nature of Mind should not be sought by trying to see "the internal essence of the true mind"; the metaphor that this 'unconstructed' true mind somehow lies beneath our conditioned mind is false. Instead, Mǎzǔ argued, it is through the 'external functioning' of the mind that the mind's essence is seen: 

"seeing, listening, sensing, and knowing are inherently your original nature, which is also called original mind. There is no Buddha other than the mind" (Jia 2006, 77). 

In this way, Mǎzǔ undercuts any dualism between a pure, unconstructed 'nature of mind' and a saṃsārically 'constructed' everyday mode of perception. The functioning, ordinary mind is the same as the nature of the mind. Not only are they ontologically the same from the viewpoint of absolute truth, but Mind's nature is revealed in ordinary modes of perception and even in failed efforts to reveal it. It does not matter to 'the nature of hearing' that sounds are intuited through culturally constructed modes of listening.  

The idea that nature manifests in forms and functions contrasts the attitudes of the contemporary mindfulness communities that Thompson is critiquing; adapting the nondual perspective of Mǎzǔ makes the distinction between constructed and non-constructed modes of perceiving artificial. The nature of Mind is to be revealed in its functioning. In other words, whether hearing "hearing" amounts to a revealing of Mind or if it is a constructed mode of listening is not so important. It is mistaken to defend the view that the practice of chanting coupled with an instruction to 'hear hearing' is a completely neutral method that reveals Mind in an unconstructed state in a way not immersed in a world and not scaffolded by the web of ordinary dependently arising phenomena. No such unconstructed state standing besides ordinary functioning can be found.  

Bringing Mǎzǔ's perspective into the conversation will be important when gauging the soteriological value of music. What it means for our current discussion is that to disengage hearing from external sounds—and by so doing 'hear' hearing itself (i.e., hearing the nature of Mind)—as explained in the Śūraṅgama, does not mean that the nature of Mind is somehow only revealed when there is no phenomenal content or no mode of listening operating. In this way, Mǎzǔ is in full agreement with Thompson in that "[m]editation provides insight into the mind (and body) in the way that body practices like dance, yoga, and martial arts provide insight into the body (and mind)" (2020). And because this is true, the reverse statement is also true: chanting provides the same access to the mind as meditation. We do not need absolute silence to 'hear' hearing, nor do we need the experience of a non-constructed, state-less presence of meaningless flow. We can hear 'hearing' even when there is sound, and, more importantly, even when we are intuiting sounds through a constructed, even conceptually scaffolded, musical mode of listening just as long as we hear it non-dually–as long as we hear it as nothing other than mind. 

Grasping dharmas

It follows from the arguments above that all modes of listening conform to the absolute nature (證┌性 zheng zhengxing) and are pure functions (淨用 jingyong). However, despite such affirming statements, it is customary to add clarifying conditions. For example, while Dōgen affirmed that we are never apart from Buddhahood, even in our most delusional moments, he also added that if there is even a slight discrepancy, the Way becomes as distant "as heaven from earth" (Waddell & Abe 2002, 2). Similarly, while Mǎzǔ taught that while Buddha Nature manifests in ordinary functions, he still maintained that there is a distinction between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. By drawing upon the concept of the two aspects of the One Mind, as found in the Dàshéng Qǐxìn Lùn, Mǎzǔ argued that the difference between the Thusness aspect of Mind and the saṃsāric aspect of Mind is a matter of engagement or praxis, rather than essence. When we grasp characteristics and qualities, reality is engaged as saṃsāra. In the same vein, music can be said to not always work perfectly and cannot always be considered a pure function. To actualize Thusness, we must refrain from grasping dharmas.

'Grasping dharmas' has two aspects: seeing dharmas as external and having an emotional reaction of liking or disliking them. In other words, cognitive and emotional obscurations (jñeyāvaraṇa and kleśā-varaṇa) obscure the Thusness aspect of the mind. This idea can help explain why musical attunements can fall short of being pure functions. In particular, it is the second kind of grasping that is the most crucial to discuss in relation to music. Cognitive obscurations–grasping dharmas as external–are defined in the Uttaratantra as any thought of 'subject', 'object', and 'action'–i.e., dualistic perception. Since musical attunement is effortlessly already nondual, the primary problem with music does not have to do with cognitive obstructions. The primary cause of the discrepancy is instead the act of liking or disliking–i.e., emotional obscurations.

Yet, it is not necessarily so easy to completely separate the two obscurations. To illustrate this, it is worth reading the autobiography of Hānshān Déqīng (憨山德清)–who wrote a significant commentary on the Śūraṅgama. In this text, there is an episode that seriously questions the separation of the two types of obscurations. The episode starts before his awakening experience when Hānshān struggles with emotional reactions to sounds while meditating: "At the start of this meditation, when I heard the howling of the storms and the sound of the ice grinding against the mountains, I felt very distrubed. The tumult seemed as great as that of thousands of soldiers and horses in battle" (C.C. Chang 1971, 177). Asking for guidance from Miàofēng Fúdēng (妙峰福登), Hānshān received a response in the form of a teaching on the doctrine of Mind-Only based on the Śūraṅgama (here called 'the ancient master' 古人):

“Objects (jing 境) are created by the mind rather than coming from outside. The ancient [master] says, ‘If you hear the sound of water for thirty years but do not let it move the faculty of thought (意根), you will realize the perfect understanding of the ear (耳根圓通) of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara.” (境自心 生，非從外來。古人云:三十年聞水聲，不轉意根，當證觀音耳根圓通)" (Zhang Dewei 2016, 336-337).

The story suggests a strong link between perceiving things as non-dual and not reacting to them emotionally. The 'diagnosis' for Hānshān's emotional reactions to sounds was that he did not perceive these as Mind-Only. Hānshān overcame the problem by no longer considering the experience as involving 'subject', 'object', and 'action'. In other words, he targeted the cognitive obscuration but, in so doing, solved the problem with emotional obscurations. The therapeutical effects of perceiving everything as Mind are easy to understand: when the cause of the sound is not separate from you, there is nothing 'external' to get upset with and no conceptualized 'other' that can be the focus of one's emotional reactions. Yet, that all emotional reactions would disappear because of perceiving everything as Mind-Only is proven mistaken by the example of listening to music. Not perceiving sounds dualistically is already achieved by the nature of musical attunement, but not clinging to their prettiness is not necessarily achieved therein. There are, therefore, good reasons to speak about the two obscurations separately.

For the chanter to truly authenticate Mind's nature while chanting, the most urgent part must then be interpreted to be not grasping sounds by clinging to their prettiness. In fact, not having emotional reactions to sounds is, I want to argue, far more difficult than not hearing them dualistically. Hearing sounds non-dually is a spontaneous and effortless feature of musical attunement, but not liking or rejecting the pretty sounds of music is more difficult, even though the theory of aesthetic distance teaches us that some 'indifference' to phenomenality is a prerequisite to experiencing anything as beautiful in the first place. As Fúdēng said, it requires thirty years of listening to the sound of water without having the mind stirred to realize Avalokiteśvara's 'perfect ear understanding' (耳根圓通).

The state of emotional non-grasping can be achieved through zazen, but it may be challenging to attain while listening to sounds. As a result, Hānshān's autobiography highlights the importance that completely annihilating sound and silence had in his spiritual development:

"I then went to sit on a solitary wooden bridge and meditated there every day. At first, I heard the stream flowing very clearly, but as time passed I could hear the sound only if I willed it. If I stirred my mind, I could hear it, but if I kept my mind still I heard nothing. One day, while sitting on the bridge, I suddenly felt that I had no body. It had vanished, together with the sound around me. Since then I have never been disturbed by any sound." (in CC Chang 1971, 178)

Hānshān's method is to, through the control he gains over his mind, will the sound to stop. He manages to–through his will–completely ignore sounds so that a state of hearing nothing is achieved. If we read the above passage too literally, it seems that phenomenal content is per default delusion: it is only in silence that awakening insight occurs. But this would be to fall into a view of annihilationism. It would be to fall into a view of emptiness as nothingness–the view of Śāriputra in the Mahāhattipadopama Sutta in which the goal is a state where no sounds appear (Bhikkhu Ñaṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, [1995] 4th edition 2009, 284). From the perspective of Chán, this is unorthodox as this school emphasizes openness to phenomenality in meditation. The method of Zen is about nondoing and accepting the coming and going of phenomena rather than actively 'willing' them to stop. And as we will see, Hānshān affirms such openness and the presence of phenomenality in his awakening experience. 

Hānshān's story, however, emphasizes that there can be a skillful use of silence: a more dualistic interpretation of the Śūraṅgama that interprets a disengagement from sound as the actual silencing of sound (rather than as just hearing these without duality or grasping) can be valuable, as an expedient mean, for beings who have not yet achieved the perfect ear-understanding. Instead of trying to hear the water without emotional reactions, we can instead be nondually attuned to nothing that causes emotional reactions to begin with. This is because, as Hānshān's commentary to the Śūraṅgama says, when hearing is still operating but meets nothing that can be the source of grasping, "all differentiation will cease and the Tathāgata store will be exposed" (in Śūraṅgama, 98).

The fact that silence is emphasized in Hānshān's autobiography illustrates, on the one hand, how difficult it is to hear sounds without like and dislike. On the other hand, it shows the soteriological benefits of being non-dually attuned to nothing that can be the source of grasping. It is for this reason that I have elsewhere suggested that working with long silences and poetic qualities such as blandness and plainness can be a way forward for Buddhist musical poetics–these qualities are all about minimizing emotional reactions to sounds. Working with such qualities is a way of coming as close as possible to the experience of hearing without meeting sounds that will be the source of grasping while still using sounds.  

As mentioned above, the silence for Hānshān is only an expedient means, and awakening itself is not silent. This is expressed by Hānshān immediately following the passage above. Awakening is now described not as the absence of sound but a nondual state in which "the myriad forms" freely come and go without causing any like or dislike:

"In a flash, the violent mind stood still;

Within, without are both transparent and clear. 

After the great somersault

The great Void is broken through. 

Oh, how freely come and go

The myriad forms of things!" (C.C. Chang 1971, 178)

Is the music Buddhist?

There is nothing 'Buddhist' about perceiving music non-dually and without a scattered mind (what the Buddhist would call a state of samādhi), which were two of the 'Buddhist' aspects of chant that Chen singled out in the text discussed above. These two qualities and values are present by default in musical attunements and could be achieved with almost infinite types of music. Imbuing this attunement with Buddhist soteriological values might, however, both be considered something that helps enable that (soteriologically beneficial) experience to happen in the first place, as well as something that takes us further away from engaging it in a soteriologically beneficial way.  

We often observe this issue when attending concerts. Prior to listening to a piece of music, knowing that it was composed by a certain composer, we mentally prepare ourselves for a specific listening experience. Just before a piece by Morton Feldman is about to be performed on a mixed program, we can observe how a significant portion of the audience adjusts their posture as if getting ready to enter the 'Feldman experience.' I believe that this 'setting-up' is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. It can be a helpful activity that enables more meaningful listening. The way we conduct our bodies and energies is crucial in facilitating a meaningful listening experience. It highlights that music listening is not merely a passive activity but an active one. Music is something enacted. To borrow Thompson's description of mindfulness practices, listening is a "skillful know-how for enacting certain situated mind-body states and behaviors" (Thompson et al. 1991/2016, xxv.). This point is also expressed by Tia DeNora when she writes that "[l]isteners are by no means simply 'affected' by music but are, rather, active in constructing their 'passivity' to music - their ability to be 'moved'" (2003, 92).

Taking a more skeptical stance, one could argue that identifying a piece of music as 'Feldman' or 'Buddhist' may lead to a false sense of mysticism. This can result in reifying and essentializing certain experiences as having to be in a certain way. In such cases, the experience becomes profound before it even begins, and we are, therefore, closed off from actually engaging with the sounds as they are. This was evident when Chen ascribed the simple practice of musical variation in Buddhist chant to an expression of the 'Buddhist truth' of anitya. The listener already knew that the music had to be Buddhist somehow, and therefore 'heard' variation as anitya. The simple, mundane fact of musical variation was reified into a Buddhist teaching on impermanence. The problem with this is that it can create an overly symbolic, conceptual experience of music. Variation is heard through the conceptual idea of anitya. Instead of hearing the music as what Mipam would call the "uncategorized emptiness," we hear instead the "categorized emptiness." These are not new concerns, as Buddhist practitioners have always addressed the problem that Buddhism itself can become just another filter or ideology through which we try to 'understand' and categorize the world, rather than a method through which such filters can be deconstructed.

This opens up complex questions, and I would like to conclude this text with some personal reflections on these. One question that might arise to a Buddhist composer is if art should guide the listener to Buddhism as a path, or if it should try to instill experiences in the listener that are in tune with Buddhist soteriology. If leaning towards affirming the latter, we might ask what the point is of doing so if there is no wider context to make sense of those experiences. The crucial question is: is it necessary to have the Buddhist context to, through musical listening, 'hear the mind itself', or is it something that can happen without it? Do we even need Buddhism as a context, or is it possible, like Stephen Batchelor suggests, to achieve something like the 'Buddha's insights' in a post-Buddhist and secular age?

Long before becoming engaged in Buddhist practice, I heard a piece by Yoko Ono called Stone Piece. In this piece, the listener is asked to simply listen to the sound of a stone aging. This experience of listening to literally nothing audible but as if it was music–listening to it with the kind of acoustic empathy that musical listening requires–was very epiphanic to me. It was a hearing that was disengaged from sound, and this objectless listening disclosed to me something meaningful about the mind and the world. It disclosed a world without edges and with limitless spaciousness; a world where any distinctions between idea and matter, and between externality and internality were completely dissolved. The listening that the Stone Piece invited seemed to go beyond musical modes of listening towards a completely unstructured experience where the forms of things could freely come and go without leaving any traces–in other words, an experience of emptiness.  

I was early on drawn to art that seemed to invite to similiar experiences. In the visual field, I found something of this quality in the works of Agnes Martin and Lee Ufan. Martin herself described her paintings to be "about merging, about formlessness […] A world without objects, without interruption" (in Princenthal 2015). The audience does not have to be committed to any particular institutionalized path of cultivation whatsoever to perceive this formlessness. This is one of the great qualities of art. There is no need to talk about ideas or concepts. Instead, there is the possibility to directly inspire and benefit the mind-bodies of sentient beings through the attunement between them and the art.

When I later started to meditate, I recognized the sound of the aging stone in meditative experiences like an old friend. I realized that the listening afforded by the Stone Piece was comparable to the kind of listening that the Śūraṅgama instructs us to do. The question then becomes: had I been practicing the Śūraṅgama meditation without realizing it? If the answer is yes, what need is there for Buddhism if this meditation is accessible through such simple instruction as listening to an aging stone?  

As Mumon said in his verse to the 30th case of The Gateless Gate, it is silly to search for anything else on a day with a blue sky. This mere attunement to emptiness is enough. Breaking this state by asking logical questions such as what comprises the nature of a Buddha is equally foolish as stealing things and then declaring yourself innocent (青天白日, 切忌尋覓, 更問如何, 抱贓叫屈). In this vein, some might say that not being fully content with these early art experiences and being spurred on by Ono's piece to get involved with institutionalized Buddhism–i.e., pondering further and asking questions about the nature of this attunement–is a mistake. Others would argue against such a statement and claim it to be a facile consideration of awakening; it is not enough, they would say, to occasionally have empty, nondual meditative experiences when encountering art. To reach further than these temporary experiences facilitated by listening to the aging stone, or encountering the infinite in the sculptural structures of Lee Ufan, we must ask for help and guidance from someone who can show us the way to complete, atemporal awakening. They would say that we must take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

This imaginary conversation relates to one found within the Buddhist tradition, where a tradition of reliance upon scriptures goes hand in hand with a philosophical skepticism towards the use of language. In Zen, this skepticism is part of its origin story. The Buddha bestows upon Mahākāśyapa the shōbōgenzō (the "repository of the eye for the truth") in a wordless transmission from mind to mind, not relying on verbal utterances. The scene is of poetic beauty: the mahāmuni instigates the transmission by the simple act of holding up a flower. Stories such as these have, in certain circles, given rise to a negative view of language and given primacy to an overly idealized idea of 'pure' non-linguistic experiences. This skepticism of language and a focus on direct experience as primary was taken up by 20th-century artists influenced by Zen, such as Agnes Martin and John Cage. I believe these artists very well might have contended that the art experience is enough; there is no need for these 'pure' experiences to be colonized by 'institutional religion'.

I associate such a way of thinking with 'Buddhist Modernism' rather than traditional Buddhism. It is a mixture of Buddhism and Romantic aesthetic values. Consider instead the words by 13th-century Zen master Dōgen. On the flower transmission to Mahākāśyapa, Dōgen comments: "If Shakyamuni dislikes the verbal and prefers to twirl the flower, he should have saved the twirling for after speaking" (2011, 160). Dōgen emphasizes the absolute necessity for verbal instruction: "Those who have not heard a genuine master's instructions, though they may sit on a meditation seat like a buddha, have not even dreamed of the way things really are" (2011, 160). In other words, the stones in Ono's Stone Piece or the stones in Lee Ufan's sculptures are not enough to guide us to liberation, but they intimate the state of liberation in profound ways.

With this last statement, we seem to have made it back to an instrumental view of art with which we began this essay—the view of art as an upāya and as a pedagogical teaching method. Aśvaghoṣa's view of art was that of bitter medicine mixed with honey. But at the same time, the art of Ono and Lee that we are discussing here is fundamentally different from Aśvaghoṣa's poem Saudarananda and the process of simply 'beautifying' Buddhist sermons by delivering these with a pleasant melody or 'good voice' (好聲 hǎoshēng). In his text “Beyond Being and Nothingness: On Sekine Nobuo”, Lee comments that Sekine, with his 1968 piece Phase—Mother Earth created a situation where "objects were transmogrified into dharmakāya" (2011, 112). In other words, the audience who encountered this work encountered phenomena as emptiness–as the body (kāya) of Dharma. They encountered how "[p]henomena, always unborn, are the Thus-gone-one" (Rangzom Chökyi Zanpo quoted in Köppl 2008, 99). What we are talking about here is a process in which art directly attunes the audience to states of seeing things as they are and where it tastes the liberating insights into emptiness gained therefrom. 

When reading Lee's writings, we are struck by how much he emphasizes this as the purpose of his art. It is all about creating conditions in which the audience can see things as they are–to create "ruptures in the ordinary everydayness" (2018, 156) so that it can see things as empty. When we return from these art experiences, it is like we return to saṃsāra from a brief escape: “[t]ime becomes continuous again” and “[t]he gap is closed and turns into space where the surroundings remain unseen” (2018, 156). I believe Lee would not mind referring to his sculptures and paintings as the 'honey' that makes these rapturous moments possible. This art is not downgraded by being called upāya but rather it is a sign of its supreme accomplishments.

From a normative Buddhist point of view, however, these art experiences are not enough. We simply must take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha to go further. This insistence on institutional religion is as untimely as it is important. As the great Buddhist monk, poet, and painter Guànxiū wrote already in the late Tang dynasty:

得句先呈佛 Attaining lines, you first offer them to the Buddha; 

無人知此心 No one understands this mindset.  (translated in Mazanec 2017, 337)