Non Subjective listening

Steve Feldman · Post by **Steve Feldman** » 15 Mar 2001 7:19 pm

My main question is: when do you meditate? Shortly before a gig? Or while playing?

The truth is that meditation - in the sense that it is used here - is just an exercise to help you focus the body/mind such that one (hopefully) comes to some "understanding" of the 'one-pointedness' or non-duality of the universe. A couple of examples: 'disappearing' while making love; 'disappearing' while watching the sun set over the ocean; 'disappearing' into a great movie and 'emerging' after what seemed like only moments had passed (think about it - where did 'You' go???); playing great music when it seems like 'no one' is there playing; accidentally touching a hot stove and experiencing only AAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! with no 'Steve' there to which this experience is happening...only AAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! filling the entire Universe. You get it? The zone. The merging. The dropping off of 'ME' until only 'THIS' remains.

If you've practiced well and long enough, washing the dishes with full single-minded attention is meditation. So is raking the leaves. So is driving to work. Let's see, did I leave anything out? Only this: EVERYTHING, every moment, every breath, you have the opportunity to become fully what you are at that moment.

And the application to music: listening with this full nonjudgemental attention - without the 'backseat driver' interpreting everything AFTER the fact; in other words, without 'anyone' there doing the listening - is clearly meditation. It takes focus and technique to cut off all the extra crap that filters around in your head that is NOT the music you're listening to.

And thus forms some of the basis for my comment earlier in this unique thread.

OK - 'nuff said. This may all sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to most folks, but if it makes even one iota of sense to even one person, I'll be happy.

"The long night,
the sound of the water
says what I think."

--Basho

Oh, and Martin: Yes, there's more.
[This message was edited by Steve Feldman on 15 March 2001 at 07:38 PM.]

Steve Feldman · Post by **Steve Feldman** » 15 Mar 2001 7:21 pm

Sorry for the long wind tonight, but Jim's comment

"The more we drink the better we play, and the more you drink the better we sound.

reminds me of what me and my old fart bicycling buddies say: "The older we get, the faster we were."

Sage · Post by **Sage** » 16 Mar 2001 6:51 am

Steve- it made an iota to this adiot. -thanks

Steve Feldman · Post by **Steve Feldman** » 16 Mar 2001 8:45 pm

Heck - thanks for responding, Sage. I didn't want to be responsible for killing the thread entirely!

Martin Abend · Post by **Martin Abend** » 17 Mar 2001 4:01 am

Steve,

this is now the fifth try to write a reply and I could write so much but I neither have I really the time nor does it meet the aim of this topic.
Still one thing: In another threat a while back you quoted a Haiku from the Zenrinkushu that really blew my mind. Thanks for posting this. Though is was not directed at me it affected me deeply.

I think I know what you're talking about. I also think it's one of the most complicated things in life to get to that stage though I also guess it's one of the easiest at the same time. I can't reach this state of mind just by wanting to be there. It comes if it wants to and I never thought I could do anything about it. Maybe I'm wrong.

------------------
martin abend my homepage chicotarde@web.de
s-10 sierra crown gearless 3 x4 - fender hotrod deluxe

Steve Feldman · Post by **Steve Feldman** » 17 Mar 2001 10:13 am

...[hard] to get to that stage...I can't reach this state of mind just by wanting to be there. It comes if it wants to and I never thought I could do anything about it.

Martin - You're already there, pal. We all are. We just have a hard time seeing it for all the incessant 'me, me, me' thinking and the 'back seat driver' being the mind we live in 99.99% of our lives. That's why some people choose to practice certain 'exercises' in their lives to develop the ability to pay attention to THIS MOMENT, to drop off all the excess chatter, and to see things as they are in THIS MOMENT - whatever may be happening - music, sunset, washing dishes, whatever.

You breathe impecably, for example, even without thinking about it. Never a miss, never a flaw. We just take it for granted. WHO IS DOING THAT? Is it this 'me, me, me' that we all seem to think is the Big Reality? Un uh. 'Somebody else' is doing it. Similarly, if you absorb yourself totally in the music, there is no room for misinterpretation; no room for the back seat driver constantly choosing 'this over that', or 'I like this over I don't like that.' You hear the music perfectly without even trying. Just '100% music' filling the Universe in all it's 'as-it-isness'. What you do with it after you hear it is another matter (a BIG 'nother' matter...). Hence, nonsubjective listening.

So, although you say that you can't 'get it' all the time, you are already there - each of us has the facility to 'become' the music (or whatever else is going on in the moment) and to drop off the rest of the world that is just made up in our minds.

Another saying along the lines that you mentioned above is that in trying to 'get to that stage', 'there is nothing to attain, and no one to attain it'.

Listening without 'anyone' being there to hear it. You get it? Pretty weird sh!t isn't it?

Maybe sometime, take just a moment in whatever you're doing and PAY ATTENTION...perhaps to your breath. Feel it pit of your belly rising and falling of it's own accord; hear the bird chirping; feel the wind in your face. Even if you only do it for 10 seconds - but with holding your mind like a an archer's bow: neither too tight (rigidly trying to exclude your subjective thoughts), nor too flacid (letting the back seat driver run amok, engulfing you in a useless and constant stream of thought...). The thoughts will, of course, come, but don't hang on to them. If you do, take not of your doing so, and just try to gently let them go and continue 'tasting the apple', or hearing the birds, or washng the dishes. You get it? You got it!

If you can 'find your true self' even for just a few moments each day, you will have done an extraordinary thing. And maybe it will help to hear the music more clearly.

I talk too much...
[This message was edited by Steve Feldman on 17 March 2001 at 11:21 AM.]

John Paul Jones · Post by **John Paul Jones** » 20 Mar 2001 11:56 am

Very deep! I wish I had practiced that for years.

JPJ

P Gleespen · Post by **P Gleespen** » 20 Mar 2001 12:20 pm

Nice.

Andy Alford · Post by **Andy Alford** » 20 Mar 2001 2:25 pm

Has anyone had an outer-body TM night flight that helped your playing?Is this thread is on the edge of night or where is the light?Is this the Steel Guitar Forum????I hope someone will beam us on up to the star of the paragon.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 20 Mar 2001 8:25 pm

God plays the best music. Now and then He uses me to do it. I really enjoy that most of all.

Steve Feldman · Post by **Steve Feldman** » 21 Mar 2001 7:09 am

"The eye with which I see God is the very eye with which God sees me."

-- Meister Ekhart, 17th Century Christian monk and mystic[This message was edited by Steve Feldman on 21 March 2001 at 07:10 AM.]