As haunting music plays, Bart and Lisa sit in the lotus position alongside a lake.
Lisa: I want you to shut off the logical part of your mind.
Bart: Okay.
Lisa: Embrace nothingness.
Bart: You got it.
Lisa: Become like an uncarved stone.
Bart: Done.
Lisa: Bart, you're just pretending to know what I'm talking about!
Bart: True.
Lisa: Well, it's very frustrating!
Bart: I'll bet.
Lisa: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Bart: Piece of cake. [claps with one hand]
Lisa: No, Bart, it's a 3000-year-old riddle with no anwer.
It's supposed to clear your mind of conscious thought.
Bart: No answer? Lisa, listen up! [claps with one hand]
Lisa: If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around, does it make a sound?
Bart: Absolutely! [makes the sound of a tree falling]
Lisa: But Bart, how can sound exist if there's no one there to hear it.
Bart: Wooooooo...
First off, I'd like to point out that there's no such thing as music for zen meditation. If you're listening to music, you aren't meditating. But ok, it was 1974, and this record was made by an american jazz clarinetist and a handful of Japanese musicians. The fact that Verve called it something ridiculous (and that Alan Watts, in an interestingly dickheaded moment, calls the record "more Zen than Zen" on the jacket notes) isn't the fault of the musician necessarily.
The music itself is extremely chillaxing, in an audio-chamomile way rather than an audio-valium way. That is, this is calming, not stupor-inducing.
I have no idea what Japanese music aficionados would think of it: for all I know this is a Disneyfied orientalist fantasy. But I find it to be pretty musical and lovely. Proto-ambient music that uses Koto and shakuhachi, what's not to like?
I actually owned this record for years on end, without ever putting it on the turntable once, until one day I discovered it was on Verve and decided it was worth a try.
Hmmm. I just skimmed the Amazon reviews for the CD reissue, and someone there says "When you sit (zazen) the music you listen to should not have any kind of melody.This is because you would start listening only to the music and not "just sitting". "Music for Zen Meditation"is perfect for just this. It fills the gap of silence which is very important for beginners. I have sat to this music every day for close to 20 years. "
OK buddy, if you've sat zazen for 20 years then you're definitely more of an expert on Zen than I, who once fled a meditation hall because I thought my phone was ringing. (A moment of deep yuppie shame, though it was someone else's phone, mine was properly turned off). So I stand/sit corrected, maybe you can have music on while meditating. I don't think it'd work for me; I get obsessed by music. Background music in grocery stores and restaurants and, well, everywhere tends to really get to me, because I can't ignore it. Sometimes you just want to not hear Phil Collins while I eating dinner. And I get bothered by yoga classes where the thumpy-thump world-music made by 20-year-olds with keyboards extends into the corpse-pose segment, whereas no one else seems to particularly mind. But I suppose that, since we can't all meditate in a cedar grove, this record might be a good way to take away the jackhammering and car alarms...
Reading what I just wrote, I realize that I'm overdue for some silence. I'm going to hit 'publish post' and then go meditate.
