Sutta about not listening to music

[Beneath the Wheel]

Very strange. I copied and pasted that directly from the "The Buddhist Monastic Code II". I wonder if he listed the wrong source?

Similar to what danieLion mentioned - I'm a musician, and one of the biggest barriers to my meditation practice comes from getting certain segments of songs stuck in my head, looping endlessly. I find this fades if I'm not actively working or rehearsing with a group, but random drumbeats and "hooks" will find their way into my mind at the strangest times. I guess that's why they call them hooks.

[tiltbillings]

Very strange. I copied and pasted that directly from the "The Buddhist Monastic Code II". I wonder if he listed the wrong source?

Similar to what danieLion mentioned - I'm a musician, and one of the biggest barriers to my meditation practice comes from getting certain segments of songs stuck in my head, looping endlessly. I find this fades if I'm not actively working or rehearsing with a group, but random drumbeats and "hooks" will find their way into my mind at the strangest times. I guess that's why they call them hooks.

Unless it is What Friend we have Jesus or some equally annoying tune and lyric, I usually have no problem with such ear worms. It is just back ground noise, but during one's meditation, the question is: what do you do with it?

[tiltbillings]

Ear worms

[Fede]

Some specific types of music are permitted. encouraged, even.....

How do the Acariyas include listening in watching?
According to the Acariyas, the breaking of the precept lies in the effort exerted in going to watch shows. If we are standing, sitting or lying down in our own place, that is, if we do not put forth the effort to go and watch, and if such shows or entertainments come to us or pass by, it is not a breach of the precept for us, though the sila would be tarnished. But in any case, not to listen or watch is the best. The listening to or singing of songs is a breach of the precept, except with such ballads as contain Dhamma that causes faith to arise as well as arousing weariness with the suffering of our life. For example, one Thera (senior bhikkhu) heard a slave woman singing about life's troubles. When the Thera heard this, he saw the tediousness of suffering and achieved attainments on the Path. This type of song can be listened to and is not detrimental.

from here:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... satha.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[tiltbillings]

Some specific types of music are permitted. encouraged, even.....

How do the Acariyas include listening in watching?
According to the Acariyas, the breaking of the precept lies in the effort exerted in going to watch shows. If we are standing, sitting or lying down in our own place, that is, if we do not put forth the effort to go and watch, and if such shows or entertainments come to us or pass by, it is not a breach of the precept for us, though the sila would be tarnished. But in any case, not to listen or watch is the best. The listening to or singing of songs is a breach of the precept, except with such ballads as contain Dhamma that causes faith to arise as well as arousing weariness with the suffering of our life. For example, one Thera (senior bhikkhu) heard a slave woman singing about life's troubles. When the Thera heard this, he saw the tediousness of suffering and achieved attainments on the Path. This type of song can be listened to and is not detrimental.

from here:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... satha.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In the context of keeping the 8 precepts.

[Fede]

Yes indeed....I, like Khalil Bodhi and Alohba, couldn't think of where the advice of not listening to music, as a sutta, exists....

[danieLion]

Hi pedro1985,
I used to listen to music a lot. Now, if I'm not careful (practice some restraint) songs get stuck in my head and play like loops, including while I sit.
Sorry it's not a sutta reference.
Daniel

If a song gets stuck in your head while you are sitting, what do you do? Is it an occasion for negative feelings in response to the this bit of mental music?

I was very tire yesterday. Let's try again.
Not songs I don't like. And songs I do like I start not to like because they loop. But the loops are usually only a small part of the song--like the chorus for example--10-15 secs, then they start over. It's not the music, per se, that I feel negative about--when I feel that way about it--but the repetition and duration. Sometimes I get pro-active and use techniques to prevent or stop the loops, and sometimes I let them arise and pass. I used to always feel negative about them, but now I'd say I experience them more neutrally probably because I've trained myself to see them as conditioned phenomena.
Does that make sense?
D

[tiltbillings]

I used to always feel negative about them, but now I'd say I experience them more neutrally probably because I've trained myself to see them as conditioned phenomena.
Does that make sense?
D

Absolutely.

[danieLion]

I used to always feel negative about them, but now I'd say I experience them more neutrally probably because I've trained myself to see them as conditioned phenomena.
Does that make sense?
D

Absolutely.

Oh good.

[Tyler]

In DN 31 (Sigalovada Sutta: Basically the Buddha's advice to the lay practitioner) music is included as a sense desire that arises from habitual partying:

"These are the six dangers inherent in habitual partying: You constantly seek, 'Where's the dancing? Where's the singing? Where's the music? Where are the stories? Where's the applause? Where's the drumming?'

My understanding of music and drumming in this context is that we begin to conflate these sounds with chanting and drumming related to Buddhist practice. It causes conditioning that could arise upon hearing certain sounds that keeps us entertained instead of focusing on meditation.

The way we think about or listen to music has changed a lot since the times of the Buddha. The types of music we can find have a very wide range of subject matter which may or may not be in accordance with the other advice given by the Buddha. I personally listen to and make a lot of music. It has been a form of meditation for me and has set up an antithetical response in the case of my meditation in which the lack of created or chosen sensual experience helps promote the meditative state. Given this, I think it is important to keep in mind how the Buddha's advice intersects with the types of music and media that we intentionally expose ourselves to. If the music causes us to be angry or depressed we can sit with those emotions but its probably not a good idea to fall victim to those emotions. At that point the Buddhas advice seems pretty clear as we enter a state where the music becomes more than just music.

[rowboat]

From one perspective, music rarely if ever improves upon silence.

[Sam Vara]

No Sutta reference, I'm afraid, but I do love this account from Ajahn Sucitto about music:

Before I went to Thailand I’d been very fond of music, I
listened to it all the time. For the first year or so when I was
living in the monastery every time I’d sit down I’d hear music
in my head — continually — until I hated it. But I couldn’t make
it go away. Eventually after about a year and a half of non-stop
noise in my head and fi ghting with it, and gradually cooling
down about it all, it began to die away. By the time I came to
England, my mind had cleared out, like a squeezed sponge.
But then one day I was walking down a street and there was
some music playing and my ear picked it up. I could feel the
experience of consciousness dancing around the music, so
much that it was diffi cult not to start physically dancing. The
mind was gyrating, stimulated by this auditory experience
and the consciousness fl uctuating with it. So I explored; I
listened deliberately and tried to go to what the sound really
was — and when I focussed very strongly on the sound, the
music and the listener stopped!
The music was dependent on a particular mode of
attention whereby consciousness wasn’t held clearly, fi rmly
or incisively onto an object, it was allowed to play on it. The
experience of music was this playing: not an external experience
nor an internal experience but the two coming together.
79
And I really saw that what one could do something about was
the stirring of consciousness, the stirring of the mind and
moods — when that stopped, the music stopped. There was
still the sound but it was empty, it was hollow. That was very
signifi cant for me because then that was it as far as music went.
I could see that the music was just the movement of the mind.
We can allow that movement to happen if we want to, but its
reality, its ability to grip, fades.

From Kalyana

[Monkey Mind]

I suggest giving up music and entertainment for a day or a week, and then watching how your mind reacts when you re-expose yourself to music/ entertainment. I learn a lot about how media affects me when I engage in these experiments.

Remember Buddha's guidance to the "festival actor", whose teacher had told the actor that his actions would result in rebirth in the laughing deva realms. Buddha was not impressed, because the actor was "himself intoxicated & heedless, having made others intoxicated & heedless."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

In that case, Buddha was addressing the actor, but I infer advice to the consumer too. It seems like we are encouraged to take responsibility for how we allow entertainment to interact with our minds, and try not to become "intoxicated & heedless" as a result.

[Dhammarakkhito]

from sigalovada sutta (lay code of discipline): "There are, young householder, these six evil consequences in frequenting theatrical shows. He is ever thinking:


(i) where is there dancing?
(ii) where is there singing?
(iii) where is there music?
(iv) where is there recitation?
(v) where is there playing with cymbals?
(vi) where is there pot-blowing?

on uposatha it is unacceptable to listen to music; the buddha says the uposatha vows should always be kept, not just here and there.
finally, you run into this more with other traditions, but it's very common, from gītassara sutta:
Pañc·ime, bhikkhave, ādīnavā āyatakena gīta·s·sarena dhammaṃ bhaṇantassa. Katame pañca?

There are, bhikkhus, these five drawbacks of reciting the Dhamma with a sustained melodic intonation. Which five?

Attanā·pi tasmiṃ sare sārajjati, pare·pi tasmiṃ sare sārajjanti, gahapati·kā·pi ujjhāyanti: ‘yath·eva mayaṃ gāyāma, evam·evaṃ kho samaṇā sakyaputtiyā gāyantī’ti, sarakuttim·pi nikāmayamānassa samādhissa bhaṅgo hoti, pacchimā janatā diṭṭhānugatiṃ āpajjati.

Oneself gets attached to that intonation, others get attached to that intonation, householders get angry: 'Those ascetics who are followers of the Sakyans' son sing in the same way that we do!',{1} there is a break in concentration for those striving [to produce] musicality, and the upcoming generations imitate what they see.

Ime kho, bhikkhave, pañca ādīnavā āyatakena gīta·s·sarena dhammaṃ bhaṇantassā·ti.

These, bhikkhus, are the five drawbacks of reciting the Dhamma with a sustained melodic intonation. (great website btw http://www.buddha-vacana.org/sutta/angu ... 5-209.html)

[Dhammarakkhito]

i'm of the mind there are practices that are for monks but also benefit laypeople; money is going to be likely unavoidable but listening to music is by and large by choice
images are from dn 4

btw, money is not completely unavoidable, and non-returners like citta and ghāṭīkāra refrained from its use