Greetings,
If when sitting in meditation, you find that you've got some "music in your head" and it keeps coming back, what would be an appropriate response? Would the response differ according to the type of meditation that you were partaking in at the time?
It occurred to me that a recurring auditory remembrance is probably similar to a recurring visual rememberance or mental image. What approach would you recommend for a recurring mental image? Would this be transferable to a mental 'sound'?
Metta,
Retro.
Music in your head
- retrofuturist
- Posts: 27848
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
- Contact:
Music in your head
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
- tiltbillings
- Posts: 23046
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am
Re: Music in your head
Be mindful. Mindfully acknowledge it, then go back to your usual object. Be mindful of the irritation or the pleasure of this music. Keep it light. Just gently touch it with your mindfulness, and be very thankful it is not this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsjJ8gTr_vA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Also, don't play this song in the link or it will stick in your head. It is an earworm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsjJ8gTr_vA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Also, don't play this song in the link or it will stick in your head. It is an earworm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
- Fede
- Posts: 1182
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:33 pm
- Location: The Heart of this "Green & Pleasant Land"...
- Contact:
Re: Music in your head
tiltbillings you are devious.... such is the curiosity of many they will find your links irresistible. Like telling people, on no account to ever think of a red Polar bear..... :cookoo:
( I haven't looked at them.**)
Retro, I agree. Music is far more insidious. I believe because music is melodious and can adhere, like treacle, to our own personal mental brain-waves... it moves in synchronicity and shifting it is hard work.
That, by the way is pure conjecture. I have no idea whether that is accurate or not. But I've not found anyone medical or scientific to disprove it.
Maybe you could incorporate it into your meditation, and focus on one instrument's inclusion and contribution...Listen to that instrument above the others.
or when you finish meditating, listen to a completely different piece of music... soothing classical, if it's hard rock in your head.....
Good luck with that!!
(**Yet.....)
( I haven't looked at them.**)
Retro, I agree. Music is far more insidious. I believe because music is melodious and can adhere, like treacle, to our own personal mental brain-waves... it moves in synchronicity and shifting it is hard work.
That, by the way is pure conjecture. I have no idea whether that is accurate or not. But I've not found anyone medical or scientific to disprove it.
Maybe you could incorporate it into your meditation, and focus on one instrument's inclusion and contribution...Listen to that instrument above the others.
or when you finish meditating, listen to a completely different piece of music... soothing classical, if it's hard rock in your head.....
Good luck with that!!
(**Yet.....)
"Samsara: The human condition's heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment." Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
Simplify: 17 into 1 WILL go: Mindfulness!
Quieta movere magna merces videbatur. (Sallust, c.86-c.35 BC)
Translation: Just to stir things up seemed a good reward in itself.
I am sooooo happy - How on earth could I be otherwise?!
http://www.armchairadvice.co.uk/relationships/forum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Simplify: 17 into 1 WILL go: Mindfulness!
Quieta movere magna merces videbatur. (Sallust, c.86-c.35 BC)
Translation: Just to stir things up seemed a good reward in itself.
I am sooooo happy - How on earth could I be otherwise?!
http://www.armchairadvice.co.uk/relationships/forum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Music in your head
Hi Retro
My suggestion is to cut your head off. It may seem a bit extreme, but it does eliminate a number of other annoyances in one go, not least of which, the ability to loose 10kg of weight instantaneously!
Seriously, go with Tilt's advice. In the words of SN Goenka...Just observe, just observe!
Metta
Ben
My suggestion is to cut your head off. It may seem a bit extreme, but it does eliminate a number of other annoyances in one go, not least of which, the ability to loose 10kg of weight instantaneously!
Seriously, go with Tilt's advice. In the words of SN Goenka...Just observe, just observe!
Metta
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- tiltbillings
- Posts: 23046
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am
Re: Music in your head
Actually, the earworm site is worth looking. It is a wiki site, just words, no annoying tumes to get stuck in your head.( I haven't looked at them.**)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
For years I had this one in my head
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf9d7rSf ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Now it is either this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB8NRseW ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
or this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGp0hCxSg98" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
- Ngawang Drolma.
- Posts: 805
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 7:38 pm
Re: Music in your head
Oh no, it workedtiltbillings wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsjJ8gTr_vA
- tiltbillings
- Posts: 23046
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am
Re: Music in your head
You were warned.Oh no, it worked
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Re: Music in your head
There are basically two ways to work with this - samatha and vipassana
With samatha you are collecting entire mind to observe one object, noticing distractions but not paying attention to them, and at one point you find out that piece of attention that was stick to "playing music" is unsticking.
With vipassana you explore this inner music player and your reactions connected with the "player", experiment with it, gradually find out how it works and "relax" this process.
With samatha you are collecting entire mind to observe one object, noticing distractions but not paying attention to them, and at one point you find out that piece of attention that was stick to "playing music" is unsticking.
With vipassana you explore this inner music player and your reactions connected with the "player", experiment with it, gradually find out how it works and "relax" this process.
- pink_trike
- Posts: 1130
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 7:29 am
- Contact:
Re: Music in your head
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We are what we ingest. The less music we feed on, the less turns up in our mind-stream during meditation. It's a good strategy that aids our practice until we're accomplished enough to work effectively with whatever arises as we sit.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss
- Dawa Gyaltsen
---
Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss
- Dawa Gyaltsen
---
Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
- Cittasanto
- Posts: 6646
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:31 pm
- Location: Ellan Vannin
- Contact:
Re: Music in your head
generally when this happens to me it is either early on in the formal sitting, or boardom if it commes up after a while.
if it doesn't stop by itself, during the initial stages when I am calming my mind, and extra focus on the breath doesn't help, I usually, try to use it as a starting point for insight practice, fortunately this doesn't happen often but if it doesnt go and is just too distracting then I just watch the mind tick away as it wants to, or focus on the metta sutta (short and easy to remember).
if it doesn't stop by itself, during the initial stages when I am calming my mind, and extra focus on the breath doesn't help, I usually, try to use it as a starting point for insight practice, fortunately this doesn't happen often but if it doesnt go and is just too distracting then I just watch the mind tick away as it wants to, or focus on the metta sutta (short and easy to remember).
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
Re: Music in your head
During one sitting of a seven day retreat, I had a sex fantasy about a woman also attending the retreat. It went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. No amount of disciplined chit-chat could head it off. Finally I just gave in and let 'er rip. On and on and on and on and on it went, until, towards the end of the sitting I realized it was a loop tape ... there were only so many erotic throughts I could muster. I got bored. No need to arm-wrestle anything. I got bored ....
And went back to practice
And went back to practice
- Fede
- Posts: 1182
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:33 pm
- Location: The Heart of this "Green & Pleasant Land"...
- Contact:
Re: Music in your head
Two more for your delectation and delight....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbUQUut_xgw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeswZaReE0I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Two things:
One: I didn't start this thread.
Two: It's rude to call me names.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbUQUut_xgw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeswZaReE0I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Two things:
One: I didn't start this thread.
Two: It's rude to call me names.
"Samsara: The human condition's heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment." Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
Simplify: 17 into 1 WILL go: Mindfulness!
Quieta movere magna merces videbatur. (Sallust, c.86-c.35 BC)
Translation: Just to stir things up seemed a good reward in itself.
I am sooooo happy - How on earth could I be otherwise?!
http://www.armchairadvice.co.uk/relationships/forum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Simplify: 17 into 1 WILL go: Mindfulness!
Quieta movere magna merces videbatur. (Sallust, c.86-c.35 BC)
Translation: Just to stir things up seemed a good reward in itself.
I am sooooo happy - How on earth could I be otherwise?!
http://www.armchairadvice.co.uk/relationships/forum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- retrofuturist
- Posts: 27848
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
- Contact:
Re: Music in your head
Greetings Genkaku,
Metta,
Retro.
How many of the seven days got 'lost' this way?genkaku wrote:During one sitting of a seven day retreat, I had a sex fantasy about a woman also attending the retreat. It went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. No amount of disciplined chit-chat could head it off. Finally I just gave in and let 'er rip. On and on and on and on and on it went, until, towards the end of the sitting I realized it was a loop tape ... there were only so many erotic throughts I could muster. I got bored. No need to arm-wrestle anything. I got bored ....
And went back to practice
Metta,
Retro.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Re: Music in your head
Hi Retro,
I get music in my head all the time when I go on retreat. Sometimes music that I don't even like. I suppose you could, as pink suggests, minimize it by listening to less music before the retreat, but I think it will still come back.
I've nothing to add to the advice already given. But I liken it to being in a very quiet and suddenly hearing the incessant ticking of the clock. Depending on how one observes the ticking, it can either drive you nuts or it can become background noise--it's just there, neither annoying nor pleasing.
I get music in my head all the time when I go on retreat. Sometimes music that I don't even like. I suppose you could, as pink suggests, minimize it by listening to less music before the retreat, but I think it will still come back.
I've nothing to add to the advice already given. But I liken it to being in a very quiet and suddenly hearing the incessant ticking of the clock. Depending on how one observes the ticking, it can either drive you nuts or it can become background noise--it's just there, neither annoying nor pleasing.
With metta,
zavk
zavk
Re: Music in your head
Retro,
I have this issue big time. In my youth, I used to work at remembering and mentally playing back my favorite songs. Now, I have a real challenge to turn it off. I'm very conscious of not "making an issue of it" and lately have actually found it to be a helpful indicator during practice -- when I notice the music playing, I remember I've lost my concentration. I actually think it's helpful for me at this stage!
Regards: AdvaitaJ
I have this issue big time. In my youth, I used to work at remembering and mentally playing back my favorite songs. Now, I have a real challenge to turn it off. I'm very conscious of not "making an issue of it" and lately have actually found it to be a helpful indicator during practice -- when I notice the music playing, I remember I've lost my concentration. I actually think it's helpful for me at this stage!
Regards: AdvaitaJ
The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. Li Bai
We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. Li Bai