Buddhist Music:Enlightenment of the Buddha

The Art of Attention by Ven. Pannyavaro

“If music be the food of love, play on. So Shakespeare gloriously states in Twelfth Night.” Music can also play an important role in religious expression, allowing devotees to have an immediate emotional and connection and response to the teachings and events marking significant moments in the religion’s development and daily life. It can be as simple as the beating of drums to accompany a dance and song invoking the spirits, natural forces, or the gods. It can be as complex as an oratorio or requiem composed by Bach, Beethoven, or Verdi. It can be as contemplative and sublime as Gregorian chanting.

The five precepts and the bodhisattva precepts (GDD-403, Master Sheng Yen)

Om Mani Padme Hum What are you going to do if your dreams fall through? Are you going to hide inside your shell? What are you going to say if your dreams fly away? Are you going to be kind to yourself?

May all sentient beings be happy May they live in safety & joy All sentient beings, whether weak or strong Great or small, short or tall Seen or unseen, near or distant Born or to be born, may they all be happy Let no-one deceive or despise another being in any state Let none by anger or hatred wish harm upon another Just as a mother would protect

Truth and Zen Buddhism it is difficult to imagine a pair of more abstruse. yet fascinating, topics, Rather than discuss either one of the two, I will consider them both simultaneously in hopes that, like some schoolboy magician in a chemistry laboratory, I might mix together two murky, colored concoctions and thereby effect-abracadabra-a transparent, clear solution.

It was eight years ago, amid the material comforts of city living and the demanding pressures of academic pursuits, that I first encountered the gentle and profound teachings of the Buddha. At that time a natural curiosity about the nature of the mind, and encounters with the concepts of biology and theoretical physics, had awakened in me a healthy appetite for intellectual nourishment.

In general terms, Right Concentration means establishing the mind rightly. On one level, this can apply to all the factors of the path. You have to start out by setting the mind on Right View. In other words, you use your discernment to gather together all the Dhamma you've heard. Then when you set the mind on Right Resolve, that's also a way of establishing it rightly. Then you set it on Right Speech, speaking only things that are right.