“Music comes closest to meditation. Music is a way towards meditation and the most beautiful way. Meditation is the art of hearing the soundless sound, the art of hearing the music of silence – what the Zen people call the sound of one hand clapping. When you are utterly silent, not a single thought passes your mind, there is not even a ripple of any feeling in your heart, then you start, for the first time, hearing silence.
“Silence has a music of its own. It is not dead, it is very much alive, it is tremendously alive. In fact, nothing is more alive than silence. Music helps you from the outside to fall in tune with the inner.”
-Osho
This depends on the kind of music I think… When I was still in my teens, I was at some Japanese family’s home where a beautiful music was being played. When I asked about it, this uncle like family friend replied that the singer is a “Greek Diva named Nana Mouskouri” to which I said, “wow, Ojisama, I didn’t know you knew Greek!”
To which he laughed, “K-chan, don’t you know that Japanese people just listen to whatever music that sounds beautiful, we don’t understand the foreign language – I don’t know a word she’s singing in Greek at all and we don’t necessarily care about the lyrics as long as it sounds good.”
Since then, maybe because I couldn’t make it out either, unless in Japanese (due to Karaoke, lyrics are shown on screens), I would be listening to music without paying much attention to the lyrics – it was mumbo jumbo as far as I was concerned – if I just like the beat, melody, harmony, and/or the rhythm – whatever, I just liked it – but never really listening to the words, never questioning. Either as my language skills improved along with my hearing, I could not help but start to hear the words and know the meaning, the message of the songs. At that point – I was mortified as to what I was listening to. I had some songs I loved listening to but once I really paid attention and consciously listened to the meaning of the words, I realized the words being uttered – once I really actually listened, I realized it was about domestic violence or just violence – crazy – then lots of broken hearts – I was listening to such sad music without even having an awareness – Anyway, sometimes, ignorance may be a bliss. To not know could be better.
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