I have recently added a new element to my meditation practice: music. With the assistance of a dear friend who is a music therapist, I have a CD of four musical works that I use to help me attain a meditative state and experience mindfulness.
As a musician, there are so many ways that I listen to music. Sometimes I listen to music and analyze it (its form, its melody, its rhythms, etc.) as it happens. Sometimes I let music wash over me. Sometimes I am on the edge of my seat, dying to know what will happen next in the music. Sometimes I experience the music on a purely emotional level and plunge into another world of feelings.
The way that I am listening to music in my meditation practice is yet another form of listening: listening with entrainment. I am tuning my energy and my internal state to the energy and state of the music. As the music swells with greater intensity, I follow it. As the music settles into stillness, so do I. I let the music take me on its journey.
So far (and it’s only been a few days), I am enjoying this new relationship that I am forging with music. It will be interesting to see where this new relationship takes me as I continue this practice.
