Should I listen to music when I meditate?
I love music. In fact the powerful surges of pleasurable energy that I experienced in my body when listening to music as a teenager was one of the things that made me curious to learn meditation. These experiences of rapture (the Buddhist technical term is “priti”) opened my eyes to the fact that there were ranges of experience outside of our normal expectations.
The idea that you should listen to music while meditating is very common. But this probably goes back to seeing meditation as little more than a means of relaxation.
Traditionally, the idea of listening to music while meditating would be completely out of the question. In no Buddhist lineage that I know of is there any kind of musical accompaniment to sitting meditation. This is a very modern notion, and probably comes from the fact that many alternative health practitioners play relaxing music in the background while performing their healing arts. This music became known as “meditation music” and the assumption grew up that we should listen to music while meditating.
Traditionally there would simply be silence or ambient background noise to accompany meditation.
So-called meditation music is meant to be relaxing, and of course meditation does help you to relax too, but it goes beyond that and helps us to be more alert and focused. It also helps us to reflect deeply. Music is likely to get in the way of those activities.
If you’re trying to pay attention one-pointedly to your breathing, then you can’t also listen to music. And if you’re trying to listen to music then you can’t fully concentrate on your breathing.
Also, music produces pleasant feelings, which is why we listen to it and why music is now almost ubiquitous, being thrust at us in stores, elevators, and even on the streets. If those pleasant feelings are being supplied by “meditation music” then we won’t reach deeper into ourselves to find our own sources of happiness. So-called meditation music therefore is a kind of crutch that hinders our practice rather than helping it.
However, focusing on music is fine, and I wholeheartedly suggest that you try doing that, but I also suggest that you try doing it at a time when you’re not meditating.
I’d go further and suggest that listening to music, if done properly, can be a meditation in itself, just as walking or washing the dishes can be. You can take many activities and make them richer and more satisfying by taking more awareness into them. Music, as we’ve seen, is just one example.
If you’re going to listen to music as meditation then try not to do anything else at the same time. Don’t work, or read, or balance your checkbook while you’re listening. Just listen to the music. Sit or lie down comfortably, and just pay attention to the music. You’ll probably find that you enjoy it like never before.
One aural accompaniment to meditation that I do think is reasonable is recordings of natural sounds, such as water, birdsong, etc. In the Buddha’s day the vast majority of meditation would have taken place out doors. Even when meditation took place indoors, the buildings would have lacked glass windows and silence would have been extremely rare. So you could argue that meditating in the presence of natural sounds (or recordings thereof) is closer to the original practice of meditation. On the other hand, just because silence was rare in the Buddha’s day doesn’t mean that people then wouldn’t have found silence useful as a background for their practice.
Additionally, though, many of us live in very urban environments where hearing natural sounds is rare. I believe that contact with the sounds of nature fulfills a deep need for a sense of connectedness to the natural world, and that recordings of those sounds can help fill that need.
Also, natural sounds are more random and less “catchy” than music, and the mind is less likely to become attached to and distracted by them. So at worst I’d say that natural recordings do no harm, while at best they may help us to fill a need for the experience of natural sound. Music on the other hand is likely to be a distraction, or to artificially produce pleasant feelings, thus preventing us from finding those pleasant feelings from within.
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Comments
Comment from haydyn
Time: May 4, 2009, 9:10 am
thank you for the explanation. i’ll listen to music and do meditation separately
but what do i do if my family start arguing or something and i can hear them?
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: May 4, 2009, 9:28 am
In that kind of situation I think the best response is to cultivate lovingkindness for the people who are arguing, and for yourself too, if you are suffering hearing them fight.
Comment from Malia
Time: June 8, 2009, 11:04 am
I am Deaf and meditating with music works best for me. I just lay down on a chaise longue that I have in one of my room and put the iPod in my ear and play the music. No one is around and I go into deep relaxation during this. Would this be considered meditating? Just curious.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: June 8, 2009, 10:26 pm
Hi Malia,
I think there’s certainly something meditative about attentively listening to music, but generally listening to music for relaxation isn’t, I think, the same as meditation. Because listening to music is dependent on something outside of ourselves, it doesn’t go as deep as meditation, where if you’re going to relax you’re going to have to do that yourself, and not rely on something to do it for you. Music can take me into wonderful states of mind, but the question is, can I do that for myself?
Comment from FOol
Time: January 7, 2010, 4:13 am
I didn’t believe in meditating with music until I had children. Now It’s either music, nature sounds, or white noise unless the house is empty or I happen to be sitting in the wee hours of the morning.
Comment from evan millana
Time: November 21, 2010, 12:41 pm
There is a exact word or genre for a term meditation music.I think its a hindi word but unfortunately i forgot that word …If you know please post it.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: November 21, 2010, 12:44 pm
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that word. I doubt it would be a Buddhist word, since in Indian Buddhism anyway music wasn’t seen as being something that you’d have going on while you meditated. In fact monks weren’t allowed to attend musical concerts.
Comment from Evan Millana
Time: December 4, 2010, 4:12 pm
CMIIW …I think I got that word, its “Mantra”.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: December 4, 2010, 4:16 pm
OK! Well, mantras are words rather than music, although they are sometimes chanted to a tune. They’re not “meditation music” in the sense of something that you have on in the background while you meditate, but they’re objects of meditation in their own right. We have a whole section on mantra meditation.
Comment from Todd
Time: January 4, 2011, 11:23 am
Thanks for the tips. I was not sure whether I should use meditation music with mantra meditation but have decided to do them separately based on your advice.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: January 4, 2011, 2:39 pm
Actually, although I’ve never chanted mantras to music, I think it could be quite effective as a form of practice. I don’t, as you’ve gathered, advocate listening to music in the background while doing other forms of practice, but mantra chanting is very much to do with sound, and when chanted with other people mantras are effectively a kind of music to which one is mindfully “singing along.”
Comment from hani
Time: January 16, 2011, 4:03 pm
I’m having lots of stress lately regarding many things, most of which do not deserve to be stressed about, so much that it reached a level where if i’m not stressing, i unwillingly alert myself and remember to go back to being stressed. I’ve been told meditation is one way to get rid of that “habit”, i’ve also been told to just live with it.
I need to know how meditation works, and what does it do? does it confront those things that are stressing me out? because some of those are things that i do not want to confront and better left suppressed or just not thought about, since confronting them and “accepting” them would do more harm than good.
or is meditation something that takes your mind off of everything that is stressing you?
to me its a huge difference between the two, and if it’s not the latter, then i will most probably not going to attempt meditation.
thanks for your time,
- Hani
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: January 21, 2011, 10:21 pm
Hi, Hani.
Sorry about the delay in my replying to you. Life’s been rather full.
Your question boils down to whether or not meditation is about investigating the content of your stress. Actually it’s not. Some kinds of therapy might do that, but meditation is more about how you relate to the things that are stressing you. Actually, stress is already a measure of the way you’re already relating to those things. Right now you seem to want to deal with difficult experiences by not dealing with them, hoping they’ll go away, or by worrying about them. That doesn’t really work very well, since they’re not likely to go away. It’s obviously not working as a strategy.
In the short term, meditation does tend to take your mind off of things that are bothering you. We practice letting go of thoughts as they arise, and simply coming back to our sensory experience. What happens when we do this is that the mind calms down and we feel happier. Sometimes we find that something that bothered us simply doesn’t bother us any more. We no longer fear it or are anxious about it. Or sometimes the anxiety may just be reduced to the point where it’s more manageable. In fact the whole structure of your brain changes, and the part of your brain that deals with “flight or flight” panic gets smaller, while the parts of our brain that are to do with emotional regulation and integration get larger. We also directly cultivate positive emotion, which helps in many ways. We become happier, and we’re less likely to get into self-hatred.
At times we do have to face things. When fear arises over and over, we’re telling ourselves on some level that there’s something we need to look at. That doesn’t usually mean poking over past events, but instead becoming more aware of the fear that surrounds our memories. We can then look at our memories more objectively, and more compassionately.
I’m not sure what you mean, exactly, by saying that accepting things would do more harm than good. But just to take an example, if someone had done something they were very ashamed of in the past, accepting this doesn’t mean saying “it doesn’t matter” — it means accepting full responsibility for what has been done, and realizing how the action came about as a set of poor choices and unhelpful habits so that we can move on. We can have genuine compassion for ourselves, and forgive ourselves, and rather than enabling further actions of the sort we’re ashamed of, it makes them less likely to recur. And we can have compassion towards those we hurt, rather than feel so much shame and fear. That’s just an example of how things can work.
You may also want to explore therapy. Whatever’s going on with you, it’s a source of great pain, and at present you don’t seem to have sufficient skills to help you move beyond your pain. A good therapist can help you develop those skills. Some therapies, like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, are very compatible with meditation, and can even involve meditation techniques.
I wish you well. May you be free from suffering.
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Time: February 22, 2011, 5:05 pm
[...] it’s just part of the ritual “to get in the mood”. While that might be true, WildMind.org gives a very clear reason not to use it: “So-called meditation music is meant to be relaxing, [...]
Comment from fuxx
Time: March 4, 2011, 7:49 am
i find soudscapes and dub techno very suited for meditation, maybe because it is not catchy and you don’t have to “listen to it” but rather sets up a mood.
try out with music by echospace, rhythm and sound, Pole, Panasonic, alva noto…
you may find yourself relaxed and yet focus ~ to go slowly towards silence…
Comment from chirag Darji
Time: April 29, 2011, 8:25 am
Thanks a lot for the explanation, I was under the impression that listening to light instrumental music while meditating will always be better to concentrate.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 10, 2011, 2:56 pm
This entire site is about “what you should do to meditate.” I’d suggest going to the “meditation guides” section of the site and starting with the mindfulness of breathing.
Comment from mrinal
Time: July 18, 2011, 7:56 am
Hi i do listen to music while meditating and see different colors while doing it. i have been doing this for six years and now when i listen to music on a cloudy day it starts to rain. And i have experinced lot of coincidence with numbers, incidents, people and etc.
So i want to know whether it is normal to experience these things.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 19, 2011, 2:57 pm
Hi, Mrinal.
I don’t think it’s normal to experience these things, and I’d suggest either that you stop meditating with music, or even stop meditating altogether. It might also be a good idea to talk to a doctor. Often these beliefs that we are experiencing events outside ourselves, or that the universe is providing us with coincidences can be a sign that the mind isn’t working in a healthy way.
Comment from Dimebar
Time: July 20, 2011, 6:07 pm
Thank you for a great article, what you say about separating the enjoyment of music and practice of meditation makes a lot of sense and answers the questions I had perfectly. Your answers to mrinal and hani are considered and wise. I am quite new to buddhist meditation but I look forward to exploring your site in more depth. Thanks for making it available.
Comment from fuxx
Time: July 22, 2011, 10:14 am
Dear Mrinal, Thanks for sharing your experience as some of us may be facing the same question. I think this is an great place to learn from each other experience.
As explained in this thread, music triggers emotions so it may not always be adequate to listen to it while meditating. Once emotions are triggered, they are difficult to let go of…especially if you love/ are sensible to music! And yet, at certain times, you may experience an increased awareness focusing on your hearing sense. (sound meditation)
We all are experiencing our own karma and facing different obstacles in the practice.
As Bodhipaksa said, it is wise to get advice from a doctor…, but I think what he means is more a spiritual friend than a psychiatrist. But don’t stop meditating. Buddha is the greatest of all doctors and the buddha-state lies within you. Keep practicing and your doubts will vanish by themselves. You may also find a renewed inspiration in reading (or rereading) the heart sutra (http://www.hsuyun.org/chan/en/sutras/sutrasinenglish/heart-sutra-eng.html) and studying the dharma. This is the medicine.
Wish you lots of joy in exploring the path.
with metta,
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 22, 2011, 10:29 am
I just want to clarify that I did mean a medical doctor or mental health practitioner. While Buddhist practice does help maintain mental health, it’s not capable of dealing with every mental problem that can arise, and sometimes extra help is needed,
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Time: August 21, 2011, 9:04 pm
[...] Wildmind (Article: Possible misnomer of “meditation music”) [...]
Comment from wedum22
Time: October 8, 2011, 8:26 pm
Hello,
I want to know what you think about the use of “Brain Entrainment” sounds, its not really music and is supposed to help get your brain into the proper frequincy for meditating. Just curious what you think about it.
Thank you
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: October 8, 2011, 8:40 pm
If some external sound is indeed able to passively induce particular brainwaves, then that’s not in itself meditation. Meditating is something you do. It’s an activity. To give a comparison, there may be particular brainwaves associated with running a marathon. If you could induce the same brainwaves by some other method, would you be fitter? it’s possible that there would be some effect, but being passively affected by sounds is not going to have the same effects as physical exercise. Nor is it going to have the same effects as meditation.
Listening actively to music can be a form of meditation, but in that case it’s meditation because you’re performing the same kind of attentive awareness that you cultivate while meditating.
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