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I have what feels like a mental block when it comes to finding my motivation to do things I love doing, such as creating music.

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I'm not depressed at all and I don't take drugs.

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Will meditation help me unblock and find myself again?

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Thank you.

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Much love.

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Will meditation motivate you?

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Will meditation create desire in you?

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Passion?

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No, no meditation won't do this.

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Unfortunately,

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for you, unfortunately, but unfortunately in the sense that we say unfortunately in these situations, it'll do the opposite.

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Meditation will probably motivate you to give up and to denounce things like creating music.

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Mahasi Sayadaw said,

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Most people don't appreciate the Dhamma, the Buddha's teaching.

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It goes perfectly counter to the world.

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It goes perfectly counter to those things that ordinary people hold valuable, like creating music.

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I'm not depressed at all and I do not take drugs.

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And that is somehow significant.

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Significant because some people's motivation, lack of motivation might be due to depression.

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But in your case, you just can't be bothered.

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Because, and I will tell you because, the reason why, I'm assuming actually, but I think it's a good assumption, is because you're feeling the

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the arbitrariness of your attachments.

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We don't cling to things because they're valuable.

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We cling to things because we've come to convince ourselves that they're valuable.

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Arbitrarily, completely, 100% arbitrarily in the beginning that they are valuable.

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That's a profound thing that I don't think is understood well enough.

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You assume, and it goes back to the human thing as well, you assume that liking music means that music has some intrinsic value.

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It doesn't.

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It doesn't have any intrinsic value.

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There's nothing even to indicate an intrinsic value in it.

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To understand that though requires you to deconstruct entirely what it means to be human, what it means to be sophisticated, what it means to be happy.

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And all of our presumptions and assumptions about right and wrong, natural, unnatural, all of these things are getting in the way of that.

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And so we wind up with a belief that music has artistic, philosophical,

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that music is good for the soul, that it has value, soul value, value to the soul.

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So how many constructs does it take to get there?

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You have to construct a soul, which is in turn predicated on a presumption of entities, of things being able to exist outside of the momentary experience of them.

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it's predicated on or it stems from let me see it stems from the belief that pleasure is somehow satisfying basically that's let's say that's the basic premise that is required

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Because at the core of the reasons why we like music, to take this example, is apparently a simple pleasure that comes from being able to anticipate.

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So what music does is it provides us a rhythm

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that we can get into.

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And this allows the, actually I'm grasping here, but I'm pretty sure what it's doing is allowing the pleasure centers in the brain to fire repeatedly and rhythmically.

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And so you get that pleasure.

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This is why you're in that.

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And then you suddenly get a stimulus that is unpleasant.

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So I'm listening to my music and then my mother comes in and starts yelling at me to turn it off.

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Why that immediately infuriates me.

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has to do with the disruption of the perception of pleasure from the music, from the rhythm actually.

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This is why jazz music, again I'm grasping, I don't have scientific evidence for this, but this is an assumption, that this is why jazz music is jazzy, because

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It's exciting, you're not actually able to predict, so you're constantly being challenged by the music to fall into that.

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Never so much that it's going to jar you out of it, but it's not quite, you know, it's playing with you.

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So it's the spice, it's no longer just pop rock or kids music.

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It's now kind of pleasure spiked with pain, which creates tension when you can't get what you want for a second and then you can get it, right?

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The chase leads to excitement, adrenaline.

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So it's playing with actually all of the different chemicals.

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Music is able to play with all these chemicals.

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But in the end, that's what it is.

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Now, this has evolved.

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into assumptions based on concepts which are totally artificial like art, culture, the soul, humanity.

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and so on and so on, that has turned us into real snobs.

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And most people are snobbish about their music, especially musicians.

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So people who create music, I was a musician, we can get very snobbish and it actually takes on an ego of its own.

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But the point that I'm making is that in the end it's all artificial, it's meaningless, it's nothing.

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Even that pleasure, the pleasure centers in the brain, even the fact that those are pleasurable is something that is an understanding that we've acquired.

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It's an ignorance, it's based on ignorance, it's a delusion that we've acquired, more or less arbitrarily.

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but systematically and as a species we've come to agree on it for the most part chanting buddhist chanting it can be sing song not unlike music no it shouldn't be in fact monks are not allowed to sing song they're chanting really

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Though nowadays you can see how it's falling apart.

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It's funny how more and more and more you'll see crazy sing-song chanting.

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Really crazy.

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It's embarrassing really because it's like when your friends come over and they see your father drunk or something.

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So, sorry, I'm going to adjust this.

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When your friends come over and see your parents drunk or misbehaving themselves, like I had a party, no, we've all had that.

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That's kind of what it's like, because I deal with Westerners, so whenever Western people come to Thailand or so on and see these

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come and see the monks, and then they get this, where monks are singing, for example.

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I don't know what to say.

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It's like, do you denounce them?

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Well, you can't denounce your parents.

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Do you defend them?

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Well, you can't defend something that's indefensible.

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So you're put in an awkward position, which is why I don't like to spend too much time in cultural monasteries.

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I had no idea.

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So did I completely ruin your chance for asking that question?

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That's good information.

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Good to know.

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Yeah, the Buddha said singing is considered wailing in Buddhism.

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Dancing is considered insanity.

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And when he said that monks aren't allowed to sing,

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put a melody to the chants.

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He gave reasons for that.

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He said, if you chant beautifully, you become intoxicated by your voice.

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The listener becomes intoxicated by your voice.

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And there was a third, I think, reason.

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There's at least three reasons, I can't remember.

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But he gave specific reasons for it.

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And I always think about that, even though I can't now remember them all.

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And it's so obvious.

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I mean, how could you... We're just deluding ourselves into thinking that somehow it's not there.

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Anytime your chanting is beautiful, what's going to happen?

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How could you not become

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intoxicated by it?

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How could you not become enchanted by it and therefore cultivate desire for it, attachment to it?

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How could it possibly not?

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So chanting should be actually quite... Christian chanting is much better, because while there is something kind of haunting about it, but, you know, Catholic monks or so on, their chanting is much more inspiring, you know?

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No, some Buddhist chanting is quite inspiring.

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I'm just particular about which chanting that is.

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I like Sri Lankan chanting, ordinary Sri Lankan chanting.

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There's the funny stuff as well.

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They've got a real tradition now of funny stuff, the sing-song stuff.

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But ordinary Sri Lankan chanting I like because it's quite simple.

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I guess it's my version of Sri Lankan chanting.

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I found that a two-tone chant is best.

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I tried doing a mono tone, and I'm not sure why, but that's harder on the voice.

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Probably because of how the vocal cords work.

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Probably a high tone and a low tone use different parts of the vocal cord.

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Or one of them is tensing it, and so you can't keep it tense that long.

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I don't know.

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But if I do two tones, it's more comfortable.

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So I'll do... Iti piso bagawa arahang sama sambundo...

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So up and down.

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It sounds almost like I'm singing it with the two tones, but I'm doing it for my own benefit.

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And I think that's appropriate, for example.

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But I wouldn't go any further than that.

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Anyway, so that's the first part of your question.

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But the assumption that you have here, will meditation help me unblock?

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Let's go more general and talk about that.

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Will meditation help us to unblock the things that are good about us?

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So to some extent it will.

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It will help you to straighten out your mind.

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And I would bet...

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I'm gonna have to retract something I said because I think in the beginning it would help you become more in tune with your music

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potentially because something is blocking there's blockage right and that could be organic that more that could be mental because it'll be physical or it could be a mental block meditation will help to sort out those blocks put you more in tune with your desire for music your attachment for music your love for music it'll put you more in tune with those

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core strong emotions and desires that you have.

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That doesn't mean those desires are in any way good or useful.

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So everything I said is still valid, except where I said that it will immediately distance you from them.

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No, it won't in the beginning.

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In fact, it may actually increase your desire for music, unfortunately.

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Unfortunately, because that's going to then lead you on the wrong path.

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eventually then you'll come back to where you are again, potentially come back to right where you are again because the music will, in the end,

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hurt you that's the word it'll it'll dull in the dull your mind to the extent that you can no longer you'll lose your passion again anyway the meditation helps you get in touch with these things because you're no longer

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You're no longer cultivating the qualities.

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You're no longer as complicated.

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You're much more streamlined.

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The brain becomes more streamlined, more efficient, and the mind also becomes more streamlined and more efficient.

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But finding yourself again.

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So will meditation help me unblock and find myself again?

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Yes, I think it will also help you find yourself in a symbolic way.

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Doesn't mean you will find your soul, but it will help you to center yourself.

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And it won't be again.

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It will be anew.

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And if you keep practicing meditation, it will help you see things that you didn't realize.

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That in fact, your love of music, to some extent, probably

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ironically, was instrumental, partially instrumental in leading you away from music.

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Because your love of music will pollute your mind and will dullen your mind to the extent that you can no longer produce the music that your pure and fresh mind was able to do.

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That's not necessarily the case in your situation, but quite often and quite potentially,

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It's a real potential.

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And if not directly, then the livelihood involved with, the life involved with creating music, the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, just the debauchery that's generally associated with it.

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not always, but often, will certainly play a part, in my case anyway, play a part in your inability to be as creative as you used to be.

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People who are truly creative have to have a very pure and sharp and profound mind.

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I guess a good example, and it's just grasping at straws, would be Bob Dylan.

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He was one of my big, one of the guys I always looked up to.

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I'm not certainly the only one.

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But it's interesting if you hear what he has to say about himself.

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He says he can't do the things he used to do before.

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I mean, I guess that part of it has to do with age as well.

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But when he was young, he just had such a... He didn't even know where it was coming from.

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But he was just able to come up with the most incredible...

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creativity that eventually went he said it went not dry but yeah it went it disappeared it faded away and he was no longer able to do that and so an argument could be made for the actual lifestyle that it led to a lot of drugs and and alcohol and i don't know how much but but just the attachment to sensuality involved with it

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I don't know.

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Anyway, not to say anything about him particularly.

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Maybe I shouldn't actually pick people out like that, but an argument could be made.

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So it will help you hopefully to find yourself anew and to realize some things you didn't realize about music and the fact that it is an artificial construct and not really of any intrinsic benefit to you.

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It's not actually making you happy.