Awakening to Reality: Meditation is like Practicing Piano

The more I practise meditation, the more I think it is exactly like me practising piano years ago.

Even the feels is the same.

Maybe piano players can relate.

Before u start a piece, u read the keys, the notes, anticipate the tricky part, and read the composer expression.. u imagine the whole music it in your head.

U don’t have the music yet, u only have the manuscript.

It is like studying the Buddha dharma. Studying the view, the dependent origination, emptiness, non dual, etc

Then u start playing the piece, it will feel awkward as hell. The fingers doesn’t move smoothly, the body is stiff, lots of mistakes. Then u will isolate the mistake, go through it 1000 times until u vomit, feel the notes movements in your hands/ body, again and again, until u get it. It is usually the body that gets it.

In meditation it is the same . The non dual feels awkward as hell, DO is not penetrated, emptiness is so awkward. The attention contract and expand not smoothly, the concentration doesn’t stay. Then u will work on the weak link.

Then energy starts changing, n suddenly u sort of get it, the vision comes, u feel it in your body, this is how emptiness works. It is a sense. Like how your finger sense the keys without ur brain. U just know it.

Then u have the music now, u play the whole piece smoothly. Until it goes into ur marrow. When this happens u rmb the piece for years. It doesn’t go away.

Ur body moves along with the music not bc it’s for show but it’s bc the music is in the body. Each bodily movement is an expression, the body plays the music, not the brain. U stop reading the manuscript. It’s all “dissolve” into the music. All pianists understand they now need to get out of the way. Relax and let it go. The music will play itself because we are the music.

In meditation it is the same. The energy change, it works itself out. anatta and emptiness is in the body, in the energy, and then it “dissolves”, we no more remember it,

now it’s only the whole field dances like a music by itself, integrating it all and we need to get out of the way and not do the meditation, not infer anymore.. reality will play itself as we are reality.

And then we have the music.

It is not the same for everyone: we express differently.

No one can give it to u.

It is hard work before it is effortless.

But it gets imprinted in the body for a long long time. I could still play my pieces from decades ago by just feeling the keys. It is strange.

And both music and meditation evoke this overwhelming feelings.

I somehow sense similar ”feelings” in both.

I cannot name this sense.

Something like love. Yet Not quite.

I used to practise 2-3 hours for piano,

Now I just change it to meditation and do similar stuff..

I find it so so similar.

21 Comments

Mr./Ms. YEH

beautiful

“how” does your meditation look like? Sitting and feeling into emptiness? Or how?

Yin Ling

Mr./Ms. YEH yeah

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John Tan

Beautifully expressed. Refreshing and alive!

Yin Ling

John Tan thanks

Was Sitting just now and the whole sense of playing the piano or enjoying an orchestra arise

when sensations were just like music blending, dancing, effortlessly, beautifully..

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John Tan

Yin Ling I really like how u expressed. Very anatta and total exertion in real time. It's a true joy reading what u wrote. Thks for sharing.

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Yin Ling

John Tan thank you

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Tony Taylor

Beautiful Yin. I can feel your words

Yin Ling

Tony Taylor thank you Tony. It was v spontaneous and quick so I didn’t bother correcting the horrible English and grammar

Beg ur pardon.

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Tony Taylor

Yin Ling

Grammer is all made up anyway so don’t worry about it.

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Kogen Czarnik

Ex-pianist here. Thank you, I really enjoyed how you expressed things. I have to admit that in my case it feels like I have learned to play first two pages of Chopin's Nocturne Nr 20 (cis-minor) but for years I am trying to nail the last page but no matter how much I try the ornament passages never feel quite right!

Yin Ling

Kogen Czarnik

Thank you. Can u relate with what I wrote lol? ESP the playing with the marrow and body

I really love Chopin too

in fact he is the only composer I want to play if I get to choose only one hehe. I don’t blame u, Chopin is so testing lol. I think I spent months to learn his nocturne in E flat major, when I could play I was so in love, but when my fingers and body slowly forgets it due to lack of practise I got so so upset I’m not sure if I want to play the piano ever again

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Kogen Czarnik

Yin Ling Yeah, I can relate to what you wrote about the marrow and body. But I guess your expression is more from anatta realization because I would still say that a radiant field filled with love plays and the body expresses that, and mind, as you said, is getting out of the way...

But that's why I brought up the Nocturne nr 20, to use it as metaphor that some insights has not yet hit home despite looking over and over again, as if on piano trying each hand separately, then together, slower, then faster, but those damn passages!

I gave up on Chopin to focus on those insights.

And yes, I totally feel you, I was able to play Nocturne in E flat major and I loved it so much, it was one of my favorite pieces. Now I didn't play piano almost at all since I became a monk 14 years ago, so now when I try to play it its a torture

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Yin Ling

Kogen Czarnik very nice, I think u got what I was trying to express, thank u for expressing ur understanding, I was afraid it will be a senseless rambling lol

It’s just so similar in the way that Chopin has wrote so beautifully and sublimely, a complete genius at work, but if one just read the score and listen to his work but don’t sit down and play, they won’t feel what Chopin feels. Ever. Like the Buddha dharma. Can anyone understand the Buddha without practising?

The sublime music and the dharma cannot be experienced without practise.

The experience cannot be conveyed. Yet two pianists will shed tears when they see each other play their fav music. A communion. Like the Buddha smiling at mahakasyapa.

Hahahaa I’m getting too far, I was quite obsessed with music at one point when I was younger

wishing u well in ur monastic training!

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Kogen Czarnik

Yin Ling YES! I couldn't agree more. I also feel that playing Chopin is a very different thing than just listening to his music. I have some non-pianist friends who love Chopin who don't agree with that, but I never met a pianist who wouldn't agree!

As you say, it is like with the Dharma. Sitting in one room with a greatly realized masters is wonderful, it is a Dharma joy and sometimes can give us some taste of their state of mind. But it is altogether a different thing when the realization dawns within us and we know directly!

All the best on your path as well!

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Yin Ling

Kogen Czarnik thank you

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Tan Jui Horng

Completely engaged without strain and with the actor out of the way! I feel the flow state resulting from music playing to be quite similar to total exertion. The feeling is epic.