The other a day a good teaching friend approached me and asked, “If someone wanted to start meditating, what should they do?” She followed up with, “I’m asking for a friend, of course,” and winked.
I attempted to answer by explaining what meditation is, relating it to the Suzuki method, and naming a few tools to start with.
WHAT IS MEDITATION?
To meditate is to become aware. That awareness could be allocated to anything — breathing, dishwashing, playing basketball, performing Sibelius — but the act of becoming aware of those activities is to meditate.
Very few of us are aware of what we are doing while we are doing it. There is a constant chatter, a thought commentary on everything that is happening, or is going to happen, or we want to happen as the real things happen. In fact, thinking is so constant and so pervasive, many of us mistake thinking as the landscape of life. There is no reality, we think, without thinking.
Because we are expert thinkers, the act of living only in the sensory perception of the world is nearly impossible at first. To practice meditation is to do the hard work of returning over, and over, and over again and to the senses.
If you think about it, there is no point to meditating.
But if you meditate, the “point” becomes obvious.
WHY MEDITATE?
Lao Tsu says, “The one who pays attention to thoughts and ignores the senses is knowledgable; the one who ignores thoughts and pays attention to the senses is wise.”
Consider this in the context of violin playing.
It has most likely been your experience that the more you have to think about while playing, the worse you play. The more you rest in the physical sensation of playing, the better you play.
Consider the fields in which senses are prioritized over thinking. Sports? The arts? Martial arts? Combat? EMS and first responders? Chess? Special forces? In these fields, the degree to which professionals live moment to moment is the degree to which they are successful. Flow, intuition, ego-less-ness, and ease are cultivated as art forms in order to perform at the highest level.
It seems counterintuitive to cultivate these states of non-thinking self expression in intellectual pursuits, and yet the best in their intellectual fields do just that. When I’m on an information binge I enjoy listening through the backlog of podcasts such as On Being and The Tim Ferriss Show to notice just HOW MANY extraordinary scientists, academics, CEO’s, and finance gurus use mindfulness training — or an attentiveness to sensation — daily.
Past a necessary degree of important information gathering, not-knowing or intuitive-knowing is far more important than intellectual thinking. The activation of intuition comes from releasing thought and engaging with the senses.
Again the point of meditation isn’t obvious to a thinking mind, but thinking minds can see the obvious side effects of such a practice. I’ll list a few here…
- reduced anxiety
- ability to let things go
- stress reduction
- better sleep
- sharp focus
- equanimity
- compassion for self
- compassion for others
For musicians this means better ensemble, less performance anxiety, more focused practice sessions, and enjoyment of artistic work.
For teachers this means more focus in the lesson, intuitive clarity of what to work on, less drain at the end of the day, effortless empathy for students and compassion for parents, an abundance mindset, an ability to let lessons go at the end of the day, and a release of ego-centricity (or mindset of the teacher as all knowing). This is all beyond the sublime pleasure of just experiences the day to day teaching life exactly as it is.
We know artistic violin playing requires non-thinking, but so to does artistic violin teaching.
It should not be a surprise then, that Suzuki came to violin teaching with intensive training in mindfulness meditation. Around the time he turned 18, Suzuki studied Zen with his uncle near Tokyo. The training occurred after he came into contact with Tolstoy, whose moral convictions roused in Suzuki a spirit of right-action, and Mischa Elman performing Ave Maria, which roused in Suzuki a desire to understand the essence of beauty and art. The training in Zen pulled these interests into a ritualized, repetitive, single-pointed practice. Suzuki’s commitment later in life to daily practices such as calligraphy, listening to recordings, long bow strokes, and haiku recitation are demonstrations of Zen training. He used these real-life moments as opportunities to be aware of the moment.
About the experience he writes
Still, I gain new confidence with each card, my writing becoming more imbued with life, and my calligraphy gradually improving in its own limited fashion. No one card is the same as any other. In this way, I savor the ineffable taste of repetition.
If we want to be Suzuki teachers, I think we need to have a firm grasp on what he means. Deliberate mindfulness meditation is the place to start.
HOW TO START.
In the Zen tradition one sits on a pillow for a lengthy period of time (usually 25 minutes to an hour), intending to maintain focus on the breath for as long as possible.
Given our modern proclivity to Netflix and Facebook, let alone the dearth of quiet/solitary space in our lives, it is unlikely this practice will be anything other than frustrating for beginning meditators.
Modern technology can actually enable an easier ‘on ramp’ to the practice if used wisely. There are four options I suggest.
1. Use an app.
I first came to meditation by using an app called Headspace. There are a few apps which do similar things with different flavors such as Calm and Waking Up. Each provide some commentary about mediation at different depths, and then guide the user through meditations via recordings.
The advantage of an app is that it is built specifically for meditation, uses recordings to interrupt your thinking patterns and bring you back to the present, and you can easily track progress. This is very helpful when you first get started, so you are being pulled back to the present after 30 seconds rather than 30 minutes.
Doing so in a Zendo would be impractical as beginner and experienced practitioners sit in the same space. The app allows you to have/do what you need in the moment that is particular to you.
Though I think the apps genuinely intend to spread meditation they also often rely on user subscription to exist. If you object to being monetized or if you don’t have the means to pay for the app do know there are other options.
2. Listen to a song.
Sometimes jumping right into meditation feels like too much of a leap.
An easy way to begin is to put headphones in and listen to just one song (pick one song to use every day). See if you can actually hear the song for the duration of the song. Any time a thought arises, you release it and return back to the song. Once the song is finished you take the headphones out and carry on with the rest of your day.
If this is difficult, realize how much of your violin teaching life is distracted away from the music in front of you.
3. Listen to a guided meditation.
An alternative to Strategy #1 above is to find a podcast or YouTube recording of a guided meditation and to use it daily to meditate. In some ways this combines the instructiveness of Strategy #1 and the simplicity of Strategy #2.
I find talks by the following teachers useful
Tara Brach https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/
Sam Harris https://samharris.org/podcasts/mindfulness-meditation/
Rev. angel Kyodo Williams https://youtu.be/PgLc1ZlLkl8
Each meditation teacher, as in violin teaching, has their own approach and values. Tara Brach and angel Kyodo Williams are both of the Buddhist tradition. Tara Brach teaches with metaphor and parables, and has a sort of ‘new age’ and ‘ancient wisdom’ feel. angel Kyodo Williams is dedicated to social justice, especially as a black, queer practicioner of American Zen. Sam Harris is a scientist by training, however has been seeking spirituality through that lens for decades. He is straightforward and critical about the process of training the mind.
4. Do it yourself.
There are few things simpler than sitting down in a chair, setting a phone timer, and staying/thinking still for that time.
If this simplicity suits your preferences, go fo it!
The first step is always the hardest, so I recommend choosing one approach which you feel most closely matches your learning style and to try it.
One experience of meditation is enough to taste tangible change, and a week of meditation will cement it.
Good luck on this journey. I think it is one of the most important ones for Suzuki violin teachers to embark on.
