ATTENTION, TONE YOGA, & INQUIRY My Contemplative Practice

INTRODUCTION: A CONTEMPLATIVE ATTITUDE
One runs the risk of sounding self-indulgent, pretentious, narcissistic, and patronizing in discussing the manner in which one prays, meditates, or gets their contemplative groove on. After all, there is not an absolute need to do any of this in order to be a healthy human, functioning member of society, compassionate soul, or enlightened being. It may seem like the writer thinks everybody must meditate, or that he or she is to be unduly revered because of it. Such dogma or showiness is hogwash, mainly because meditation is not an end state but rather more akin to taking a private bath—it is one way to refresh and renew, but not the only way. Cleanliness is arrived through several paths. It is obnoxious and naive to think that one's path is the only path.

Added to these risks is the problem of language. "Meditation" for many implies something like "sitting silently, on a pillow or blanket." I think this is too narrow a view. I prefer a broader definition—something like "focused reflection"—that can include sitting, but is not limited by that practice. Writing can be a meditation. Reading can be, too, as can conversation, sex, singing, gardening, dancing, work, cooking, art-making, as well as enjoying someone else's art. Parenthood requires an enormous amount of selfless, focused concentration—coax a fitful baby to sleep and you'll know what I mean.

It all has to do with one's approach to what one does, in taking a "contemplative attitude" that is truly reflective, not merely a reflective-looking practice such as sitting meditation, which appears contemplative but might not be at all, or might even foster contemplativity in but that context and nothing at all contemplative in the rest of one's life. My view is that one's contemplative practice ought support, not disassociate from, one's sociological and cultural participation. It should never become a block or obstacle between you and those who love and care for you. It cannot be escapist.

THE 1% RULE
I've written elsewhere that I advocate a "1% Rule" for silent medtation. I believe that about 1% of one's waking hours ought be devoted to silent meditation. That amounts to around 10-15 minutes a day. As a suggestion (not a fiat), this number can be increased of course if one wants. But because I believe that so many other activities can be approached as a meditation, 10-15 minutes of silent sitting (practiced daily over several years) is enough, in my experience, to trigger in one's awareness the recognition a deep sense of contemplative life, a sense that can be brought forth into anything one does.

This is why the Sufi musician and thinker Hazrat Inayat Khan wrote that one can stop silently meditating when one can stabilize that "meditative state of mind" in everyday life. In his The Music of Life (p. 144), he says, "If there is a meditative person, he has learned to use that silence naturally in everyday life. The one who has learned silence in everyday life has already learned to meditate." And at that point of development, it is far easier to conceive any activity as a kind of meditation, or contemplative act, for the meditative state of mind stably undergirds everything one does. But to speak practically, if you can focus while performing any activity (and even watch yourself focusing during it) then that is what I mean by a "contemplative attitude", and this is attainable no matter how long one has practiced silent meditation.

So with all that said, I would like to detail what I do in my own contemplative practice (or 'sadhana', or 'module'). I focus on three stages—bare attention, Tone Yoga, and witness inquiry. I start first thing in the morning and proceed through the stages described below.

STAGE ONE: BARE ATTENTION
As I wake up, get out of bed, and drag a comb across my head, I amble over to my sitting place in our living room. I kneel on a blanket, do a simple stretch to loosen my shoulders (mine tend to be tight) and then proceed with the meditation, of the 'bare attention' variety.

This means I watch my thoughts, my sense perceptions, and in general, I watch the machinations of the subject that is my mind. While I still feel in a place just this side of asleep, and even drift back into dreaming now and again, I find that in a couple minutes or so I can usually reach a place of (more or less) constant attention to whatever arises. It is really no big deal, which I say because nothing really "happens". I don't hope for anything except a degree of focus, calm, and openness. Think of it as a 'warm-up stretch', before one would start an athletic activity. So, this first area serve to prepare me for the rest of the session.

There isn't much more to it than that. It is simple, straightforward, and uncomplicated. Sit and watch your mind work. That's it.

STAGE TWO: TONE YOGA
The next part of my practice is musical, and active. I use my guitar, and I sing. Two of my low guitar strings are tuned to a perfect fifth, and I strum these as a drone (ala a Hindustani tamboura). First I listen—sometimes for as long as 10 or 15 minutes—to the drone, to hear both the fundamental tone, and then to discern the more subtle overtones (or harmonics) perceivable from any plucked string. If you listen closely enough, openly enough, you can hear several discreet pitches in addition to the pitch you expect to hear. It is quite fascinating, actually.

After this crucial step of listening, only then do I start to sing. I start by singing in unison with the lowest note plucked on my guitar (which these days is low E). So I inhale deep, pluck the string, then sing the unison note for the entirety of my full breath. I repeat many times (keeping track with my left hand). I sing this long tone over the single drone note.

Of course, any kind of singing is a ride. The pitch of one's voice fluctuates slightly (just above, then just below the drone) and I notice these fluctuations, and make slight adjustments that seek a true unison. This is very focused practice, that of listening closely to both the drone and my voice, as if both swimming in a sea and standing on the shore at the same time.

Sometimes the unison singing comprises this entire second stage. But when it doesn't, I will then move on to sing other notes over the drone: such as a perfect fifth, major third, fourth, and so on. I sing open-throated, full, and I use Hindustani solfege syllables, called sargam—sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, sa. I sing each of these intervals, seeking an encounter with each. I track the number of breath-repetitions on my left hand fingers (my right hand plucks the guitar on my lap).

Sometimes this focus on intervals comprises this second stage, but sometimes I go further. I allow this decision to be made in the moment of each session—music is rightly an organic and chaotic art. If so, then I sing a scale,, which might be a common Western scale or a non-Western scale. A degree of music theory is required to have a full palette of scales (or modes) at one's disposal, but not too much theory. I sing ascending and then descending through the scale, still over the drone, and when I am comfortable with each of the pitches (that they are in tune, and feel in tune), then I improvise in that scale, over the drone, in a method much like an Indian vocal raga—freely, without thought of chord progression, but rather for the purpose of melodic invention and investigation. This is particularly fun and rewarding.

Through all of this, I consider several aspects. One is bare attention, started in stage one, of simply what's happening as I sing (including how my bodily energies are excited from this bath in tone). It is my strong belief that the power of music in large part lies in its capacity for sensorimotor stimulation—dancing, sure, but also muscle and tissue relaxation through focused listening and absorption in tone.

Another important aspect is how I ocassionally combine Tone Yoga (a sort of Sufi-inspired pranayama) with Buddhist tonglen. The practice, as described by Buddhist nun Pema Chodren, has four simple steps.

1) Flash openness
2) On the in-breath, receive in the suffering of another person as thick, black smoke through all of my pores; on the out-breath, send out compassion for that specific suffering as white light in all directions
3) Isolate a specific form of suffering, in a concrete sense (ie, confusion in life direction, or forgiveness for a past wrong)
4) Expand the circle of inclusion in order to send out love and compassion all sentient beings.

I import this into Tone Yoga, with all four steps of tonglen incorporated into my singing. How this is done is a rather complicated manner (requiring a longer description), but the basic cut of it is this: I prepare to open my throat to sing, along with focus on the drone, I flash openness, then visualize an inhalation of black smoke as the suffering of a person close to me. I then exhale and sing as a release of love, forgiveness, and compassion, visualized as white light emanating outwards. The sung tone becomes a form of love I offer to the world, for a particular person who suffers as well as for all sentient beings. Sometimes what I visualize as the inhalation and the exhalation is different depending on the particular tone I sing, but that is part of the longer story I'll tell at another time.

STAGE THREE: A WITNESS INQUIRY
For the final stage, I set aside my guitar and my tones, retake the original position of a sitting meditation, and re-acquaint to bare awareness (though now unmistakably infused with subtle vibrations from the tones), and I simply inquire: Who am I?

Within interior space, I ask this question over and over again. It is a question easy to ask, and a mystery to answer. It is a form of koan, with inner responses such as "the thinker is not the thought", or "the seer is not the seen", or "the hearer is not the heard." There is very little in this place. Just the inquiry. And just I.

Again, there is not anything more to this stage than the interior inquiry of "Who am I?" As with the bare attention stage, the witness inquiry stage is best kept uncomplicated. As one performs this interior experiment of asking of one's nature, the ability to do so with clarity and focus increases. It is like compound interest—it builds upon itself, as self-recognition deepens and releases over time.

POSTSCRIPT
This whole contemplative practice lasts about 45 minutes. Stage one prepares my attention, stage two vocally activates the meeting of my intention with my attention. And stage three seeks investigation of what undergirds everything. The second stage is the most active, as well as the one most difficult to describe. Yet the flow from one to two to three is quite natural, and for me renews openness, equinimity, balance, humility, and intuition. It also infuses my awareness with more and more music, which is an obvious benefit to a musician and a composer.

For me, it is best to do this first thing in the morning. That way, my entire day proceeds outwards from this contemplative space (or core). I have found that, while incremental at first, I can definitely feel cumulative positive effects on my mood, the capacity to be aware and present, my music and compositions, the capacity I have to offer forgiveness to others, the equinamity I can have in the face of suffering, and the simple joy of simply being alive. I'm able to bring more humility, integrity, and even intelligence to bear in my life, and my interactions with others. Everything is lighter, more intuitive, and more deeply felt. And I look forward to tomorrow's practice, as another chance to dig deeper into awareness, tone, and recognition.

MD
Chicago, Illinois
January 2006

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