Sonic Mandala
Sand Mandalas take painstaking effort and attention-to-detail to complete. Once complete, however, the sand Mandala is brushed away - all that effort, time, labor, beautification, excellence, and skill is simply brushed away into a pile of sand. The brushing away of the sand mandala is meant to signify the impermanence of everything around us, including our bodies. To me, this Dharmic ritual also seems to emphasize the importance of presence, being attentive to the current moment.
Everything is changing at all times. We often desire to hold on to a moment, whether that’s by taking a photograph or recording something you heard or saw. We tell ourselves that in doing this recording and capturing, we are saving a moment to enjoy again and to share with others who were not present. But are we really even enjoying that moment? Are we truly observing and absorbing that moment, being present with it as it passes by, soon to be “brushed away” like sand? Or are we fixated on capturing, controlling, and sharing it for some form of personal gain?
A commodity, generally speaking, is something that can be bought and sold. By this definition, music in today’s world is primarily a commodity. When we enjoy music, we are often purchasing it (or subscribing to it) so that we can enjoy that piece of music again and again. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, a relationship to music that is solely one of buying, selling, and storing paints an illusion of permanence, further separating us from a deeper level of joy that comes with being fully present with music. If we know that we can hold a moment, we were never fully attentive to the moment as it happened. We were focused on capturing it instead.
In response to this hyper-commodification of music, we began doing a bhakti practice we call “Sonic Mandalas;” improvised music that is never recorded and never repeated. Being rooted in the classical Hindustani musical tradition, learning a particular Raag takes plenty of time, practice, and repetition to be able to improvise a beautiful melody. In this way, the musician is “painting” a sonic mandala, coloring and ornamenting it by drawing upon experiences and acquired skills. The listener knows that they will never hear this exact grouping of notes ever again, and thus it becomes a meditation, an observance, and a practice of being fully in the present moment.
The fleeting nature of the Sonic Mandala is the main point of the practice. It brings us closer to Maa by bringing us back to the present, allowing us to experience a deep sense of joy in the moment. For the musician, it is a meditation on impermanence. This music cannot be recorded or written down, it cannot be shared outside of its live performance, and there is no lasting credit to the musician. The music is composed from the heart, centering bhakti, with no transactional expectation on the part of the musician or listener. In a world where almost everything is bought and sold in the market, this can be a truly unique and uplifting experience.
At times, music will be uploaded with theses posts. Until then, take some time to explore the music around you, sonic mandalas where you live, and perhaps the ways that music will evolve with the changing seasons, winds, sun and moon.