I stopped listening to music

…And I didn’t miss it.

I spent the fall on a 4-month retreat at a Buddhist institute in Berkeley. We did a lot during that retreat — meditating, Tibetan yoga, group discussions, work practice — but music wasn’t an integral part. The closest we came was our daily chanting and one workshop on mindful listening.

I wouldn’t actually notice the lack of music until I came back into the real world for visits each Sunday. Then, when a song came on, I would really hear it. I’d often find myself dancing or singing along to it. My body and mind found it such an entertaining novelty.

There were after-effects, though. Song lyrics would stick in my head and stay for days, pulsing through my head as soon as I woke up. My mind would try to understand the lyrics, to figure out what they meant for my life and how their values should be applied. I didn’t mind that for a few songs where the lyrics cohered with the rest of my life, but for many pop songs, that was very much not the case. Pop song lyrics are based on romantic fantasies, oversimplified idealized worlds that rarely exist. It doesn’t serve my mind well to hold my own life up to the expectations of pop song worlds.

I became more careful about what songs I exposed my mind to. When my partner made playlists for our housework, I asked him to prefer songs without lyrics. If I got cravings to dance, I put on beautiful instrumental music or simply danced without music.

Now that the retreat is over, songs are actually a big part of my life — but they are songs that I am singing to myself. They’re either made up songs, like lyrics about hungry cats set to the Muppets Blue Danube, or they’re songs from my childhood, like the entire Lion King soundtrack.

As it turns out, my mind already has enough songs to keep it entertained for this lifetime. I am certainly open to hearing new songs, but I will no longer go through effort to go out and find them.

If you’re curious about how music affects your mind, try spending two weeks without any or just two weeks with non-lyrical musical. Notice how your mind feels, and notice how it feels when you bring it back into your life.

Regardless of how your mind responds, it is an interesting experiment to try and you will learn something about your mind and music.

Enjoy the silence! :)