Do you constantly hear music playing in your head?

[JohnoL]

The cure for 5 o'clock world:

I'm afraid the cure is worse than the disease.

[ChazFromCali]

Meditation can help with that.

[ragman1]

Do you constantly hear music playing in your head?

Constantly? No, thank god!

[GuyBoden]

Do you constantly hear music playing in your head?


Constantly? No, thank god!

Not constantly, I learned to turn it off and on as a teenager via meditation practice.

[Christian Miller]

Very often atm its bloody Taylor Swift. Makes a change from Frozen I guess

[Christian Miller]

I had a horrible experience when I had labrinthitus a few years back. At the time I was transcribing Hank Mobley on If I should Lose You and then when the room was spinning and I was being sick every five minutes all I could hear was the solo on a loop.

not fun. Still like the album!

[Vihar]

Not constantly, I learned to turn it off and on as a teenager via meditation practice.

Is the teenager who learned that and you who's writing about it the same or different?

Zen Master Seung Sahn on ‘Only Go Straight’

[Vihar]

A constantly occupied mind is a burden and needs attention like a physical wound needs attention.

Attention? No. A constantly occupied mind needs to be left alone so it can nurture the fruits of its occupied state.

[gcb]

No. I also hear voices.

[ragman1]

Attention? No. A constantly occupied mind needs to be left alone so it can nurture the fruits of its occupied state.

What are the fruits of an occupied state?

[Vihar]

What are the fruits of an occupied state?

The ones the occupiers confiscated.

[mr. beaumont]

What are the fruits of an occupied state?

Depending on the government, probably bananas.

[Vihar]

So you have no answer. The fruits of an occupied state are constant lethargy, endless self-concern, a cutting oneself from others and life around one, and a half-life lacking any vitality or relationship. And obviously there's no joy in it, it's a ceaseless treadmill without respite.

That's why such a predicament needs to be looked at and examined, not with more worry and concern but intelligently, which means attention. Attention isn't a device to make nasty things go away, it's just to be aware of the whole problem without trying to shape it or interpret it. Then it reveals itself and, in that revelation, begins to simplify.

The fact is that we can't approach a constantly occupied mind with an occupied mind. A worried mind worrying about its worrying is pointless. So one has to to be unoccupied to understand occupation. And that is the whole beauty of attention, just the looking without interfering with what one sees, then the whole thing opens up.

We ought to get back to the music.

Nice, but failed attempt at turning a vague and joking discussion into a lecture on unknown people's mental state.

[Vihar]

What are the fruits of an occupied state?

"Stories of Newton’s consuming focus abound – he would think solidly for hour upon hour – sometimes standing lost in abstraction half way down the stairs; forget to eat, forget to sleep; forget that he had visitors. For years he seldom left his college, almost never left Cambridge. In all of human history there can have been very few (and perhaps nobody of Newton’s astonishing intelligence) who gave such intense and sustained concentration to whatever problem they were working on."

(Excerpt from "The Genius Famine" by Bruce G. Charlton, you can read it for free here: The Genius Famine)

[ragman1]

I understand, but we aren't talking about that. Very clever people do immerse themselves in a technical problem. They often have immense capacity for intense focus and concentration. I've known a few. My partner's one. At one point, she told me, she could move snooker balls and once a person, just by looking at them in a particular way. Great concentration breeds powers, it's a fact.

But we were just talking about a worried mind, going over and over almost nothing, just perpetually consumed with some worry or other. If one thing finished, another would begin, like a mechanical chain. And eventually one collapses through exhaustion. That's not genius, that's a problem and, like I said, needs to be addressed if one wants to live at all.

[Vihar]

But we were just talking about a worried mind, going over and over almost nothing, just perpetually consumed with some worry or other.

Who are this "we"? Only you mentioned that particular thing in this whole thread, turning the friendly banter into this serious discussion. Nobody else even typed the words "worry" or "worried".

[ragman1]

It started here, not that I'm blaming the poster.

Do you constantly hear music playing in your head?

[Vihar]

It started here, not that I'm blaming the poster.

Do you constantly hear music playing in your head?

I don't see him writing about a worried mind. He responded to the question of the thread, "Do you constantly hear music playing in your head?". Your post reacting to it was the first one in a row that mentioned it, in a rather cantankerous tone.

[ragman1]

You're not a captive audience, Vihar. If you don't like it, disappear. At the moment you're merely prolonging the agony by responding all the time.

That would be your own agony, presumably. It's certainly not mine and there's no one else here :-)

[DawgBone]

You're not a captive audience, Vihar. If you don't like it, disappear. At the moment you're merely prolonging the agony by responding all the time.

That would be your own agony, presumably. It's certainly not mine and there's no one else here :-)

You denied meditation was actual meditation and then said your wife can move snooker balls with her mind.

LOL

[Vihar]

You denied meditation was actual meditation and then said your wife can move snooker balls with her mind.

LOL

Thanks, I would have missed his response had it not been quoted, lol. Hope all is well, ragman, Happy New Year to you and your movable balls!

[ragman1]

You denied meditation was actual meditation and then said your wife can move snooker balls with her mind.

LOL

Mediation is a natural event. It's a state of mind of mind that happens occasionally. The dictionary generally says it means 'to ponder over'. That's got absolutely nothing to do with all these clever tricks that are called 'meditation'. Someone invented them and, to my mind, they exploit the gullible. The word's been hijacked for exploitative reasons, the least being money. Not only that but ultimately they become dangerous.

Not my wife, by the way. She's my partner, I'm not married. It's well known that intense long-term periods of concentration can produce certain phenomena. Google it, don't take my word for it!

[DawgBone]

Mediation is a natural event. It's a state of mind of mind that happens occasionally. The dictionary generally says it means 'to ponder over'. That's got absolutely nothing to do with all these clever tricks that are called 'meditation'. Someone invented them and, to my mind, they exploit the gullible. The word's been hijacked for exploitative reasons, the least being money. Not only that but ultimately they become dangerous.

Not my wife, by the way. She's my partner, I'm not married. It's well known that intense long-term periods of concentration can produce certain phenomena. Google it, don't take my word for it!

Tens of millions of people around the world meditate in ways to numerous to list and would disagree with your personal definitions and opinion. You're coming across as one of those anti-religion "opiate of the masses" types. Not a good look.

[ragman1]

Tens of millions of people around the world meditate in ways to numerous to list and would disagree with your personal definitions and opinion.

'an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because the majority thinks so.'

Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

You're coming across as one of those anti-religion "opiate of the masses" types. Not a good look.

I'm not anti-religion, quite the contrary, but religious beliefs throughout history have caused no end of trouble and they're still doing it. That's because there's nothing remotely religious about them at all. Religion means an actual life of goodness, not a life of believing in goodness and acting the contrary. It's not that religion is the opiate of the people, it's that beliefs are the opiate of the people.

[Vihar]

Here's a good article on meditation, which is nothing but taking a rest from mental work, in other words, absence of thinking: 21st Century Zen - www.zendan14.co.uk