The Audio Mandala. What Musicians Are Really Doing. The process utilized in Diamond Sutra Suite attempts to remake music performance and composition into its most distilled quintessence. Over many years I've gained an understanding of what music might become as it and the human species evolve together. There are things you can do to foster and accelerate the wave of evolution. It's like the difference between a sunbather and a surfer. A sunbather is surprised by the wave, engulfed and catatonic in his startle response. A surfer sees the wave ahead of time, meets it and rides it.

In the secret teachings, there are three important parts of transmitting a lineage of Teachings: empowerments, transmissions, and oral instructions. Empowerments are know as “that which ripens,” so they are like the fertile ground in which our practice is sown. However, empowerments are given by relying upon the mandala. ….Relying upon a mandala enables us to receive a good quality… In the Nyingma Teachings, there are seven different types of mandalas that are used in various contexts. From the Tantra of Vast Illusion: "These seven are: natural, reflection, superior reflection, meditative absorption, superior meditative absorption, bodhichitta, and supreme accumulation."

The natural mandala is, simply put, the expression of the primordially pure nature of all phenomena. Thus, the natural mandala is ultimate reality itself. The reflection mandala is the appearance of superior conventional reality, which is a “reflection” of the natural state. The superior reflection mandala is all of the work that goes into creating and offering a mandala. For example, the place where the mandala will be offered must be chosen and blessed, permission must be gained from the guardian of the land, someone must decide how large the mandala will be, and all obstacles must be purified. These are only a few of the many tasks that go into making the offering.

The mandala of meditative absorption is the continuous appearance of the five wisdoms that manifest when we rest in the primordially pure uncontrived view. The superior mandala of meditative absorption refers to the effort that is made when using the focused practice of meditative absorption in order to work with the retinues of peaceful and wrathful deities. Primarily, we must make extra effort when sending and receiving light to the deities and enlightened beings of the mandala. The mandala of Bodhichitta is engaging in the practice of tsa lung, where outer Bodhichitta is the channels and wind energy, inner Bodhichitta is the essence, and secret Bodhichitta is the union of great bliss and emptiness. The supreme accumulation mandala refers to taking up meditation on what are referred to as either the first, third, or fifth group of deities who are both peaceful and wrathful in nature.

.... Empowerments. Each enlightened being or yidam whose practice we take up has their own mandala, and these mandalas are visualized in accordance with whatever empowerment is bestowed… Based on the faith one feels in the enlightened being whose empowerment is being given and the qualified Lama who is bestowing it, it is possible to truly receive the blessings of the lineage through such a ritual.

....Transmissions. It is imperative that we receive no only the proper empowerments for a practice we wish to engage in, but also a transmission. It is said in the Secret Teachings that one who has not received a transmission of a Trantric text or practice is not even allowed to read it, and that even if they do, they will not be able to receive the benefits and good qualities that would otherwise arise from it. Followers of Vajrayana Buddhism believe that the blessings of the Teachings cannot be transmitted fully without the bestowing of both an empowerment and a transmission, so to attempt to practice or study a Tantra without them could ripen into a serious obstacle.

....The Oral Instructions. The oral instructions contain a wide variety of methods that are easily put into practice and realized… Yogis or other Dharma practitioners usually receive Teachings from many different Lamas, whether they be an outer, inner, or secret Spiritual Friend…. [These are] a sort of Teaching that is passed from a Spiritual Friend to his or her closest students.

Telepathy and synaesthesia are inevitable upcoming evolutionary advancements. What we can look forward to. The nearest thing to a common/egalitarian universal function of telepathic learning that humans have is in music. (Other than in dreams... with qualifications.) Music is quintessentially ‘transmission,’ though musicians typically have no defined spiritual content. They have the technique but are vague as to a goal. They have neither the healing objective of shamanism or the goal of assisting others’ spiritual progress that is in a traditional initiation or transmission. But musicians are doing a transmission always. Just as the shaman attempts to induce an entrainment/conjoining between himself and his patient with his ritual (song/dance/idols, etc.) and a religious facilitator attempts the same with his/their shared spiritual community/rituals and entrainment through the visual channel of ritual, the sand mandala and such, the sonic shaman attempts a similar effect with the audio mandala.

The Transmission. The Buddha taught students according to their individual capacities and disposition. Some only understood his words, while others received his teachings on a more profound level. This type of learning is called “mind transmission,” a direct transfer of consciousness that can pass from a deity to a human or from one human to another. It requires a qualified sender and a receiver whose mind has been tuned to the frequency of the signal being transmitted. This attunement is achieved through the generation of bodhichitta, the awakened state of mind that arises through the practice of compassion.

When the Buddha conferred Tantra, he manifested as the deity of that Tantra and imparted the complete teaching through mind transmission. This empowerment by the deity included authorization to practice the Tantra, instruction in the philosophy of the Tantra, training for the practice of meditative concentration, and directions for the practice of the tantra’s rituals and ritual arts

The practice of ritual arts is a means of invoking the deity in one’s mind, awakening the Buddha nature which we already possess. Ritual arts include chanting, music, dance, making torma (barley flour and butter) sculpture, as well as sand mandalas, all of which are offerings to the deities. They are an integral part of the practice of trantric Buddhism.

The ritual arts serve as a “visual scripture” in communicating the Tantra…. In the Tibetan Buddhist canon such visual imagery includes thangkas (scroll paintings), statues, and mandalas. When properly made and consecrated, these works are believed to contain the same empowering energy as the text, the deity, or even the Buddha himself. They are considered to embody that which they represent. The purpose of a mandala is to acquaint the student with the Tantra and the deity and to allow the student to “enter into the mandala”: that is, to enter into the state of being in which the deity dwells.

There are two types of meditation mandalas, which are constructed in the mind. In one, the practitioner visualizes the entire three-dimensional mandala in minute detail. The other, the more advanced trantric practice, known as “actualizing the mandala,” requires the reorientation of the subtle energies of the body to conform to those of the deity.

Transformation of Consciousness. The training the monks receive is not merely drawing lessons, nor is their meditation only the kind that clears and pacifies the mind. Their mental activity is focused on developing their altruistic intention to be of benefit to all sentient beings.

Through the careful, mindful way in which he used his body; through the continuous monitoring of the content of his speech and mind; and through meticulous attention to every detail of the iconography, the ritual artist becomes a selfless conduit for that which is so much larger than himself. And when these artisan monks construct the canonically specific images of the sand mandala or other ritual art forms, they inevitably meditate on their symbolic meanings, which thus have the potential to become an integral part of their beings. This heightened attention to detail and awareness of implicit meaning is repeated over and over again wherever Buddhists practice ritual art.

The intense degree of training and physical preparedness required of their discipline [ritual artists likewise western athletes] brings them to a level of consciousness where they are no longer distracted by personal preoccupations but are instead completely prepared for spontaneous and appropriate action [and] the ritual artist is motivated to make a perfect sand mandala as a means of achieving liberation from suffering for all sentient beings.

The ritual art in its sacred context is unconcerned with “product,” as it is always a part of the much larger ritual. In this case, the sand mandala is constructed primarily as the vehicle through which the ritual master confers the empowerment of the Tantra to the student. Once this has been accomplished, it has fulfilled its functions…. By trying to decipher their [ritual arts] meaning through the context of those plastic arts whose intention is to express the artist’s inspiration, and which have a beginning (creation) and an end (exhibition, presentation, demonstration, and even sale), we attach a very different meaning.

There is never shaman work without the utilitarian goal of healing. A shaman may ‘journey’/seek new skills, but only in aid of his role as a healer.

If we observe a shamanic ritual, we can notice that for a brief period of time the jhankris undertake an inner journey. They take their rudraksha or rittha mala in hand, and for about three minutes they focus on invoking the gods and helping spirits. The din of daily life rages on all around them….The path of meditation leads inside. The path of the jhankri leads outside. For jhankris there is no division between interior and exterior. At the moment of the trance, both worlds melt together to a point: to bindu, the moment of creation in which balance can be reestablished out of disorder. No on would ever think of asking for quiet during a jhankri chinta. To the contrary, loud participation in the event is desired, as it supports the process of bringing health to the patient. The ritual flows seamlessly into a “family or village party.

Sometimes the shamans go into the forest for a while, or retreat into a cave to meditate. Such an event is called a gupha. It serves to enrich the shakti in the interior of the shaman; in other words, it gives them more energy for gaining visions and trance journeys and for connecting with the cosmos powers. “Sometimes the jhankris retreat on a gupha for one day, two days, a week, or even a month. The meditation of a shaman has nothing to do with the meditation of a yogi. A yogi meditates on the nothingness of existence and the wholeness of it. He makes his thoughts free from permanent reflection. The jhankri, however, is connected with nature during the gupha. He visualizes all the helping spirits, intensifies his contact with the gods, and strengthens his abilities for trance in order to recognize the causes of disease. He collects the energies that he will use during the chintas for trance journey. Trance and meditation are not necessarily reciprocal. A person who meditates a lot is unable to fall into a trance. But a person who has the gift of falling into trance is able to meditate, though they may see no reason for doing so. (MR)

Meditation is a deepening into the individual’s interior world, a journey within the interior realms, not a journey into the cosmos. Meditation has practically nothing to do with shamanism. Meditation turns inward, shamanic traveling goes outward- even if Westerners do not wish to believe this fact. Psychological theories and interpretations of shamanism prefer to overlook reality. Also, it is more often than not forgotten that shamanizing is done for others; it is done for those who belong to the outer world. Meditation is done for the individual himself, for inner peace, or for gaining knowledge about the self. Shamanizing is service to humanity; meditation is service to ourselves. For this reason, some shamans meditate on themselves, but they do so in order to forget themselves, in order to gain more energy for their self-sacrifice so that they might better serve the world.

p.231 Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas. Claudia Muller-Ebeling, Christian Ratsch, Surendra Bahadur Shahi. Inner Traditions. 2002.

Telepathy is a necessary precondition for precognitive or atemporal capacity. Out of precognition and atemporality a dissolution of ego arises. Likewise, times and egos thus collapsed to a singularity are accompanied by a dissolution of separate senses, resulting in synaesthesia. Music, if understood and approached with a proper intention, is possibly the only place where a telepathy, an atemporality and a synaesthesia can all occur at once. Thus, if understood correctly, a musician knows that his is primarily a shamanic pursuit- he strives to create a telepathic link with the listener and communicate the synaesthesia and atemporality that resides in the Samadhi he invokes while within his music. So consider the following as definition and elaboration of the role of musician as shaman:

Shamanism is use of the archaic techniques of ecstasy that were developed independent of any religious philosophy- the empirically validated, experientially operable techniques that produce ecstasy. Ecstasy is the contemplation of wholeness. That's why when you experience ecstasy- when you contemplate wholeness- you come down remade in terms of the political and social arena because you have seen the larger picture.

....Through the ability to cure, the shaman can confer psychological wholeness on the people who come to him with problems. He acts as an exemplar. He is like a superhuman person, simply by virtue of the fact that he is together, he is not confused. He knows when to hang on and when to let go. What erodes hope is inertia and the momentum of negative psychological activity. What the shaman sees is that the momentum of negative activity is, in fact, an illusion. And by simply changing your mind, you just step aside and the momentum sweeps past you and you are transformed. So it is the form of the mind that the shaman works with: he has a larger view because he is not really in his culture... Each culture has its own peculiarities and assumptions and phobias and faux pas. The shaman may appear to be a member of the culture, but he’s broader, deeper, higher, and wider than the culture that created him.

What is not well known is the communication model that is happening in the octopus. Octopi change their color not for camouflage purposes, as might be supposed, but as a mode of communication. The blushes, spots, and traveling bands of color that an ordinary octopus can manifest are reflective of its linguistic intent. Its language appears on the surface of its skin.

Ordinarily, telepathy is imagined to be you hearing me think, then me hearing you think. But a richer notion of telepathy would be if you could see my words, rather than hear them- if they were actually sculptural objects. I would make an utterance, then you and I would stand and regard this utterance from all angles. There would be no ambiguity. And this is exactly what is going on with the octopi. Shamans do the same thing. These shamanistic songs that are sung are not intended to be heard, they are intended to be seen by other people who are intoxicated. This crossing from the heard to the seen is a very important part of the revelation of the transcendental object.

We are going to go from a linguistic mode that is heard to a linguistic mode that is beheld. When the transition is complete, the ambiguity, the uncertainty, and the subterfuge that haunt our efforts at communication will be obsolete. And it will be in this environment of beheld communication that the new world of the Logos will be realized.

p.13,22. The Archaic Revival. Terrence Mckenna. MJF Books. 1991.

[re: Nada Yoga]

c. 2007 John Chisholm