If you take any English word that starts with med back far enough - which most dictionaries don’t - you arrive at the “middle” of things. Meditation, defined as pondering, is a form centering one’s self. Getting down to the center of what is important.
That’s why I have created the publications and podcast of Small Stone Zen. To get to the center of what is important in life, and belief. And why I focus much of my work on freesong, a language-free form of music. Both here on Tongo Ni, on Small Stone Zen, and another publication, Just Breathe and Sing, where I teach how to sing freesong.
For awhile, I wondered how to make freesong something people would understand. But one of my friends said “Nobody has to understand it. Just hear it.”
Making freesong, improvised music, is such a part of me I improvise all the music I make. I rarely compose a piece. The song just falls out of somewhere beyond me, ready to be sung. That is what happened with Kanzeon.
Kanzeon is my favorite sutra. Kanzeon is one of the many, many names for an ancient Asian deity of compassion that is both male and female. A creation that also honors a middle self. Fully human, balanced.
I hope you enjoy it. Freesong meditation episodes, brief ones of fifteen to twenty minutes, will be part of the Small Stone Zen podcast schedule. Some might say Zen meditation is about silence. A silent podcast? I’ve seen silent streamed sitting. It feels void to me. There’s no vibration of companionship.
I will give you music instead, that also takes you to the center of the gift of meditation. And has no trouble creating a vibrant moment that is, itself, mind.
Making Music, Not Silence