There are a tremendous number of mantra-based songs in the American Buddhist soundscape, particularly the mantra for the bodhisattva Ārya Tārā. For now, let's set aside who or what bodhisattva Tārā (Sanskrit. "star") is except to say that she arose as a bodhisattva with 21 different forms in Mahāyāna Buddhism, and as a tantric meditational deity in Vajrayāna Buddhism. The most common Tārā mantra set to music is that of Green Tārā (Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā), who (broadly) holds the mantle for compassionate action and protection from fear and suffering.
Given that the vast majority of American Buddhists are converts and spend years circling around the concept and meaning represented by meditational deities such as Tārā, how do we listen to songs written with her mantra as the lyrics? Do we appreciate them as relaxing and beautiful, but repetitive (since the mantra is the only words used) background music? Or, is it possible to gain some sense, if not deepening of a preexisting understanding, of what Tārā represents through music using her mantra?
Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure detailed the theory of the signifier-signified. The signifier is the word itself, its sound and the actual sequence of its letters. What it signifies is the mental concept or object that appears in the mind when we read, hear or see the signifier. So what happens when the signifier either does not have a signified or, at best, a very fuzzy one? In other words, you hear a sung version of the Tārā mantra and it is moving, but you have no idea why it is moving or what the mantra means. If there is no associated meaning, can mantra music be anything other than music?
Both of these songs are the Tārā mantra set to music. The arrangements are minimalistic and the emphasis is clearly on the mantra itself. This first song, "Om Tare," by the Hindu-leaning artist Angelika, is a rather enchanting vocal performance resting atop an autoharp, very light piano and the drone tamboura. ("Om Tare" from the 2005 album Deeksha.)
This second version is a longer mantra specific to White Tārā, performed by a combination of two well-known artists within the mantra music scene: Deva Premal and the Gyuto monks of Dharamsala, India. It is again a track with minimal background, but rhythmically intriguing with lovely, intentional sibilance. ("White Tara" from the 2011 album Tibetan Mantras for Turbulent Times.)
When you listen to these tracks, ask yourself what, if anything, from the musical arrangement and the performance is being signified? I would argue that what we learn is actually not arising from the realm of the symbolic, but from the semiotic. This concept again comes from the field of linguistics, specifically from the work of Bulgarian philosopher Julia Kristeva. In Kristeva's imagining of the semiotic, meaning is communicated not through grammar or syntax, but through how language is spoken, inflected or performed. Broadly, perhaps, in Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism, devotion is often expressed through the semiotic. It is not necessarily that one sings the mantra of Tārā; it is how it is sung.
This last song, "Dölma" (Sanskrit: Tārā; Tibetan: sgrol ma, approximately: "She who takes beings across the ocean of samsara"), is another imagining of devotional music. It is a track based on a Tārā meditation practice (Sanskrit: sādhanā), I learned at Tara Mandala (sensing a theme?), a Buddhist retreat center in southern Colorado dedicated to the reemergence of the sacred feminine, from the American Buddhist teacher Tsultrim Allione. It uses words from the sādhanā; my favorite lyrics are "I have no other hope but you!" which conveys the urgency underlying much devotional practice. ("Dolma" from the 2008 album Bloom.)
So, tell me what you think! What are these songs communicating? Is it symbolic or semiotic? Is it relaxing background music or perhaps a useful method for deepening one's personal understanding of the outer and inner forms of compassion and emptiness?
Tara (Buddhism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mahayana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What Mahayana Buddhists Believe- Beliefnet.com
Mahayana Buddhism - Mahayana Is the Great Vehicle School of Buddhism
Julia Kristeva is considered a Continental philosopher from France,her adopted country, although she was born in Bulgaria. And she has spend a lot of time here in the U.S. teaching at Barnard if I am not mistaken.
"On the artist’s priestly or ministerial function:
The original intention of intelligible forms was not to entertain us, but literally to “re-mind” us. The chant is not for the approval of the ear, nor the picture for that of the eye (although these senses can be taught to approve the splendor of truth, and can be trusted when they have been trained), but to effect such a transformation of our being as is the purpose of all ritual acts. It is, in fact, the ritual arts that are the most “artistic,” because the most “correct,” as they must be if they are to be effectual." -- Ananda K. Coomarswamy
Some more here... http://www.deepyoga.ca/dial_up_108/classical_references/108_097.html
That would be an authoritative claim.
As for the tone of the commentary, do you expect all Buddhists to sound the same? Would you expect that of, say, all Christians? Is there some sort of tone that is more Buddhist than others?
Yes, this is definitely a misperception. And it's not really helped by the fact that no tone of voice can be heard when one is reading text. I think you made mention in one of your "forbidden tomes" about new age compounds. And I think that's where some of this misperception is coming from.
Some forms of Buddhism are more "gentle" than others. To me, Burton seems to sound very Rinzai. Direct, forceful, but not hateful, just not going to put up with any "guff". If you went to a Rinzai Zen monastery, you'd find practitioners and masters that sound much the same. They don't suffer fools (no, I'm not calling anyone a fool). You know the stories where the master pops someone upside the head with a stick for giving the wrong answer? Yeah, that's them.
We're not all sweetness and light. It's not all about hugging and telling everyone it's going to be alright. Things aren't alright, and the Buddha himself said so. Compassion can be holding a small frightened child, but compassion can also mean sternly correcting that child. Each is a side of the same thing. What would have been cruel, what would have been un-Buddhist, would have been to just not care what got written, not to have analyzed what was said, and not to have taken time to show that there were larger views and contexts that had been missed.
This is false and it makes her entire article seem rather biased, exclusionary, parochial and uninformed.
I think we're going to see a whooooole lot more of this sort of behavior, thinking all Buddhists practice Vajrayana, with the Dalai Lama as our "leader"/pope. It'll be a long time, if ever, that this particular strain of practitioner is able to give up some form of deity worship because new Buddhists here are coming from a God-centered view of the universe. These Divine Forms of The Feminine books and lectures are doing nothing to help this; making Kuan Yin, Tara, Palden Lhamo, and Prajnaparamita into Goddesses.
And I hate to say it, but Vajrayana Buddhism has a lot of "cool" accessories and decorations to buy. I think that's a major draw as well.
I must say I've come across this hubris from Western Vajrayana practitioners again and again. They far too often think that theirs is all there is.
And as for your Dalai Lama comment, here's a quick story: I once wrote to a wine company to complain about a wine of theirs called "Zen of Zin". Their PR person wrote back to me saying something along the lines of "When I think of Zen I think of this quote by the Dalai Lama...". Needless to say, I was not amused.
I didn't mean to give the impression that the majority of American convert Buddhists convert to lineages of Tibetan Buddhism - it is my area of study so no doubt I am biased toward it!
It is an interesting question as to how many American convert Buddhists convert to what branch of Buddhism and I am not sure there are reliable numbers out there - especially given the difficulty of defining what makes one a "Buddhist" (Is is only taking refuge or something else?)
If you have a source of data, I would be very interested in looking at it. The study of American Buddhism is a growing field and hopefully one day soon someone will do a survey study. I will say though that touring as a dharma musician for five years across the United States, there is definitely a mixture of centers out there, but the majority I came across that identified as Buddhist, rather than as a meditation community were majority associated with Tibetan Buddhism.
Don't quit your day job. Leave writing about Buddhism to those who have a clue.
It's that last component that is troubling. Included in the worship component in Vajrayana is also Guru worship. Very very shaky ground, that. Gives rise to personality cults, and many troubles. Hard to take your eye off of the finger pointing to the moon when you're supposed to be worshiping the finger.
It is not surprising at all that in your touring most of those you came across were Vajrayana practitioners, as they are the ones who make use of such practices as deity mantra repetition. You're not going to see many Chan, Zen, or Theravada Buddhists at such events as those are not part of our respective practices. Since we're not there, Vajrayana Buddhists are the majority everywhere?
What exactly is the difficulty in defining what makes one a Buddhist?
That's a great point about music activating a different part of the brain than spoken language! What is also interesting about some of these mantra based songs is that the tracks are quite long - 10, 11min., much longer than a regular radio song.