A Study Of Buddhist Music Philosophy

As a systematic, mature, subtle education system and practical philosophy with the core of the wisdom of consciousness, Buddhism has a lot of philosophical contemplation on musical phenomenon, widely involved in all aspects of the basic problems of philosophy and aesthetics of music. In this sense, the music philosophy of Buddhism can be considered a native oriental theory model of music philosophy, and the academic characteristics of which are understandding and practicing accordingly, leaving the extreme and taking the middle way, treating heart as the main pivot.Buddhism considers that the generation of music belongs to the dependent co-arising, the existence of music is the combination of three kinds of causes that cognitive faculties, their objects and consciousnesses, or nothing but the manifestation of consciousness. And the music and mind are non-duality, or we can say that all of the music are the music in our mind. The tixing of music can be summarized as impermanence, selflessness, emptiness, non-arising and a reality.Buddhism has its own special way to study music, which is the contemplation to music, including relevant method of Satipatthana, perfectly penetrating Dharma through ears, the contemplation of the middle way and the three contemplations of Tiantai, etc. Buddhist scriptures in the description of music provide a wide picture, ranging from the earth to heaven, from the mundane music to the supramundane music that the sounds of Buddha, Bodhisattvas, Pure Land and etc. Buddhist attitude towards music is the dialectical unity with forbiddance and usage. The rules and prohibitions of music is regarding the pamada, but not the music itself. Reasonable and lawful using music doesn’t transgress the precepts, and the the main purpose of Buddhist sound include chanting, offering, broadly proclaiming, practice, treatment and so on.Consciousness-only school of Buddhism can be carried out to analyze the behavioral psychology of music creation, performance, and acceptance in a very subtle level, and the essence of above is the interconversion between Alaya seeds and current acts. This analysis can be refined to the instant dimension of heart, but also considered on the historical dimension of karmic cause and effect. According to the classification of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddhist concept of the music state can be divided into true, zhizhi, briefness & harmony, quiet & deserted,freedom of individual state and kindness, compassion, joy, giving and equality, of sentient beings state.As the profound influence of Buddhism on modern western philosophy and psychology,music philosophy of Buddhist has important theoretical revelations to the contemporary music philosophy and aesthetics research, including "the practical character of reason", "the essence of the existence is relationship", and the future of academic should turn conflict of humanity and science towards integration and general study, turn the life of academic towards the academic of life. Studying on Buddhist music philosophy, taking Buddhology and other Eastern philosophies as the study methods and perspectives, are the requirements of the time that establishing the academic subjectivity of China Music Philosophy & Aesthetics, and have great significance on the renewal of Chinese music spirit.