The Way Out Is In / Feel It to Heal It: The Dharma of Music (Episode #79)

00:00:00

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to the latest episode of the podcast series The Way Out Is In.

00:00:22

I’m Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems evolution.

00:00:28

And I’m Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk, student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the Plum Village tradition.

00:00:34

And today, brother, we are going to be talking about music and the power of music to share the Dharma. And in particular we’re going to be talking about the release of the latest album by the Plum Village band called A Cloud Never Dies. And we have two very special guests Brother Phap Linh, Brother Spirit, we are welcoming back… Always very welcome. And also Jack Peñate, the producer of the album.

00:01:04

The way out is in.

00:01:17

Hello everyone. I’m Jo Confino.

00:01:18

And I’m Brother Phap Huu.

00:01:20

And today, as I said, we have two very special guests. We have Brother Spirit. Hello, brother.

00:01:25

Hi. Very happy to be back with you.

00:01:28

And Jack.

00:01:29

Hello.

00:01:30

Welcome back to Plum Village.

00:01:31

Thank you so much.

00:01:33

So, as I said, today we are going to be talking about the release of the album A Cloud Never Dies. But more interestingly looking at the origin of it, the creation of it, and also its purpose and the purpose of music as a portal for the Dharma. So Brother Phap Linh, I’m going to come to you first because you are a professional musician in the past. Music and monasteries, music and the Dharma is not automatically what trips off the tongue. Tell us a little bit about how those two connect.

00:02:13

So our teacher, Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh, was very clear, at least with me, when I was thinking about becoming a monk. One of the first things he said was, you know, if you become a monk you bring your cello with you. And he would always talk about how music and Zen go together. And in fact art and Zen go together. Many famous Zen masters in the past have been artists of one kind or another. And Thay himself was an artist as a calligrapher, as a poet. And even there’s art in making tea. You know, there’s art in life, in the way that we live our day. And, you know, he would even say things like the highest music, the best kind of music, is breathing. And so for him there was no boundary I think between… he didn’t really make a distinction between one kind of practice and another kind of practice. Everything could become practice. It just depends on our heart and our intention. And yet it is the case that in some Buddhist monastic traditions over the course of history and in different cultures it has been seen as inappropriate for monastics to play music, to sing songs, to play musical instruments, and so on. And it does pop up on our YouTube channel from time to time, you see in the comments somebody saying why are these monks playing music? They should be real monks and do sitting meditation or something. You know, people say things like that. And when we see that we kind of smile, because for us, we feel like we can still be very authentic practitioners and teachers of mindfulness and meditation and combine that with playing music, singing, creating. Because our teacher showed us how to do that and how to be real in the doing of that, to make the music a meditation as well. And that’s something really possible. And in fact, for me, it’s kind of the only way I want to do music. It’s the only kind of music that I want to make. Not music as a performance but music as an invitation to touch the present moment. You know, to really let go of our thinking and come into contact with the wonder of life again.

00:04:50

And brother, just for our listeners, many of them might have heard you give a Dharma talk or may have met you in Plum Village, but they don’t know your background. So just give us a sense of your background in music just so we can get a flavor of your past. And what it was like actually when you left that world and came to the monastery.

00:05:12

Sure. So I started playing cello I think when I was about 10, and piano as well, cello and piano. Which, as a classical musician, is quite late. A lot of serious classical musicians would start at the age of four or five. So I was already considered like…

00:05:29

Over the hill.

00:05:32

Way over the hill. But I guess I was very, yeah, I was passionate about it. And I came home from school one day aged 11, so only a year later, I came home from school and told my parents that I was going to school in Edinburgh to this specialist music school that I’d somehow heard about. And they couldn’t believe it. They were like what? What is this school and how do you know? Where did that come from? That’s where I’m going. I’m going there. And so it was this tiny little school called the Saint Mary’s School of Music and it had about 50 students and it was by audition. And so it was kind of like a hothouse, place for people who wanted to be professional classical musicians. But I already knew even then that I didn’t want to be a performer. I wasn’t interested in being a performer, but I wanted to deepen in music. But I wasn’t looking to be a soloist. But I didn’t know what else I could do. But quite soon, so when I went there, I got into the school and I went there and I started my studies there. And after a couple of years I actually started composing. So I don’t know, I was 13 something, 13, 14. And I thought maybe this is a way for me to contribute where I don’t have to be the frontman, you know, I don’t have to be on stage. And I can, but I can create. And so that seemed like a way for me. But then, age 16, I was pulled, like the academic studies there were, I felt were… it was a bit limiting, because the focus was so much on music, like two thirds of the day was music, and then you had a little bit of time left for, you know, maths and physics and everything else. But I wanted to do more science so I went then back to a normal school and did my end of school exams in the UK, A Levels in the sciences and mathematics. Then I went to Cambridge to study mathematics, but I was too young because I finished school when I was 17. So Cambridge said go and do something else for a year and come back when you’re 18. So then I went to London and I went to the Royal College of Music to study there for a year with an amazing cello teacher and met lots of incredible musicians, many of whom I’m still friends with. And, you know, they’re all professional classical musicians now in different orchestras and stuff. And there I started composing a little bit. And then when I went to Cambridge, I actually stopped playing the cello because I had a physical problem, I had some chronic pain in my back. I couldn’t really play anymore and I started composing a bit more for theater. Basically anybody who needed any music for anything, I was like, I can do it. You know, so I would, I sort of more or less declared that I was a composer without really being a composer. But I thought if I say I am, then I’ll have to figure it out. I’ll have to, I’ll start by pretending and then eventually maybe hopefully figure out how to do it. By the time I graduated in maths, I was supposed to carry on and I had a place to come back and just sort of go in the direction of starting a PhD and, you know, going into research and that kind of thing. I thought I could do that. I was really interested in that. But then in the summer, before coming back, I suddenly had a, I suddenly realized that somehow music was calling me again. So I called my college in Cambridge and said, actually, you know what, I’m not coming back. I’m going to be a composer. And… Not that they cared, you know, I was telling everyone. No, they really didn’t care. They’re like, okay, fine. But then I called all my friends in London who were musicians, I said, commission me, you know, get me to write something. I want to write. And so they started asking me to write stuff. And then gradually over three or four years, I started making a living and doing bigger concerts. But all that time, from age 19, I was coming to Plum Village. And so I had a kind of foot in both worlds and I… There was really like a key moment when I did a big concert at, you know, several months of work. It was quite a high profile thing. I was really proud of it. And I was really happy with the piece I’d written. And then the audience response was really amazing. And I went up, you know, after the concert to take my bow. And there was a kind of rush, you know, like, this is it, you know, all these months of work on my own and finally, I can share this with the world. And they get it and the musicians appreciate it. And so I was happy. But at the same time, in the same moment, I could compare that happiness with the happiness that I could touch in meditation, which was happiness not dependent on anything. I didn’t need an audience clapping, or to be recognized, it’s just available for nothing, for free. And I felt like actually, the other thing is a drug, and I already want more. I’m already addicted, so I have to stop. And that was kind of the moment for me that I decided that I couldn’t continue down that path. Because it was a path where ego and self was constantly getting reinforced by the world and by me. You know, and it was kind of this, yeah, I could feel it happening and I could see where it went and I was like, I don’t, that’s not the way. I have to find another way. And so I feel like my monastic life in a way was this long, it’s like a Hail Mary pass into the future. It’s like, I know that I’m not abandoning music, but I also have to abandon it temporarily to find another way to do it. And I don’t know when that will be. And I don’t know when I’ll be able to catch that ball in the future. And yet, it was kind of like halfway through the album, and I remember saying this to Jack, and I suddenly felt like, oh, it’s now. I’m there, now I can open that floodgate again, I can write again in the way that I did before, but it’s completely different in terms of my relationship to it and the, yeah, the power of self and ego and how it can take over and I felt very different.

00:12:01

Okay, and let’s come back to that point because I think that will show up. But, Phap Huu, one of the things that you’re always looking for, and Plum Village is always looking for, is how to share the teachings of Thay. And you’re looking to open, as I say, new Dharma doors, new ways of expressing the teachings that are relevant to each generation. And so, we know that music is important. I was mentioning a bit earlier that I was listening to an interview with Nick Cave, the musician, the other day, and he said music is one of the last places in modern society where we can have a transcendent experience. So, for you, what is the purpose of a group of monastics in Plum Village creating music and then having it professionally produced by the wonderful Jack and then launching it into the world? What’s the purpose? What’s the aspiration behind that and how did that idea form in your mind?

00:13:08

I think the aspiration, I can speak for myself, seeing it as an offering of the heart to the world. As well as, it was a moment when we were celebrating our teacher’s life, like as monastics, now he has passed, he has transcended, he has returned back to the earth, he has transformed. And it was a moment for us to find our own voices. And I always remember our teacher never asking us to be like him. He doesn’t want us to be in his shadow and never there to move forward. He always told us to continue to renew Buddhism, make Buddhism a part of the spiritual culture that everybody can connect to. And in culture, we know that music is a huge foundation for connection, for feelings, for art. And when we say art here, in terms of Buddhism, looking at our suffering is an art, transforming our suffering is an art, identifying grief is an art, being with grief is an art. Then speaking words of love, melodies of aspiration is all an art. And I think, by coincidence, all of the conditions of the universe allowed me to be Thay’s student who was also in love with art, like Brother Spirit has shared. And he has composed also a lot of songs, especially in Vietnamese. So there are some songs that are sang around communities, Vietnamese communities that were put into music by him. And I have learned that in Thay’s darkest moments of grieving and suffering and feeling lost, he took refuge in melodies, in music. Like the songs that we sing in Plum Village when you gather for walking meditation, Breathing in, Breathing out, I take refuge, because these are like songs that speak about the wonders of life. So even within the suffering that we are facing internally as well as externally, our responsibility as a human being, especially as a spiritual practitioner, is still to be able to touch the wonders of life. And when I was on this journey of grieving, I feel that music gives me a lot of joy. Music allows me to also touch the sadness and the loss that is in me. And as a practitioner, it’s so important to feel. It’s so important to not neglect it or to try to bypass it, because we may even have this idea that as a Zen practitioner, we become solid as a rock, like we can’t be affected by whatever is happening. But that’s actually a very shallow view on meditation. We have this quote that we’ve been saying, like, we have to feel to heal. Like the healing comes from the healing. The healing comes from the feeling. So when we, everything starts with a cup of tea and a discussion in Plum Village. Like this is where like the brainstorming comes and there’s a group of us in the monastery and it’s a very big group that loves music. And we know we have the talent in our community to bring something very beautiful together and to offer it to the world. And we have done this throughout the 40 years, 43 years of Plum Village through every retreat, we always end with a session of music, music meditation or… or Plumcella where we do a lot of kind of music. And you will always hear like this music are people’s journey of transformation. So if the world is offering a lot of music about love and heartbreaks and money, wealth, sex, fame, pleasure, I think it’s our responsibility as part of this world, as monastics, as spiritual practitioners, we’re not in a different universe, but we’re also on this Earth and we also need kind of, we need nutritious food for our ears and our soul. And this is where like the aspirations, like let’s put together an album as an offering. And first of all, an offering to our teacher who everything that we’re going to be writing and composing, it comes from this wisdom that we have received, but then now directly in our own experience. And then let’s make that as an offering for ourselves, but also for those who need a kind of… Maybe some people to sit and meditate is very difficult. But if you pop your headphones on and you hear a kind of melody, it will allow you to go inwards. And I think that was part of the intention was helping people to go inwards, to be with themselves and accompanied by melodies and words.

00:19:23

Beautiful. Thank you. Jack, welcome back to Plum Village. What does it feel like to return?

00:19:30

It was desperately needed, desperately needed. I’ve been in Los Angeles, in London for the last however many months, so to come back here and feel, you know, the warmth and the love and the calm and the peace is an absolute joy. So I’m very happy to be here.

00:19:49

Great. So when you were… I mean, you’re a world-renowned sort of musician and also producer. And, you know, you could be doing a million things and I’m sure there are many things you turn down. When you got the call to say, oh, would you be interested in coming to some monastery in France and producing an album with a bunch of monastics? Or however that was described. What was your instant response that first came to your mind?

00:20:28

The instant response was, it’s not really my choice. You know, I had to do it purely because, you know, I’ve been following my own path and it’s been very open. And for the last definitely seven years of my life, I’ve actively pursued not knowing what’s going to happen and what projects will arise. And luckily it’s been something which has put me in scenarios and places that I could never have guessed. I’d made an EP that’s yet to see the light of day and hopefully will with a young lad from Gambia called Usman who had traveled from Gambia on his own at 16. And my friend was in Sicily living with young lads for two years, and he said during that, do you want to come out and bring a studio? And I was just going to like teach how to make beats. It wasn’t going to be anything too deep. And day one, we wrote this piece of music about him leaving home and leaving his family and we made this album. So it was definitely a record which again, I’d never imagined I’d make. But the feeling from making something with a true purpose, you knew that this wasn’t about, yeah, as we talked about, fame, money, success, it was literally about telling a story and one that needs to be heard, in my opinion. And I got the call because of that, because I’d played it to the label who were kind enough to fund this project. And they’re called Pirates Blend and they called me because they had heard it in my house. I played it to them, they said, you know, what are we making? And so they knew that I was used to being put in scenarios which weren’t a new signing to a major label who needs a hit, please. I’m very much been working in other ways. And so this for me, when it turned up, it was like, of course, that will be done then. There wasn’t a question really in my mind. I knew it was out of my hands as most of the things I do seem to be now. So yeah, it was a very easy decision. I traveled and came and met with the monastics. I think it was more for them to meet me, which was important, of course. And for them to know I wouldn’t turn up with a bag of ego and trying to commandeer what’s happening here. And we met and we talked. I remember we all sat together for a good few hours. And then during the end of that day, I started to hear some of the songs. Especially the Vietnamese songs I heard were just so beautiful and, you know, transportative. And again, for me, I’m not a scholar in Thay, you know, but I knew who he was, of course. And I’d heard of Plum Village. But at that point, I realized that was actually probably to my benefit. There was enough reverence to know what I was getting into, but not so much that I wouldn’t be able to get in there and try and make an album, which was really what my purpose was, was to help make and finish a record in a short time. We had three weeks.

00:24:19

Three weeks.

00:24:20

Three weeks to do it. It’s not that long, you know, with new people. So I realized actually, in a way, it was good that I came in without that weight of the power of Thay and his legacy. I knew it. I could feel it. It was there. It was in the room. But I wasn’t yet so deep in that I would be blindsided at any point, which, you know, now I’m able to openly engage more. But there was definitely a period where I thought I need to kind of make sure I don’t stare too deeply into the light, you know, because we actually have got a job here to do. And that’s my role really was to see in that more systematic way and write lists and communicate the songs that we felt would, you know, hopefully tell the story as widely and as beautifully as possible. So, yeah, it was a very easy decision.

00:25:20

Thanks, Jack. And just, again, many of our listeners will not know you.

00:25:26

No, too right.

00:25:27

So just give us…

00:25:29

Lucky them.

00:25:29

Me too. Tell me more about you.

00:25:33

So just give us a little bit of background because you were a well-known singer. You were hanging out with Adele and Amy Winehouse and living that life.

00:25:45

Yeah, for sure.

00:25:47

And as you said, you’re now sort of… You’ve been, you know, creating albums in Los Angeles. So you’re living that sort of life, aren’t you, of in the heart of the music industry. So but just give us a flavor of who are you? On the surface level. You don’t have to go right into the heart.

00:26:10

Welcome to the Way Out Is In…

00:26:11

I’ll keep on asking the same question until you answer it fully.

00:26:14

Absolutely no. Who am I? I suppose first and foremost, I’d say a songwriter. That was always, that was the thing that, you know, truly engaged me at a young age. I was writing songs at nine, you know…

00:26:29

Way ahead of Phap Linh.

00:26:31

Yeah, I know, I know. Exactly…

00:26:33

I’m still trying to catch up.

00:26:36

But, you know, I’m a songwriter, really. I think that’s really where it all starts for me. I think producers are, it’s an interesting route, you know, and I definitely also question whether I am one, if I’m honest. But I’m going to keep it that way always. I think, you know, I was very early on, it’s quite a kind of cliche, but, you know, I remember hearing Aretha Franklin when I was like seven or something. And just not sure what that feeling was, you know. It was so overwhelming and so beautiful. And there’s actually a lot of gospel, for some reason, Billie Holiday. It was like, those female singers really did something at a young age. And that’s when I started thinking about music, you know, and actively thinking about his purpose, you know. So my way in was kind of that, it was much more, you know, about a feeling created by word and sound and melody. I was obsessed with melody and still am. And then really, from that, I became a solo artist when I was young. Made records myself, which I still do. And watched as my work, when I was younger, really took off. And that was an incredible experience. But equally quite, as the cliche seems to be, it was kind of corrosive at times and overbearing and overpowering. And for a young person to be given money and fame is an odd thing, you know. And so I dealt with it, I think, the best I could, you know. And then I stepped away when I was probably 27 or 28. I just could see what I was about to solidify. And I was really frightened about that. Yeah, absolutely. So right at the height, I was like, yeah, I’m good. And kind of went away for 10 years and kind of got very lost and had a great time doing that. And was, you know, living what I thought was a monastic life at one point, which is ridiculous. It was kind of, you know, Bhagavad Gita and kind of Bob Marley and thinking I was, you know, higher than everyone else and other things as well. But, you know, I went through, you know, a process there. And then around six, seven years ago, I think it just really something, I don’t know what happened, I think I got kind of smashed completely, you know. And then realized that, I suppose, the process of making music was going to be how I could also rejoin my spirit. And, you know, somewhat heal again, the healing process was going to be through making music as it always was from a child. You know, for me, I hate that phrase, but it was my safe space. You know, it was, but it was that place that I could actually, you know, feel things come together and do it in a way that was magical. Because you don’t know what you’re going to be making when you wake up in the morning or what chord structure that day is going to be, you know, inspiring. So, yeah, that was really in the last year, last seven years, I’ve just been really of service, you know. I think I realized that if I put myself in that position, I actually wouldn’t have to actively try. It would just appear. And peculiarly it has and it carries, it seems to be carrying on that way. I don’t really, haven’t really got a plan at all, if I’m honest. I just know that, you know, I love making music and whatever way that transpires and appears is good enough for me. And yeah, I’ve seen the other side and I think you can work in that way and be successful in the other way and retain a semblance of happiness, but it’s very difficult. Whereas this way, I think there is a definite path towards a semblance of happiness, yeah.

00:30:59

Beautiful, thank you. And as you start off by saying, you’ve spent several months in Los Angeles and also in London. And I imagine that’s a bit of a hothouse and there’s pressure and money and demands and all the rest. And then, of course, you spent three weeks in Plum Village. So before we get onto the, back to the actual music, what was your experience of being here for three weeks and what has maybe stuck with you? What did you take away with you that you also coming back sort of feel it keenly again?

00:31:39

I think the experience overriding was really being within a collective purpose and feeling like it was deep, you know, it was a deep purpose that everyone has here. And that’s very difficult to find in London or most Western cities. It’s really difficult. You get moments of that for sure. And that’s why I love making music because I do, I get that with a small group when we’re making an album, you know, it is that feeling. It’s absolutely that feeling. But then you step out and it’s hard to find that on the street or at the restaurant or the cinema or, you know, you’re looking actively. But I think that it’s permeating everything here and everyone. And that purpose is, you know, literally in the trees as you walk through the forest, you can feel it. It’s in the lake. Like I can feel it in the lake. That’s really the thing that I’d never experienced before. You know, I’ve never lived anywhere where there’s a monastic world unfolding. I’ve only ever dipped in and on my travels, seen places. But this was, I think, yeah, the overriding feeling afterwards was a realization there’s a home here, a genuine home and one lacking in judgment or no judgment. And also fearless, you know, I think the fearlessness of the monastics to make this decision is so inspiring. I thought, there’s one part of me that I thought, maybe I won’t come home. You know, maybe I see this is the way. You know, I read like Goldmund and Narcissus and like all these amazing books about monks, and Glass Bead Game. And I was obsessed with Hermann Hesse growing up. So I was like, maybe I’ve just been like, the path has been directed to Plum Village and this is it.

00:33:42

It would be a shame to lose your hair though. I mean, we’ll try and remember to take a photo, but Jack has very lovely, lush, long hair. And I think that, oh no, you can’t.

00:33:54

But he did have a dream last night about that.

00:33:56

Yeah, I dreamt I actually shaved the front half off like a monastic.

00:34:00

I want to see this. This could be a new look.

00:34:04

It might be. But you know, I think what I also gleaned from it coming home was that I’ve been shown that my path was, you kind of validated it because of your dedication. And that when you know what your path is, you have to completely follow that, you know, and being completely aligned with your intuition and your instinct about that, you know. And I think before I came to Plum Village, I was still kind of trying to work out what that was. And, you know, I was just talking about it today, I think for me it is, and it’s again, it’s kind of cliche stuff, but like it is making music for me. That is my spiritual path. That’s it. Like it doesn’t need to, I don’t need to define anything else because it is a form of spirituality. It’s a form of connecting to the universal and the present and all of it, all the things I’m searching for. And making this project with the monastics who are, that’s their lives, you know, it confirms something that I’ve been looking for for so long. So it’s a huge change. And then returning, again, it’s like being home. And I slept 12 hours last night.

00:35:25

When was the last time you did that?

00:35:26

Probably 1984, when I was born.

00:35:33

You know, it’s interesting, Jack, because the, you know, the first what’s known as the Dharma Seal of Plum Village is I have arrived, I am home. And I would say that, I mean, this was true of my experience, but so many other people who come to Plum Village have that same feeling that they can just be themselves. They can let go of the defenses, take off the armor. And it’s like, it’s like entering a healing pool where you just feel I can be naked here and safe.

00:35:59

Absolutely.

00:35:59

It’s such a powerful and beautiful feeling.

00:36:02

Truly.

00:36:03

So let’s get to the album. So I don’t think this is rocket science, but I think to produce an album, you need a recording studio. And, you know, I know Plum Village well, and there ain’t no recording studio here. There’s some open barns, there’s some small stone houses, but nothing that even begins to resemble a recording studio. And of course, the monastics, as monastics, we’re not going to leave for three weeks to go to some fancy place in London or Los Angeles. So how did you create a recording studio? Let’s just… Phap Huu, how did that process…? Because, you know, because everything you’ve done is through a mindful lens. So what was that process of, great idea to do an album, but what next?

00:36:55

Yeah, so a part of it was creating the studio. And Jack actually came on, he called it, he came here for just three days before.

00:37:08

On the recce.

00:37:11

And like a recon mission. Just to really scout the place and check if, you know, the monastics and Jack, if we vibe and if we can really create together, because harmony is such an important element that we knew was going to be key for this project. And while Jack was here, we were also looking at every hamlet even. We went to not only Upper Hamlet, we went to New Hamlet, we went to Lower Hamlet. We even went to where our teacher stayed just to look at the potential of where we can turn a home into a recording space. And it ended up in the foot of the hill residence, which is called Son Ha. And it’s in a building that our teacher gave the name of the building, it’s called Toadskin Hut. So outside it’s like all rocky, it’s not very beautiful, but on the inside it’s very cozy, it’s very warm and there’s this energy of togetherness. And knowing that our teacher, that was his go-to place every morning when he was living with the brothers during the Rains Retreat, he would do walking meditation down, make a fire, and that’s where he created his art, his calligraphies. So it was like, in a way it felt like Thay was telling us, this is where you’re going to record, this is where you’re going to create. And we had a generous donation of resources to buy equipment, which now it belongs to the monastery for future projects, not just music album, but chanting albums and so on. So suddenly we knew there was a location and that’s very important to have a destination to arrive to. And then setting up, I wasn’t a part of it because I was coming back from out of France, but Jack brought part of his studio to Plum Village. He drove like, I don’t know, five guitars with like bass, electric guitars. And suddenly it was like the world was coming to Plum Village. And it was very beautiful because our teacher always said that anything of the world can become a Dharma instrument. So slowly, but very surely that the studio became a kind of meditation space also. And part of the process was to create togetherness as a band. And the band is not only monastics, but it has also lay artists and lay musicians. But I think the first thing that Brother Spirit, Jack, and Brother Thien Y did was to do a circle, a ceremony in a way to start the project. And I feel this is very important to shift the gear of this is now going to be our place of real intention that we’re going to create together that is beyond the self. And I’ll leave that to Brother Spirit to share about that because I felt that was a very important thread through this three weeks.

00:40:35

And brother, the heart of Thay’s teachings is about the breath, about breathing. How does breathing and music and how do those sort of slot together and how important is it in the creation of the music to have the breath within that in a sort of mindful way?

00:40:58

I think it’s everything. Breath by breath, note by note, lyrics, word by word. I feel like if anything, I can feel the rhythm of my breathing much deeper while in session together as a band. And the breath, it is not just a melody, but it is like the companion. And I felt even for myself, like there are moments in the journey of, I guess, like maybe touching ego in myself or touching even inferior complex, because like you heard these friends, they started, you know, at 10 and I started in the shower. I was like singing in the shower and I’m sure many of us are. Right? And we all had a dream of becoming a superstar, like, you know, seeing something on television and, you know, trying to be that. And to be very honest, like I have no, no education in music beside going to school and learning the recorder. Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

00:42:05

Hey, that’s something we’ve got in common.

00:42:08

And then suddenly…

00:42:09

Who needs to use musicians when you can actually play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?

00:42:13

And then suddenly you’re in a room full of musicians, artists, writers, and yeah, you’re going to meet your inferior complex. You’re going to meet like this, this feeling of like, am I worthy to be here? Like, what do I have to offer? I should just go and meditate. Like, you know, like really like all these voices come up and these are the moments when you got to return to your breathing. You got to return to your breath. You got to return to the present moment. It’s not about, it’s not about the self. It’s not about if I had that education or not. It’s like, what can I offer in this, in this space, even if I’m not a musician? And there was one friend who was a musician, but when he was not in service, in melody, he was just in service of tea, for example. So everybody had a role and it was, it became an organism that was so beautiful because there were moments we had leaders and then there were moments we just acted as we’re caring for ourselves, like creating coffee, making tea, cleaning up the space. And all of this was mindfulness, because if we’re not mindfully together, we’re going to be definitely bumping heads. We’ll be like charging at each other. Why wasn’t my idea, you know, received and put into the album? And it could have been, yeah, a real battle.

00:43:55

Well, actually, now that you mentioned the coffee, brother, I think I had the most important part in the creation of this album because Phap Linh stole my coffee grinder.

00:44:05

That is so true.

00:44:08

So actually, I’d forgotten that I’m also, dear listeners, also, they didn’t credit me. You won’t see my name anywhere, but actually without my coffee grinder, they would have been a mess.

00:44:21

Nothing would have happened.

00:44:24

Brother Phap Linh, you talked earlier and Phap Huu is offering for you to answer this about ego and about pressure and about, I would imagine when you’re producing music, you might have a very clear idea of the way you want it to be. You might have heard it in your head, this is it. And then obviously, within a community structure, that hierarchy isn’t quite so obvious. You’re not the composer, this is the way you’ve done it. Other people might say, well, actually, I want it done this way. And that can be quite a difficult relationship.

00:45:01

No, no, no, it’s easy. Everyone else is wrong.

00:45:07

But how being in the context of a monastery and monastics and sort of lay practitioners who know the practice, how did that work? And what are the, because I assume you must have had some difficulties during the recording. It wasn’t like, oh, we’re all at peace, we’re all in harmony all the time. Harmony isn’t something that you’re always in, but it’s something you’re always striving for. So give us a flavor of what was going on and how did you work with that?

00:45:38

I think what’s really great with how things came about for us is that we, in a sense, as we were going along discovering that we had ways of handling these things. We actually have practices that can be applied in these types of situations. So actually, the first one was in this setting up at the studio, which is just a room, we realized that, yeah, a ceremony, like a kind of blessing would be important to set the intention and to create a kind of safety. And in a way, it’s like an antidote to exactly some of those things you’re talking about, like the competition, comparison, ego, inferiority, superiority, hierarchy, all of these things. We could already kind of set the tone by being clear about how we wanted to do things and how we didn’t want to do things. So some of it is kind of pre, you know, things that you can advance and then there are like in the moment ways to address situations. But it’s so cool because we have, in our community, we have the chanting book, we have chanting from the heart. And in that book, you can find all these different ceremonies for different types of event and different kinds of things. So I just went to the book. I looked up in the index, I was like, okay, ceremony to bless a new house. So I thought, okay, I think we can adapt this. We can use this ceremony to bless a new studio. And so we sort of took bits and pieces of it. We offered incense. We burned some sage. We sat in a circle. We kind of took a dandelion and sprinkled the four corners of the room with water. We did the invocation to purify the water. Because I remember Thay had done that for a new center in Italy, for a meditation center in Italy, and he blessed everyone with this dandelion. And it was just so beautiful and so simple. I was like, okay, we can do that too. So in our little circle of four, just four of us initially, and Jack and David and Thien Y and myself. And then a very important part of that was to sit down and say, okay, each of us just share what is our dream? What’s our highest wish for this album? And also what are our fears and what are our concerns? And I feel like that was very protective. Because A, already we discovered we were so aligned. We had such a deep sense of why we wanted to do it and why we didn’t want to do it, which I think Jack spoke so beautifully to just now. And Thay Phap Huu as well, this sense of music as an offering. We’re not doing this to be known, to make money, to be famous, to be successful, to do any of these things. We’re doing it to connect with the suffering that’s in the world, with the struggle that’s in us in relation to that suffering. The struggle of how do I help? When we see the strife, the pain, the killing, the destruction of humans, humans by humans and humans of ecosystems of the world, of just the beauty and diversity of the earth, for me it’s incredibly painful and there’s a feeling of how can I respond? How can I use what I have to contribute to that, to try to help in some way to alleviate some of the pain, to make things a little bit better for somebody somewhere? And for me as a musician, I do feel that music’s relevant to that somehow. And I know it might sound a bit dreamy, but for me it’s not. I really feel like we can’t make the more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible without music. Music is going to be part of it. Music is going to give us the courage to do it, the fearlessness, the vision. It’s going to help us to keep coming back to our vulnerability, to keep honest, to stay honest with ourselves when we get into pride. There’s music that can just cut through that. I don’t think any of us really knew if we could do it or how we could do it, but we all knew that that’s what we wanted to do, which is to make music with the hope that it might help somehow, just that. And it’s more like a prayer than anything else. It’s just a wish and a prayer with the sense that music can sometimes help. And it’s exactly what I hope we were saying before, this sense of you have to feel it to heal it. If we don’t feel our pain, then there’s no hope for us to embrace it, to understand it, to transform it, to look deeply into it. So it starts with feeling it. And music, I think, really can get past all of our psychological defenses and our armor and our kind of intellectual reasons and justifications and explanations and rationalizations, and it can just cut to the heart of the matter, which is the heart, and just take you right there. And suddenly you find yourself feeling things that maybe without the music, it wouldn’t feel safe to feel. Because those feelings, when we think about the genocides that are going on, when we think about the injustice and inequality that’s going on, it’s so overwhelming that we’re a little bit afraid to go there. It’s like if I open that box up, would I be able to handle the grief, the despair, the overwhelm? But with music, I feel like we can go there and be held. And it’s like you can go in and through. And it can take you on this journey. So you touch into the pain, but you don’t drown in it. And you can be lifted up and out and into already some transformation. So that was a real sense. We know we want to do that. And that was protective, because once we’re clear that we’re all about that, we’re not about the other thing, then we can also… That’s like a touchstone. And we had to remind each other of that. There was a point, I think, maybe halfway through the project, when we are all working with ego. We’ve all got big egos in a way. And it’s like at a certain point, we had to just like notice that, become aware of it. And we had to kind of look at each other and be like, hmm, do we need to do that again? We need to do the ceremony thing again. And we need to sit down and we need to share again. And we need to burn some sage again and talk about our intentions again and kind of just touch back into why we’re really doing it. Because when you have a clear intention, then you can drop the other stuff. It’s not that the other wishes and desires and fantasies aren’t there. They’re there. But you just need to find a stronger one. Right? So it’s not like I don’t deal with desire by trying to remove it. And I’ve really learned this from Thay. It’s like you deal with the desire for fame by finding a deeper desire, one that’s more important to you. And then you can handle the other one. And it looks silly in comparison. So you’re like, oh, yeah, come on. I don’t want to do that. That’s a practice that people can do together. And it’s a discipline. And it’s a way of life. And that’s what I love about it, that it’s not, you know, because we can all kind of be dreamy about this stuff. But what I’m interested in is, yeah, but how do we get aligned, you know, in our purpose and aspiration? And are there things that we can actually do as practices? And there are.