Retreat Mind Playlist

Away on my 10 days of silence, sitting alone in a room,
deep concentration.

Some people wrestle with manic rivers of thought, too preoccupied
with attainment or the coming meal.

A musical disposition appears in front of me,
as both blessing and tormentor. Damming up the river is
easy.

A random song appearing from nowhere
is not.

On my meditation retreat, there was, on average, one random song a day that would appear in my mind during the quietness of deep concentration or during a 2hour walking meditation session. Here is a sample, by day, of songs that plagued my calm state threatening to unleash a hurricane of thoughts disturbing my illusory perception of 'silence'.

Day Uno(1) - Deacon Blues - Steely Dan

Day Dos(2) - Head over Heels - Tears for Fears

Day Tres(3) - Peg - Steely Dan

Day Quatro(4) - I want to know what love is - Foreigner

And on a long ass walking meditation Day cinco, much to my dismay, the Linkin Park song "in the end" popped into my head as I was walking up one of the many mountains. After those days I was able to keep it pretty quiet thankfully. The entire ordeal reminded me of one Zen retreat I was sitting where I had the song 'Maneater' by good ol' Hall and Oates on repeat in my head. So everytime I would ask myself a koan I would be answered with 'She's a Maneater!'.