Tag: meditation

Riding a Rollercoaster at 30 Rock

A highlight of last year was being asked to appear on Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC. The 8G Band, the show’s house band, is led by Fred Armisen, and due to his busy schedule, they often ask drummers to fill in for a week. To be asked is a great honor.

I’ve come to see everything that happens in my life, big and small, as opportunity to use the tools I’ve gained through years of contemplative practice to watch the rollercoaster of my interior life. This was quite a ride.

When the message came to hold the dates for my appearance, and the possibility became a reality, I noticed that what rose in me first was excitement, a buzzy feeling of having accepted a challenge. Continue reading “Riding a Rollercoaster at 30 Rock”

One More, With Feeling

Another stormy San Francisco morning. I love the sound of the wind and the rain. Wooden chimes hang on the fire escape outside the kitchen window, and I imagine that their low castanet sound will trigger a sense memory in the future, when I have left this apartment and am longing for my days in this magical city.

The band has been on hiatus for a few weeks, and while I have a bunch of music stuff to write about, on my mind this morning is still the big picture stuff. You’ll have to indulge me in yet one more such post until I get back to writing about learning Zeppelin songs. Continue reading “One More, With Feeling”

What Lies Below: America and The Great Dissolvent

When I sit in meditation, I fall into a stillness that is a wide, expanded, infinite space. My awareness falls down, underneath the the rushing tumult of the mind and its thoughts. As I fall, I look back and see the underside of these thoughts, a rushing current on the surface of what I call Myself. When I detach from the thoughts, when I just observe them but don’t react, I fall beneath them, where it’s quiet.

Further I drop, and now the body feels porous. My breath moves beyond the edges of my skin and any pain or sensation detaches from my identity, and I just observe. I fall beneath sensation. Now I am in stillness, and I just receive. I just observe. I see how emotions rise and fall. Hatred, anger, shame, fear. I see them tense the body, I see them sicken and churn, tighten and wrack and ache, and then they pass through. When they leave, I am again left with peace. Continue reading “What Lies Below: America and The Great Dissolvent”

Your Brain on Drums: The Practical Application of Meditation in Drumming

I sit in the meditation hall, propped up with various blue beanbags, but this doesn’t stop the pain. It’s pretty much the same every time I sit. After some amount of time, my right hip develops a dull ache through the inner thigh, radiating to my big leg muscle and then down to the knee, up and over then down the inside of my shin and then to the group of nerves that pool beneath my inner ankle. I’m here to watch, not react. I am just a witness, a witness to pain, a witness to lack of pain. I’m to keep an equanimity towards either. Eventually, the point is to discover that this equanimity translates to every situation in my life. I have already seen it happen.

But as I sit here, the pain gets stronger. Just observe, just observe. It’s one of the three one-hour sits per day in which I’m to have a strong determination not to move a muscle. I’m putting my awareness at the top of my head and then following it down through my body to my toes and then back up. I’m observing the sensations on my body, good and bad, pain and no pain. Just observe, don’t react. Next time I come back to this thigh muscle the sensation may be totally different. Maybe next time it will be a throbbing, or shooting, or burning pain. Not this tight ache. Continue reading “Your Brain on Drums: The Practical Application of Meditation in Drumming”