They weren’t alone: Musicians like Tony Scott and Paul Horn began to travel with their horns through the East, bringing such sensibilities back with them.Īnd when Brian Eno began releasing a series of albums in the mid-’70s under the banner of “ambient,” a new sound world emanated from turntables in living rooms everywhere. Jazz musicians like John and Alice Coltrane sought to infuse Eastern sensibilities to Western music to achieve a universal sound, which often included sitar and tambura in a jazz setting. With the surge in interest in Eastern philosophy and meditation in the West beginning in the 1960s, music was often used to transport its audience into heightened states of awareness. “Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,” so goes the oft-misquoted line from playwright William Congreve, but music also has the ability to calm the monkey mind and allow a greater sense of calm to come to its listeners. Regardless, you will soon find yourself face to face with what many teachers and practitioners refer to as “monkey mind.” Leaping, playing, spinning, making lists of chores to finish and emails to fire off, phone calls that need to be made, that “monkey mind” makes us realize that calming the modern mind is not a simple task, but in fact a Herculean one. But then, maybe you focus on your breath and immediately Faith Hill’s “Breathe” plays back in your mind (or else Fabolous’s “Breathe”). Even the most eager yogi can sit, take a deep breath, find themselves relaxing and congratulate themselves on how well meditation is going. Easy peasy, right?īut anyone who has attempted meditation, either laying in bed, sitting in a chair or in full lotus position, will tell you it’s not that simple.

From the outside, meditation seems like the simplest of tasks: sit silently and focus on your breath as it moves in and out of your body so as to be completely in the present.

Soft music for meditation