THE CENTER OF THE DRUM
June 5th, 2011No comments »
American Indians use the drum as a form of meditation and as a metaphorical representation of the development of consciousness. Imagine a hand-held drum made out of a six-inch wide ring of wood. An animal skin forms the head of the drum. A long strip of leather winds in and out of holes drilled into the ring of wood. The leather strip crosses the inside of the drum at many points, weaving through the holes on the other side of the ring. The result is that on the inside of the drum, you have many strips of leather across the center. The drummer holds the place where the strips cross.
Imagine that the ring represents the world and that each strip across the inside of the drum represents one aspect of our being (one “element”). One may represent the body, another the thinking mind, emotions, will, memories, the senses, creativity, attention, etc. When you hold the drum at the center, you are “balancing the elements”. This means that you are controlling the relationship among all these aspects of your being.
The beating of the drum represents time. The sound that results represents how your individual spirit (individual Tao) creates the quality of your life, as you live your life through time. The drummer varies the tightness or looseness of the various leather strips as he or she drums, to vary the sound. This represents the way we can be creative with our spirit in the way we interact with the world (the wood ring of the drum).
Drumming then becomes a beautiful way to understand how we form our lives by creating a cohesive feeling of who we are (represented by the center of the strips that the drummer holds) based on the relationship of the elements. Each person usually emphasizes one element more than the others and uses that element as the center around which the others are balanced. For some, the thinking mind may be the most important element. For others, it is the emotions. The skill in balancing the elements in all ancient cultures is to keep all the elements balanced.
Yet I have found that in all the cultures I have studied, one element is considered the best to use as the balance point. Those of you who have followed these weekly lessons will not be surprised to read that this element is, attention. It is consciousness itself. Balancing the elements really means paying attention equally to all the aspects of our being. We need to pay attention to our physical health as well as our mental development as well as our emotional balance, etc. Within the body, we need to pay attention to all those muscles, joints and other parts, making sure that each is relaxed or flexible or whatever quality that part needs to have to function well. We too often neglect our bodies in general or, even if we exercise, we may not practice an exercise that works all parts of the body and relaxes as well as strengthens.
The drum analogy also points out another aspect of training that is important in Zookinesis and Tai-chi. Those strips across the back of the drum are constantly varying in their tightness and looseness. The drum wobbles back and forth to create interesting sounds. Too often we get stuck in one dynamic of how those elements behind the “drum” (behind our everyday lives) blend and play with each other. We become rigid in our thinking, in our emotional state and other qualities and loose our creativity. The “sound” that comes from our lives becomes a dreary beat of time leading to our sad deaths.
The alternative is to live our lives as if we were creating joyful music with each day. What can you do this day to be creative with your life? It may be something small, such as eating a different breakfast than usual. But if you get used to asking yourself how you can be creative each day, that will gradually bring creativity into your life. It will bring your attention to how you can use the elements to live a creative life. That hand that grabs the center of the leather strips and plays creatively with them, is you. It is the interaction of attention and creativity, the interaction of yin and yang. Attention centers. Creativity varies.
We may complain that the everyday problems of life make it hard to stay with our practice. We just don’t have the time or energy. Let’s go back to the drum. We have the drum and the hand holding the drum. Yet can it make a sound without being hit? The stick hitting the drum is the everyday problems and activities of life. The resulting sound comes from the interaction of how we “hold” our spirit and how the everyday activities of life resound on that spirit. In this way, drumming represents life itself. When you listen to a drummer or to any musician, you can tell whether he is playing from his spirit or if his music is just technical. He may be technically proficient but that alone will not stir an audience. You may have another musician who is not all that great technically but his spirit shines through the music. We can forgive the lack of technical proficiency. The lack of spirit is harder to forgive.
In the same way there are people who are very proficient at certain elements. They may be good at acquiring wealth or have great knowledge. But what is the quality of their spirit? Each of us has a great wealth. We have the wealth of our attention and creativity that is given to every person in the world. We can stay centered (not give in to anger, greed or jealousy) and be creative (love the challenge of doing the most with what we have). We can make every day of our lives an act of balancing the elements, of facing the problems of life with creativity. That stick will continue to hit our drum but we can determine what sound it will make.
When we practice our Tai-chi form or Zookinesis exercises, remember the interweaving strips that meet at the center behind the mechanics of the movements. Bring your attention to the center and from this center, be creative. At one moment your mind may kick in, the next moment, your emotions or your will or a memory. Allow this interplay with the elements but don’t shift your attention from the center.
The interplay of the elements should not be suppressed as long as your attention does not get pulled by any one of them. Sometimes an element may try to steal the attention from the center. A thought, for example, may try to convince you that you need to pay full attention to it and abandon the center. You can develop the ability to quietly be aware of the “antics” of the thinking mind without getting caught up in them. You are like the parent, watching the antics of a child and the thinking mind is usually very much like a child. It wants all of your attention and does anything it can to get that attention. It is jealous of any attention you give to any other part of you.
For many people, the elements of their being are very much like jealous children and there is chaos inside of them. The practices of Tai-chi, Zookinesis and drumming are designed to create harmony where there was chaos by keeping the attention centered and creativity active. I love studying how other cultures try to achieve the same results as the Taoist culture. The teaching techniques may vary but the goal is obviously the same. The external harmony of music not only reflects the internal harmony of the musician but also resonates a harmony in the listener. When you see a Tai-chi practitioner doing a Tai-chi form, that also resonates in the viewer. Harmony is the interplay of centeredness and creativity. If everyone in the world had such a practice in their lives, how the world could change for the better!
