From 7 pm to 8:30 pm on Wednesday, August 6, the Newport Beach Buddhist Temple will offer a public lecture entitled "Buddhism & Music." It probably isn’t surprising that Buddhism, with its emphasis on “living in the moment” and “going with the flow,” has often found expression in the art form of music. In this lecture, we will begin by listening to and discussing songs with strikingly Buddhistic lyrics from American artists such as Green Day, Disney, Steely Dan, Jon Mayer, Lee Ann Womack, and Quincy Jones.
Next, we’ll look at music as a metaphor for the flow of life itself. Don’t we subconsciously love listening to music because it has the power to transport us to a different state of mind, one more free and open? We’ll look at music in other world cultures such as the gamelan music of Java, whose aesthetic arguably represents not only the Buddhist egalitarian ideal, but also in its form, the “stream of life” itself. Can we “enter the stream” just by listening to it?
We’ll also look at music as a practice, as a way to attain awakening, the goal of all Buddhist traditions. We’ll experience Buddhist chanting (a form of meditation), and interactive music workshops with the goal of getting into the “creative flow.”

About the lecturer:
Rev. Peter Hata is a Shin Buddhist priest at the Downtown Los Angeles main temple of Higashi Honganji.
Rev. Peter is also a jazz musician and one of the original members of the Sansei (“3rd generation” Japanese-American) band, Hiroshima, with whom he recorded several albums and toured throughout the U.S. and Japan. He also holds a Master’s degree in music and has taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate music courses at Cal State LA.