Buddhist chanting

Mr Menuhin: I do believe there are various Buddhist forms of chanting which are wonderful, wonderful things. There is a Buddhist sect in Japan that regards chanting as the principal act of belonging to a better world. I think that's very important.

Sri Chinmoy: If you would permit us, we could start by chanting one of the main Buddhist chants or mantras. The Buddha's followers chant, Buddham saranam gacchami. Dhammam saranam gacchami. Sangham saranam gacchami. My students could start with this prayerful Buddhist mantra if you would permit it.

Mr Menuhin: I'd love it, I'd love it!

Sri Chinmoy: I have been to Japan a few times, and we have chanted at Kamakura in front of that most powerful statue of the Lord Buddha.

Mr Menuhin: I believe that music is part of our lives, and that we can learn a great deal from listening and from playing.

Sri Chinmoy: Music, for me, is the very breath of our universal existence. Inside our body is the heart and inside the heart is our breath.

Mr Menuhin: I feel music is a point where the tangible and the intangible meet. It goes directly through our ears into our body, and we are subject to the vibrations of the whole universe. It's an art of constructing a work of art in time, because a piece of music is a bit of life; it's a stretch of life. You live that music. Instead of living yourself, you live that music.

Sri Chinmoy: It is the finite that stretches itself into Infinity. When music stretches itself into Infinity, the breath of music enters into the Cosmic Life.

Mr Menuhin: Yes, it's true. Of course, that is especially true of the chant. In the West it has taken the form of an organised structure like a play or a poem or a novel. What impressed me about the music of India was that, like the civilisation and the river Ganges, it has no beginning and no end.

Sri Chinmoy: It is an eternal flow.

[Singers perform "Buddham saranam gacchami."]

Mr Menuhin: Beautiful! I love the long, long notes and the meditative quality from one note to another. It's a quality that is specific to religious music as opposed to folk music. This is similar to a Gregorian chant in unison, as we had in the Middle Ages. It has very little rhythm; it is music at the service of thought and words. Are the words here determining to a large extent the music? The words are holy, aren't they?

Sri Chinmoy: The meaning of the chant is "I go to the Buddha for refuge. I go to the Dharma for refuge. I go to the Order for refuge."

Mr Menuhin: Yes, they are the eternal words that we dream of and meditate on - words that last a long, long, long, long time. They give a certain peace, a wonderful sense of serenity. It's not a beat like an African beat. It's another part of life that demands recognition. It's our heartbeat.

Sri Chinmoy: Silence and sound go together.

Mr Menuhin: Yes, but they are also separate. One is the beat of life, the rhythm of our pulse-of our vibrations themselves. The other is what we dream of-a certain form of dedication and serenity. But you have to have a mood for it. I don't think that if you chanted that on 42nd Street, it would work. That's why people build temples. They build temples to house that spirit. And then you go into the temple in the right mood. You have transformed this room into a temple, and that is a beautiful thing.