by Robert Phoenix
The latest round of The Grammies had its fair share of surprises. From Amy Winehouse’s big wins and her bloozy rendition of “Rehab” (captured live from London) to Herbie Hancock’s startling win for best album. In fact, Hancock’s capture of the best album award for River: The Joni Letters A tribute to the music of Joni Mitchell, was rapidly regarded of one of the biggest upsets in Grammy history. On the surface it’s easy to see why. It’s a jazz record and most people outside of a rapidly aging few don’t purchase jazz CD’s. It’s slowly but surely joining Western movies, drive-ins, and other forms of Americana that comprise our history but aren’t immediately accessible as modern idioms of expression. That’s no slight on jazz, where some of the greatest and most creative souls congregate, it’s just that as a musical and commercial force, it’s a genre that exists mostly for collectors, purists and lovers of that soft new-agey version of the Quiet Storm listening experience. So how did one of Miles’ guys run away with the best record of the year?

If you were to ask Hancock, it has everything to do with chanting. It was recently revealed during a Q&A when someone asked him how he won that award and Hancock admitted that he chants “three hours a day.” But he was also very clear that the chanting had a much larger purpose than powering him to victory — that it was an overall intention to add a qualitative difference to his life and the lives of others in general. In essence, winning the Grammy was just icing on the cake for him and yet in Hancock’s mind, there was no doubt that it was integral to his success.

All Together Now: Nam-myoho-renge-kyo

Herbie Hancock is a practicing Nichiren Daishonin Buddhist. Nichiren Buddhism, as it’s more frequently called, is a derivation of Buddhism as practiced by the 13th Century Japanese Buddhist, Nichiren Daishonin. The central component to this type of Buddhism that separates it from Mahayana Buddhism or Zen Buddhism is the chant that Hancock refers to, “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.” While this is only one of many Nichiren chants, it is by far the most popular and universal. A couple of decades ago, Tina Turner also won big at The Grammies for her outstanding comeback album, Private Dancer. Turner herself is also a practicing Nichiren Buddhist and also attributed her success and happiness to the chant. One of the interesting things about how the chant and this particular brand of Buddhism has evolved in 20th and 21st Century America is that there is no guilt, shame or judgment in using the chant to improve ones material lot in life. As a result, it rests quite comfortably alongside more Westernized approaches to prosperity, abundance and well being. In fact, unhinged by the ritualistic trappings of Tibetan Buddhism and the atmospheric abstraction of Zen, Nichiren is tailor made for the economic and relatively agnostic pursuit of personal happiness, which is the goal of its adepts.

What about the chant itself? Is it some magical mantra that has power in its plain yet musical phrasing? Do other chants possess their own set of powers as well? There is something to be said for turning off the mind and self talk, to allow the consciousness to breath without the constant inhalation and exhalation of culture and conditioning, the monkey mind as it’s most often referred to. The main goal of any chant is to stop that process dead in its tracks.

When that happens…then what?

Scat This!

As the cutting edge science of neuro-biology is discovering, what happens next is that our brains secrete neuro-peptides that ultimately lock into neruo-receptor sites like keys into locks. These combinations produce reactions and responses within us that then govern our actions and interactions and even draw particular people into our lives as a result. The key to change is to combine different neuro-peptides with different neuro-receptors and thus create new relationships and new experiences.

Chanting can accelerate that process, especially if it is powered by emotions such as joy, happiness and faith. Then the inherent vibrations of each chant are charged with the associative emotions. After repeated intonations the words themselves become the anchors for the feelings, which in turn can help secrete the desired neuro-biological effect.

Would it work if we simply strung together words that formed into some fusion of glosalallia? Perhaps. I remember being totally seduced by Elizabeth Frazer’s babble from The Cocteau Twins recordings and Lisa Gerrard’s sacred, yet non-specific, liturgies with Dead Can Dance. But did they bring me personal happiness and good fortune?

I never chanted them for three hours a day, so I have no available data. But I do know this, that music in general is a profound healing force and when it’s wedded to ancient mantras and chants, perhaps uttering the cosmic love songs of ancient gods from other worlds, getting a Grammy might be just the beginning of what we can manifest, not just as individuals, but as a planet.

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