'Dharma' is a Sanskrit word meaning "the teachings of the Buddha", "the way things are" or simply: "that which holds us back". The Tibetan word for dharma is 'chö', which can be translated as: "to heal", "to restore" or "to repair". Dharma music then is music that turns the mind toward the teachings of the Buddha or that which holds us back from harmful action.
The idea of combining dharma and music is very ancient. Some of the earliest female and male disciples of the Buddha wrote songs and poems about their experiences as new renunciates. As in the Homeric tradition (Homer lived about 100 years before the historical Buddha; the poet Sappho lived about 40 years before and 20 years before the Buddha was born Homer's poems began to be sung at the All-Athenian Festival), these songs and poems were sung or recited, memorized and passed down to succeeding generations of renunciates. Two collections of such songs and poems, the Theri- and Theragatha (divided by author gender), are said to be composed by direct students of the historical Buddha. They were collected and included in the Pali Cannon around 80 BCE; Dhammapala, working in the 400s CE, added biographical information about the Therigathas' many authors. Both the Theri- and Theragathas continue to be read and re-translated to this day because of their accessibility, beauty and proximity to the very beginnings of Buddhism.
Songs also figure prominently in the Tantric tradition as spontaneous outpourings of realization and devotion called dohas. The Tibetan Buddhist master Milarepa, (11th century), is probably the most well-known composer of dohas; it is said he wrote over 100,000 of them. Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), Nangsa Obum, Machig Labdrön and Yeshe Tsogyal all also used song to teach and express their practice motivations, devotion and realization.
Ravenna Michalsen trained as a classical cellist for fourteen years before turning to voice and song writing. During a retreat in 2002, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche wrote a song-like poem for Ravenna to set to music: “Just A Seed Waiting to Grow”, which appears in two different versions on her new album Bloom. She began recording her dharma songs in 2005 at the urging of Tsultrim Allione, the author of Women of Wisdom (a collection of six hagiographies of great female Buddhist masters), and the founder of the Tara Mandala Buddhist retreat center.
In 2007 Ravenna recorded and released her second album Dharmasong to critical acclaim, receiving glowing reviews and an invitation to tour in Malaysia in 2008. In February 2009 Ravenna's third album, Bloom, was released and the national publication, Tricycle Magazine: The Buddhist Review, published a profile on her work. Both Dharmasong and Bloom are essentially devotional albums: sadness, joy, love and anger are combined with utter openness, playfulness and acceptance. The songs range from supplications to praise; from requests to questions; from statements to apologies. Many feature prominent figures from Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, including Yeshe Tsogyal, Machig Labdrön, Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), Marpa Lotsawa, Milarepa, Arya Tara and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.
Ravenna holds a BA and MA from Yale University, she is a native of New Haven, CT.
Please email her at: RavennaM@gmail.com if you are interested in a concert.
The song “Ki Ki So So” is based upon a chant common to both Tibetan culture and the Shambhala Buddhist community. The chant is done to raise “windhorse” or lungta: non-aggressive confidence. The practice of windhorse not only raises one's confidence, but is said to shift one’s allegiance from fixed mind to a more open and spacious mind. The rhythm of “Ki Ki So So” is meant to mimic the galloping of a windhorse and in a way the arising and passing away of all phenomena. The refrain “I ride on your wind” in the second half of the song refers to the amount a student relies on their teacher's lungta or the power of their blessings.
The song "Marpa" is not really about Marpa Lotsawa, the great 10th century translator and Kagyu lineage holder. It is about the dearth of female lineage holders within all major Tibetan Buddhist lineages. Both refrains: "Marpa: Where is your wife Dagmema?" and "Marpa: Where are my lineage mothers?" refers to this glaring imbalance. As a female practitioner it can be quite difficult to believe that women played as small a role in the development, evolution and practice of Tibetan Buddhism as common perception dictates. In fact, Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of the Shambhala Buddhist community directly confronts this exact mis-perception in the forward to Tsultrim Allione's groundbreaking work Women of Wisdom. He writes: "Contrary to popular opinion which holds that the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism has been practiced primarily by men, many of the great contemplative teachers and practitioners have been women".
Both "A~Drön" and "Machig" are songs about one of the very few female lineage holders in Tibetan Buddhism: Machig Labdrön. Machig lived in the 11th and 12th centuries and was a contemporary of Jetsun Milarepa, although it does not seem as if they ever met. There has been a fair amount written about Machig Labdrön, including a few hagiographies whose portraits of this real historical figure vacillate between earthy stories and wildly allegorical experiences. Her birth is surrounded by such wildness: she was born with a third eye radiating rainbow light, a blazing red HRI on her tongue and immediately after birth took the dancing posture of Vajra Varahi. For all these signs, her father named her "A-Dron", the torch of primordial sound. She was later called many different names and those names make up the verses of "A-drön": Sherpa Drönme, Rinchen Dröntsema, Jomo Shachung and Machig Labdrön.
Machig lived to be ninety-nine years old and just before she died she gathered her close disciples and asked them for their final questions. They were surprised and couldn't think of any and so she sang them a very long song called her Final Instruction Song. Towards the end appear these two verses which I have modified into a chorus:
"Supreme view is beyond duality of subject/object;
Supreme meditation is without distraction;
Supreme activity is action without effort;
Supreme realization is beyond both hope and fear!"