On an unseasonably warm spring day, a gathering convened at Nightmoves, a discreet bar and music venue nestled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The occasion was the culmination of "Living Equipment," a series of dialogues, listening sessions, and performances dedicated to exploring the profound resonances of Black electronic music. This series, drawing inspiration from critic Albert Murray’s concept of Black music and speech as "equipment for living," positioned these cultural expressions as stylistic codes capable of navigating and triumphing over adversity with dignity, grace, and elegance.
The "Living Equipment" Series: A Convergence of Sound and Philosophy
The final program brought together curator Ryan C. Clarke with artists Yulan Grant and Jesús Hilario-Reyes, known respectively as Shyboi and MORENXXX. Their discussion centered on the diasporic transmissions of Black music, examining how the body serves as a conduit for communication across vast geographies. This transmission spans the African continent, the Caribbean, the Mississippi River Delta, and ultimately, the very dance floor where the audience found themselves, engrossed in a state of deep listening.
This immersive experience prompted a profound realization for one attendee: awakening, as understood within the framework of dharma, is not merely an intellectual pursuit but an inherited wisdom held within the body. While intellectual comprehension of dharma concepts is valuable, true understanding requires embodiment. This embodied knowledge, emerging from the very fabric of one’s being, represents an inherent buddha-nature—an essence of freedom and liberation. This is a knowing that transcends the limitations of solitary meditation or scriptural study. The program, transforming the dance floor into a lecture hall, served as a potent catalyst for reflecting on the body’s movement as a gateway to awakening and freedom, and on how Black musical productions facilitate this profound form of knowing.
Music as a Kinetic Pathway to Embodied Knowing
The visceral connection between bodily movement and transcendent experience is a recurring theme. Whether on a dance floor or in the privacy of one’s home, rhythmic engagement with music can evoke a profound sense of transcendence. Artists like Kendrick Lamar provide an outlet for processing anger, while SZA’s more uninhibited tracks offer a space to explore the more untamed aspects of one’s nature. Beyoncé’s discography, universally celebrated, serves as a potent source of confidence and mood elevation. This is not passive listening; it is an active engagement that fosters a deep relationship with the music. The bass, tones, and beats induce an altered state, a conjuring of ancestral knowledge that facilitates an excavation of feeling—a state akin to nibbana (Pali; Skt.: nirvana), the unconditioned, the joy of extinguishing conceptual frameworks.
This bodily engagement offers a profound relief, a means of connecting with one’s core truth through movement that silences the incessant chatter of the thinking mind. This connection, however, often feels hard-won. Years of therapy and meditation practice have repeatedly emphasized the importance of "being with the body," an instruction that frequently felt abstract. While the cerebral aspects of meditation—observing thoughts without attachment and returning to the breath—were understood, the practice of body scans often triggered anxiety, a discomfort stemming from the prospect of truly inhabiting each part of the physical form.
The Dharma and the Body: A Re-evaluation of Practice
Traditional dharma teachings, particularly the Satipatthana Sutta, highlight mindfulness of the body as the foundational element of contemplative practice. This includes mindful attention to breathing, posture, bodily activities, anatomical parts, elemental composition, and ultimately, the impermanence and eventual dissolution of the body. These practices are intended to foster intimacy with our physical selves, embracing their imperfections, aches, consistencies, and anomalies. They encourage acceptance of the body’s inherent impermanence, recognizing these temporary vessels as our homes.
However, the current societal context, marked by the pervasive struggles and tribulations endured by Black bodies, often renders the body less a refuge and more a site of vulnerability. In the lived experience of individuals of the African diaspora, witnessing systemic brutality—fueled by greed, hatred, and delusion—can necessitate a minimization of the self. The Black body carries a profound understanding of both absolute and relative truth. While the true nature may be unbounded and joyful, Blackness often demands a constant reorientation to lived experiences, where dualistic thinking becomes a survival reflex. This often leads to prioritizing immediate safety over the exploration of spiritual principles, effectively severing access to embodied knowledge.
The poet Audre Lorde, in her seminal essay "The Uses of the Erotic," elucidates this suppression of vital life force. She defines the erotic not in sexual terms but as a fundamental life force, an acknowledgment of our deepest feelings that, once felt, become undeniable guides for action. Those driven by greed, hatred, and delusion benefit from suppressing this potent force. Lorde writes, "This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of." Accessing this embodied wisdom liberates individuals from accepting less than they deserve and from diminishing themselves for the sake of survival. The body, therefore, transforms from a vessel to be transcended into an instrument for experiencing the raw beauty of the present moment and for living life to its fullest potential.
Black Musical Production as a Contemporary Dharma Transmission
Artists like Kendrick Lamar, SZA, and Beyoncé, alongside the broader spectrum of hip-hop, soul, electronic, and Black musical production, offer an alternative pathway to practicing mindfulness of the body. They provide access to embodied knowledge, the erotic, and the wisdom inherent within the body—the very essence of buddha-nature. These alternative transmissions are crucial for deepening the understanding of dharma and our innate potential for awakening and liberation.
Cultivating Embodied Knowledge Through Music and Movement
Inspired by the "Living Equipment" program, Ryan C. Clarke elaborated on how specific dance movements and expressions contribute to the embodiment and transmission of Black cultural awakening. Clarke, who also works as a "tonal geologist" and co-editor of Dweller Electronics, a platform for Black electronic artists, explained that Black people have developed a sophisticated system of information transmission through their bodies, the only constant they could carry through diaspora. "Black movement," Clarke stated, "by cosmic luck and unspeakable necessity of fugitive invention, became our most developed system of advancement, and it’s been music that activates this embodied knowledge."
There is a unique specificity in merging with a beat so profoundly that it necessitates physical expression. Feelings move and manifest through the swing of hips, the throw of the head, or the stomp of feet, conveying what words often cannot. In this music and the movement it inspires within the Black body, a state of pure awareness emerges, quieting thoughts and doubts, creating space for a deeper consciousness—an ancestral homecoming.
This instinctive bodily response to these forms of expression is not coincidental. Clarke noted that in many churches in the Antebellum South, stomping on hardwood floors became a primary percussive instrument due to the ban on drums, which were associated with rebellion. The resonance of a hardwood floor, he explained, amplifies the rhythmic presence, triggering ancestral knowledge. While many may not consciously understand this technological history, the visceral feeling remains potent.
Expanding the Dharma Through Embodied Wisdom
The question arises: what if we allowed ourselves to embrace this innate knowing, liberating our understanding from prescribed translations? How much more expansive would the dharma become if viewed not solely through the lens of Western interpretations, often dominated by white male perspectives, but as the embodied knowledge of our buddha-nature? This approach offers an invitation to those who may feel unseen: "Let me show you what you already know."
The Samyutta Nikaya offers over thirty synonyms for nibbana, including terms like "the island," "the shelter," and "the refuge," providing alternative entry points to understanding freedom from lust, hatred, and delusion. These creative interpretations serve as a "Thesaurus to awakening," illuminating the multifaceted paths toward liberation. Incorporating Lorde’s concept of the "erotic"—as "the feeling deeply," "the all-aspecting," "the joy aligning"—further enriches this understanding, honoring an invitation to awakening at the deepest level of our beings.
Clarke shared several musical pieces that evoke ecstatic release, including "Amazon" by Underground Resistance, "The Struggle of My People (Mr. G’s There’s Hope Mix)" by Mike Grant, "Got to Give It Up" by Jamerson, and "Phase 4" by Jeff Mills. Engaging with these tracks, the intention to deconstruct their sonic architecture gave way to an uninhibited embrace of movement, a physical unwinding. This echoes Lorde’s profound insight: "In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea."
In all these expressions—the music, the movement, the embodied knowing—lies the essence of the dharma, a path leading towards the unconditioned. This convergence of Black electronic music and contemplative practice offers a potent redefinition of awakening, grounding it not just in intellectual understanding but in the profound, visceral wisdom of the body.
