On Christmas day of 2015 I was making Christmas breakfast for my family. While gazing in the oven looking at the Christmas casserole, I was inspired to write the Buddhist flavoured lyrics to a song using the tune of “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.” The song, “Rudolph the Bodhisattva,” takes the singer on a journey visualising Rudolph, the reindeer, Santa and the sleigh, originating from ones heart centre, and then dissolving all of them into light and reabsorbing them, ending with the singer being left as Christmas day itself.
From this I was inspired to write a number of additional songs (17 so far) based on Christmas carols, but all flavoured with Buddhist thought and ideas. My inspiration was to create a cultural and spiritual bridge with the hope that the traditional Christmas music set with Buddhist lyrics could be a way for Christians to access and come to understand Buddhist thought and spirituality a little better, and for Buddhists, especially those raised in a Western or Christian background, to enjoy the Christmas season in a Buddhist way.
Some of the songs are devotional. Some are tongue in cheek. I am not a doctrinarian in either tradition, and these songs are not intended to represent that point of view. However, they are intended to be entertaining and fun to listen to and fun to sing.
Unfortunately I am not a singer, nor do I play any musical instruments well enough to record this music myself. I do have some singers and musicians identified to perform and record some of the songs, and if you are singer or performer who is interested in participating in this project please contact me. I am still trying to figure out how to licence the music for some of songs, but for most the music is already in the public domain.
My plan is for this project to help fund Dharma initiatives, and so any net profit after the production of the album will be donated to non-profit charities supporting both lay and monastic teachers and student practitioners of all Buddhist traditions. My plan is that as I get enough funds, I will produce and release the songs one by one and master a full album once I have 10 songs produced or 60 minutes of music.
If you are interested in supporting this project, please enter your email in the form below to receive updates on how to purchase the music when it becomes available.
The first song that has been set to music is “The First Nidana."
The word nidana is a Sanskrit word meaning basic cause. There is a Buddhist teaching on the wheel of Interdependent Origination, or the Paticcasamuppada. This teaching identifies 12 basic causal stages for the unsatisfactoriness of selfish, ego based life. It starts out by stating: With ignorance as the basic cause compounding conditionality arrises, with compounding conditionality as the basic cause consciousness arrises, and progresses thru them all until finally the unsatisfactory and illusory nature of ego existence is reached.
This song is set to the music of “The First Noel” and is intended to be a poetic rendition of the wheel of Interdependent Origination. There are several Sanskrit words, but most are English, and to get a precise understanding of the Paticcasamuppada one really should revert to studying the original Sanskrit and/or find a qualified teacher who can clarify the linkages.
I hope you enjoy the song, and I hope it inspires you to support this project!
From this I was inspired to write a number of additional songs (17 so far) based on Christmas carols, but all flavoured with Buddhist thought and ideas. My inspiration was to create a cultural and spiritual bridge with the hope that the traditional Christmas music set with Buddhist lyrics could be a way for Christians to access and come to understand Buddhist thought and spirituality a little better, and for Buddhists, especially those raised in a Western or Christian background, to enjoy the Christmas season in a Buddhist way.
Some of the songs are devotional. Some are tongue in cheek. I am not a doctrinarian in either tradition, and these songs are not intended to represent that point of view. However, they are intended to be entertaining and fun to listen to and fun to sing.
Unfortunately I am not a singer, nor do I play any musical instruments well enough to record this music myself. I do have some singers and musicians identified to perform and record some of the songs, and if you are singer or performer who is interested in participating in this project please contact me. I am still trying to figure out how to licence the music for some of songs, but for most the music is already in the public domain.
My plan is for this project to help fund Dharma initiatives, and so any net profit after the production of the album will be donated to non-profit charities supporting both lay and monastic teachers and student practitioners of all Buddhist traditions. My plan is that as I get enough funds, I will produce and release the songs one by one and master a full album once I have 10 songs produced or 60 minutes of music.
If you are interested in supporting this project, please enter your email in the form below to receive updates on how to purchase the music when it becomes available.
The first song that has been set to music is “The First Nidana."
The word nidana is a Sanskrit word meaning basic cause. There is a Buddhist teaching on the wheel of Interdependent Origination, or the Paticcasamuppada. This teaching identifies 12 basic causal stages for the unsatisfactoriness of selfish, ego based life. It starts out by stating: With ignorance as the basic cause compounding conditionality arrises, with compounding conditionality as the basic cause consciousness arrises, and progresses thru them all until finally the unsatisfactory and illusory nature of ego existence is reached.
This song is set to the music of “The First Noel” and is intended to be a poetic rendition of the wheel of Interdependent Origination. There are several Sanskrit words, but most are English, and to get a precise understanding of the Paticcasamuppada one really should revert to studying the original Sanskrit and/or find a qualified teacher who can clarify the linkages.
I hope you enjoy the song, and I hope it inspires you to support this project!