Tag: contemplative music
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The William Altig Choir: Blues Meets Buddhist Wisdom
“Just to Cater to Your Whim” – The William Altig Choir Sometimes love looks like giving in. Sometimes compassion means meeting someone where they are, even when you know the path they’re walking won’t heal them. This song is about that impossible tightrope – when your heart can’t bear to see someone suffer, so you…
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The Forgotten Promise | By The William Altig Choir
We all carry something ancient within us—a promise made before memory, a purpose that calls to us through the noise of daily life. “The Secret Vow” is a heavy blues meditation on the profound loss we feel when we’ve forgotten why we’re here. Drawing from the Buddhist teaching of the Bodhisattva vow—the commitment to return…
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The Cure I Couldn’t See | The William Altig Choir
A blues-folk meditation on the physician’s parable from the Lotus Sutra. This song tells the story of a soul searching desperately for healing, only to realize the remedy was offered all along—but pride and delusion kept them from believing. Inspired by ancient Buddhist wisdom translated through the language of Delta blues and Appalachian folk, “The…
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Lay Your Shovel Down
A Blues-Folk Song A blues-folk meditation on the exhaustion of trying to earn your worth through endless striving. This song walks through the valley of good intentions gone sour, calloused hands and hollow prayers, until a stranger by the roadside offers an ancient truth: the light you’ve been climbing toward was inside you all along.…
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Good Seed
“Good Seed” is a patient, grounding folk-blues meditation on the wisdom of tending life like a garden. With fingerpicked acoustic guitar, warm harmonica, and call-and-response vocals, this song explores what it means to plant good seeds, give freely without demanding results, and learn from the spaces where nothing grows. Drawing on timeless gardening wisdom and…
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Love Till Love’s the Only Sure
An old physician rolls into town with medicine that promises to cure any illness forever. But there’s a warning: “Many will hate this cure with jealousy.” Why? This 14-minute spiritual blues odyssey answers that question through the marriage of Buddhist philosophy and American roots music. It’s about three healers whose identities are threatened by ultimate…
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The Patient Heart Blues
“The Patient Heart Blues” – A Song About Standing Strong While Walking Away Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is knowing when to stay and when to go. This song came from studying an ancient Buddhist text about patience—but not the kind of patience where you just take whatever comes. Real patience, the kind…
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The One That Stays
“The One That Stays” wrestles with an ancient question: How do ordinary people offer something sacred when the old stories demand the impossible? Inspired by Buddhist teachings about sacrifice and perseverance, this song explores the tension between spectacular acts of devotion and the quiet heroism of simply continuing—of getting up, showing up, and staying present…
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“One Word of Praise”
What if everything you’ve been told about spiritual progress is backwards? This song came from reading an ancient Buddhist text—the Lotus Sutra—that completely flips our understanding of how transformation happens. We’re taught that meaningful change requires years of effort, countless hours of practice, immense sacrifice. Grind long enough and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get somewhere.…
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Bodhi Tree Blues
Bodhi Tree Blues is a slow-shuffle folk-blues hymn born from the Lotus Sūtra’s Chapter 17 promise of immediate awakening. A warm finger-picked guitar and mournful harmonica set the groove, while a gospel-style choir lifts the chorus like a sunrise. The song celebrates the truth that every breath and every step are sacred—each of us already…
Mr. Altig’s Overview of the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra 