Jundo
04-27-2020, 03:40 AM
My dear Uncle Robert, an orchestra conductor in the US and UK, died this weekend after a short battle with Covid. He was 90.
In fact, a symphony presents a lovely image of birth, life and death for the attuned Buddhist ear. Our life is like a single vibrating string, passing through movements, yet each note just this single moment followed by the next note in its single moment. All are just the play of the present moment. Life begins with a first note, and ends with a finale, but the entirety is the total music of the universe playing on. All our instruments are blending together, a great harmony though sometimes heard to clash. There are happy movements and sad movements, healthy and sick movements, rises and falls, flowing one into the other. Whether we make beautiful music with the instrument of our own life, or play it without skill and balance, is greatly up to us. A skilled musician can turn even difficulties, obstacles and surprises into something beautiful.
The end of the music depends on the start and middle to come before, and the beginning of the music would be meaningless without a climactic end. The vibrating waves of life seem to rise from nowhere, and fade away at the end, but the string and its potential for sound remains. Ultimately, the single string is the whole orchestra of the universe, and the whole universe is each single string. The one player has no meaning without the whole concert, the whole is just composed of all its players. We do not know where the original music first began, if it began at all. Perhaps, after a pause, the string begins to vibrate again, a new melody following from what came before ...
My teacher, Nishijima Roshi, offered a talk a few years ago on the meaning of life and death. I feel that Nishijima's message of life and death as just their own moments, each the present moment, and life like waves rising and falling from the sea, is a similar message. Nishijima also died a few years ago, although we can still hear him here. He speaks of something timeless in this talk, all while holding a ticking watch. Listening to this helps me feel my uncles passing as moving music.
I think that the music goes on and on, so somehow no loss and no gain even though there is sound interspersed with pauses ...
Bravo, Uncle!
https://youtu.be/bXuu1lXf1ys
Gassho, J
STLah
In fact, a symphony presents a lovely image of birth, life and death for the attuned Buddhist ear. Our life is like a single vibrating string, passing through movements, yet each note just this single moment followed by the next note in its single moment. All are just the play of the present moment. Life begins with a first note, and ends with a finale, but the entirety is the total music of the universe playing on. All our instruments are blending together, a great harmony though sometimes heard to clash. There are happy movements and sad movements, healthy and sick movements, rises and falls, flowing one into the other. Whether we make beautiful music with the instrument of our own life, or play it without skill and balance, is greatly up to us. A skilled musician can turn even difficulties, obstacles and surprises into something beautiful.
The end of the music depends on the start and middle to come before, and the beginning of the music would be meaningless without a climactic end. The vibrating waves of life seem to rise from nowhere, and fade away at the end, but the string and its potential for sound remains. Ultimately, the single string is the whole orchestra of the universe, and the whole universe is each single string. The one player has no meaning without the whole concert, the whole is just composed of all its players. We do not know where the original music first began, if it began at all. Perhaps, after a pause, the string begins to vibrate again, a new melody following from what came before ...
My teacher, Nishijima Roshi, offered a talk a few years ago on the meaning of life and death. I feel that Nishijima's message of life and death as just their own moments, each the present moment, and life like waves rising and falling from the sea, is a similar message. Nishijima also died a few years ago, although we can still hear him here. He speaks of something timeless in this talk, all while holding a ticking watch. Listening to this helps me feel my uncles passing as moving music.
I think that the music goes on and on, so somehow no loss and no gain even though there is sound interspersed with pauses ...
Bravo, Uncle!
https://youtu.be/bXuu1lXf1ys
Gassho, J
STLah