Re: Where does the sound come from?

From: Karl Young (kyoung@slac.stanford.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 07 2002 - 16:39:34 PST


> Meanderings....
> Sometimes I really dislike the fact that I've got a mind with a
> scientific bend. It often takes a lot of the magic out of life!
> Unfortunately, it's hard to control the impulse to intellectially
> "understand it all". Not a very Zen approach, is it, which is
> impossible anyway? I beg the patience of our more left brained list
> members. :-)

Sorry to clutter up everybody's mailbox; I just can't seem to help
myself... Brian's message highlighted a theme that's running through the
discussions lately that one either has a sterile, analytical, scientific
bent towards thinking about shakuhachi tone (or anything else) or one
based on your heart (I knows what I knows and nobody can tells me
different). I think that's a false dichotomy. E.g. I frequently try to
"understand it all" in a fairly precise way (typically with little or no
success). Seems to me that that's just fine, to the extent that I have
no attachment to any results (i.e. that I actually ever will "understand
it all"). It's just a quirk of karma that I have an aspect of my
personality that enjoys the construction of elaborate but impermanent
mental structures; for me anyway, it takes none of the magic out of
anything. It gives me absolutely no authority (or lack thereof) in any
conversation; it doesn't preclude me from trying to be a Buddha anymore
than a carpenter hasn't the right because he builds his versions of
impermanent structures; it... but I ramble; I'll shut up (for now !:-)

-- KY
Karl Young kyoung@slac.stanford.edu
SLAC M/S 71 PO Box 20450
Stanford, CA 94309
650-926-3380 (voice)



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 03 2003 - 09:09:50 PST