- Believing to have understood something about the essense of life, a
monk left his monastery at a young age to travel through China. After
many years, on his return his old master asked him: 'Tell me about the
essence of life!' The monk answered: 'When there are no clouds over the
mountain the moonlight penetrates the ripples of the lake.' The master
looked at his former desciple in anger: 'You are getting old, your hair is
grey, you have just a few teeth left and still you have no understanding
of life.' The monk lowered his eyes, tears streaming over his face. After a
few minutes he asked: 'Please, would you tell me the essence of life?'
'When there are no clouds over the mountain', responded the master,
'the moonlight penetrates the ripples of the lake!'
That riddle-ish story is the favorite koan of world-ly musician Stephan Micus.
Koan? Koans are stories used by Japanese Zen masters to help their students transcend the limits of the rational mind (probably the most famous of these is "What is the sound of one hand?")
You've got to go back over a 25 years to see just how important this story of the master, student and life has been to Stephan Micus. The text of the koan was put on the cover of his 1977 ECM record, appropriately titled KOAN. Micus chose that title because he felt that koans and "all good music" share the same capacity to liberate.
Capacity to liberate. Hmmm...I'll have to get back to that.
But first: why describe Micus as "world-ly"? He visits different parts of the world, seeking out, studying and making his own various exotic instruments and their related musics. On Life, for example, instruments are used from Burma (chimes), Ireland (tin whistle), Japan (sho), Bavaria (zither), India (dilruba), Egypt (nay), Ghana (talking drum) and Ethiopia (bagana). This is not "world music" (never really liked that term), this is world-ly music.
Article comments
1 - GeneNY
Hey,
Nice write-up. I like the introduction and how you related the music's character and voice to the artist's life and travels.
This sounds like a good recording. I'll to get a listen to it.
2 - Temple Stark
Is there not a "clapping" attached to this?:
(probably the most famous of these is "What is the sound of one hand?")
And ditto the comment above.
3 - Mark Saleski
yea, you would think that "clapping" would be there, but i looked in several books on zen and it was written without it.
4 - Temple Stark
OK - just checking.
I don't actually understand the koan here. Despite that (or maybe because of that?):
This did make it up on Advance.net finally.
Congratulations and thank you for the review.
-- Temple
5 - Mark Saleski
thanks. i don't really understand the koan either (and initially not understanding it is the point, sort of).
thought that came to me was the maybe the meaning of life is supposed to be different for everybody.