By Chuck Smythe
“The Tao of which one can speak is not the Tao.” Thus Lao Tzu began the Tao Te Ching—then went on to speak of the Tao at great length.
I mentioned four such experiences. Already, in trying to write this, I’ve benefited by realizing for the first time that there is a pre-history. When I was young, I would often become so deeply immersed in music, or a book, or playing by a trout stream that it became my reality for a time, and the “real” world faded into irrelevance. By my teens, this didn’t happen so much. I still greatly enjoyed these things, but was no longer carried out of the world by them. I think (certainly don’t know) that these things were related to “transcendence.”
So, four experiences:
- In my twenties, I was once listening to Brahms’s Deutsches Requiem. In Den Alles Fleisch, the music took over. For the length of the movement, I was no longer in a room, listening to music. I was the music. The text translates to something like “For all flesh is as the grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the grass. For lo, the grass withereth...” in German, which I don’t speak. I don’t think that is relevant, but don’t know. It seems the power of the music itself carried me off.
- Jump to my forties, and a performance of Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew. All in German, of course. When we got to the chorale O Sacred Head, I almost lost it. Then when the alto started into Erbarme Dich, the lament on the denial of Peter, I did lose it. Some in the audience said this was the Bach Festival’s finest hour.
- A few years later, also with the Bach Festival, we were doing the Mass in B Minor, under the direction of Margaret Hillis, the curmudgeonly conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. When we reached the Sanctus, she chose the slowest tempo I’ve ever heard for the movement—and when the basses started walking down the scale in octaves, showered in trumpets, I had a vision of Majesty that still burns. I don’t believe in majesty. Text; Holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, in Latin.
- About ten years ago, I bought a recording of the Rachmaninoff Vespers, which I’d never heard before. I started the player, turned to go on about my business. And stopped, rooted to the spot, overwhelmed by the music. Stood still, lost in the music, for three quarters of an hour. It was in Russian, and I didn’t even know what they were singing. (Three excerpts: Come, let us worship; Now Let Thy Servant Depart; Bless the Lord, O My Soul.)
My best guess is that I’m especially susceptible to the music itself. I want to go back there. I want to learn the road so that I can go at will. This is the most important reason I work so hard at music. It isn’t working, though. Once in several years, given the right music, the right performers, the right frame of mind, it happens: the music takes over. I can’t make it happen. I’ve tried especially hard on the piano, but it hasn’t ever happened there, possibly because I’m so involved in the details of creating the performance that my mind isn’t free to go wandering.
I’ve spent thousands of hours over many years trying to re-create the conditions that might take me to Transcendence, or Enlightenment, or Intoxication, or whatever it is that I’m pursuing. I’ve tried meditation, even prayer, as other strategies. So far, no dice. It comes when it listeth, which is hardly ever.
Well, there you have it. Does anyone have enlightenment to offer?
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Copyright © 2013 by Chuck Smythe
* In response to another comment on my March 31 review of a performance of Bach’s “St. John Passion.”
| Please comment |
Chuck, thank you very much for responding to my request for more. I've made a plea among my Google+ circles and on Facebook for input as to "transcendent experience."
ReplyDeleteThe evidence of your "pre-history"—with its immersion "in music, or a book, or playing by a trout stream"—and of my own experiences while driving, while simply musing while doing anything routine, and especially while gardening in the dirt with all its lusty smells of decay and renewal...these evidences suggest to me that "transcendent experience" is not subject-bound, but is probably more a matter of our brain's subsystems' firing at some happy balance among themselves. At any rate, I can attest that for me, the experiences have all been characterized by a sense of perfect flow. In fact, your fellow keyboard artist, André Duvall, told me this weekend that his term for the experience of which you speak is "flow experience."
What does Andre' experience as "flow"? I've experienced what I call "flow" in downhill skiing. My body just knows what to do, and I thread through the trees and bumps more quickly than my conscious intentions can work. It's probably a different critter than my musical trips. Or maybe not... hmmm.
DeleteIt's important to remember that while we are all human beings with more or less the same sensory equipment, that reactions to sensory stimuli are learned and largely culturally conditioned. For example, that which transports you is not going to transport an Ethiopian christian (that example to factor out the Christian God statement.) That being said there's significant research to suggest that learning physically reshapes the brain and nervous system which, to me, implies that our nervous systems may be taught to respond emotionally to specific cadences and harmonies, the meaning of the language being less important than the sounds of the language. (I do speak German. I do not speak Latin, but Latin moves me as much.) Part of the problem of trying to recreate the effect it is the process of recreation uses different brain "circuits" than those attuned to listening emotionally, which is the ones you may be trying to activate.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time back in the 60s(I know I keep going back there) when it seemed like everybody was looking for the "transcendent experience". Transcendental Meditation was very big among the upper middle class. The more daring used acid(Sunshine 25), peyote, heroin, etc. they wanted to be able to call up the experience at will. Opium is about as close as you can come to reaching this state of mind. While the time spent flowing with these feelings are pleasant; perhaps left alone, to control itself, the mind is a better judge of the when and where. But, I do believe in enlightenment. I enjoyed your thought provoking experience and now that I'm retired----
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post Chuck. Definitely much here that I can identify with, including being especially moved by Bach’s Erbarme Dich. I had your “rooted to the spot” CD listening experience with that one when it came up unexpectedly on a compilation disc. I personally put it down to the angelic voice of Magdalena Kozena, but I also think Bach took the idea of letting God speak through him so seriously that he was able to transcend whatever limits the “religiousness” of his subject matter seemed to impose, or whatever barriers it might seem to present to non-God-fearing listeners. In a BBC film on Bach, another such listener, writer/director Jonathan Miller, reported being moved to tears every time he hear the Erbarme Dich. Another Bach fan is Oliver (“Musicophilia”) Sacks, whose brain reacts more strongly to Bach than to Beethoven even when he doesn’t have a powerful conscious reaction to the music, according to the neurological experiment reported at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyY1ul_DbcQ . The neurological possibility that Byron brings up (different circuits used in recreation process) is also a kind of evidence for the Taoist position – the transcendent experience (TE) we TRY to have is not the TE we can talk about or have the potential to have if circumstances that we don't intentionally control converge. The Zen-like answer I suppose would be to be ready for and receptive to a TE without being conscious of your readiness or taking specific steps to get to it.
ReplyDeleteNow Konotahe, if you could recommend some LEGAL substances as a circuitry shortcut, I’m “all ears.”
This discussion makes me aware I am hopelessly out of the loop, probably in large part due to my East Coast upbringing and being just young enough to have missed the "real" '60s.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am doubtful anyone can reach Konotahe's intended level of circuitry shortcut by fully legal means, you might try sitting between the speakers and cranking up the volume on 'Killing in the Name' or any number of other similar songs by Rage Against the Machine. At least some level of transcendence is almost assured...
Moto I'm afraid insanity and TE are maybe close, but not quiet the same. That's one of the reasons most of the 60s generation are deaf---big speakers back then.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you can find opium now. The guys would bring it back from Nam and mix it with pot. The pot they have these days doesn't need any kicker.
The Second Monday Music column will not be limited to "classical music," but to music in all its forms. Geoffrey Dean has agreed to write a column on an international congress he attended last week in Brussels on musical signification, or on musical signification in general. And André Duvall will write a column on some aspect of teaching music. Perhaps Tom Lowe, who often refers to music and quotes lyrics, will contribute as well...and motomynd, who has also referred to music and lyrics on occasion...and Chuck Smythe again, I hope.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, for the information of those who haven't yet read Jim Rix's book, Jingle Jangle, his story depends much on the lyrics of Bob Dylan, whose publisher granted Jim the right to quote a number of Dylan's lyrics, including "Mr. Tambourine Man," from which the title of Jim's book is taken.
I just loved everyone's willingness to try and put their experiences into an explanation. For me, "transcendence" is a gift that we experience when all of our being including our spirit is in balance whether or not we believe in a higher power.
ReplyDeleteEvery molecule in my body and brain is moved with music at specific points. Mostly when the individual notes transcend and share of themselves into a masterful harmonious blend. If I'm singing, I lose it. If I'm part of a musical group playing it, I lose it. If I'm listening to a piece of music, I lose it. But I never know when it's going to happen. To that I say, it matters not and I thank "you" for the moment. I am blessed once again.
Chuck, they say when you seek out a certain thing, (mostly a loving relationship), you probably won't find it. When you just bop along not looking for it, it will find you.
Morris, you wrote, "these evidences suggest to me that "transcendent experience" is not subject-bound, but is probably more a matter of our brain's subsystems' firing at some happy balance among themselves." (A beautifully crafted and most pleasurable group of words.) For me, I wish to take it further. Transcendence is all encompassing of who we are. From the brain to our feelings, to our spiritual molecules of spinning matter, to our physical space and more. But mostly the balance might also come from the "despite's" of society, our up bringing, our past, our misgivings. Perhaps music or dirt or whatever the medium works for us in that moment to filter the sewer times long enough for us to experience the raw and shear beauty of true eternal life existence in all forms here and now.