One Hand
Clapping:
The Taoe of Music
WholeArts and
The Psychic Internet is proud to present the
"Preface" and "Part One" of this
remarkable book by Daniel d'Quincy. "One Hand
Clapping: The Tao of Music," originally published by
WholeArts in 1991, is a book-length essay on the
performance of music from the perspective of Eastern
philosophy and religion. Mr. d'Quincy is a noted
composer, musician, author, inventor, educator, speaker,
and photographer. Please visit his unique music sites at WholeArts: syNThony, and the WholeArts Online Music Conservatory.
Page 23
We have already
said that our identity cannot be found in our individual
body parts (even though we are not entirely sure on that
point with regard to the heart and the brain).[1] Could it be instead in the functions of our
body parts, especially in the function of the brain,
which we may call the mind for want of a better word?
(For to bring functions into view must surely require
some distinctions between higher and lower functions. Not
too many people care to identify themselves with the
function of the bowel.) The idea of the mind at least
gives us something that contains within it all the
different aspects of our own existence, with all their
mutual affinities and aversions – the sides of our
personality that we affirm as also the sides that we do
not.
But will not the
idea of functions - and brain function, or mind,
specifically - also take us back relentlessly to our
initial question. For, in positing functions, we beg the
question, whom do these functions serve? The function of
your brain is to be mindful of this and that, but who is
it that is mindful? Thus, whether we try to locate
ourselves within the space occupied either by the organ
of the brain, or by its numinous function of mind,
“someone” we seem to know remains left over
– the “someone” for whom the whole
apparatus was designed in the first place. This only
returns us once again, inexorably, to the issue at hand:
who is asking the question?
In exasperation,
we might paraphrase St. Augustine’s celebrated
answer, “I think that I know, but when you ask me I
don’t.” The great saint was actually answering
a question about his definition of time, another very
illusive thing. This reminds us that the difficulty we
have in locating our identity in the physical organism
and its functions – in space, as it were – is
complicated and multiplied by the constant evolution of
our organism in the dimension of time.
When we look
within to examine who we really are, we see actually who
we were in the past. Just as light has a speed, we can
only be conscious of (can only “see”) the
impression made in the present of events that have
happened in the past. Our telescopes peer out into
deepest space to capture light that has been travelling
toward us for countless eons since the Big Bang. What we
see is only an echo of the dawn of existence. The problem
is no less acute up close. Our census numbers are always
at best a year late.
Our own sense of
ourselves is constructed of memories from the past –
and, let us hasten to add, anticipations of developments
in the future. As the great economist said, “In the
long run we will all be dead[2],”
implying that we really ought to focus on the near-term.
Are we to identify then with whomever we were just
yesterday? To some of us, it might make more sense, and
be more productive of personal integrity, to identify
with whomever we were the day before yesterday, or even
the day before the day before yesterday. (If we go back
far enough, we will reach a state and condition of
absolute unity and integrity where identity is no longer
an issue.) Others will want to identify with the person
that we will be tomorrow (even after death) –
someone surely for whom every conflict has been resolved,
or exhausted. Is there a right way? If so, our proper
identity may be nothing more than a matter of choice.
But, again, the Zen Master will say that we are still
evading the question. If there is a choice, who makes the
choice?
|
