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 55
Think of the
Universe as your own private spiritual Rorschach Test. At
the moment of the Big Bang, the cosmic inkbottle hit the
wall - and still exploding in all directions, is the big
blob of color and shape that resulted. The almost
unimaginably vast dimensions of time and space that are
involved mean that, by now, the connective links and
lines between all of these formations may be very drawn
out and hard to see. Your own body and life is at the end
of one of those inconceivably long strands of evolution
and history. As you know, the Rorschach is interpreted in
very characteristic ways. The test might also be
conducted on a figurative pair of cultures. We can be
sure, then, that the West will see it from the point of
view of the Ego. And the East will see it from the point
of view of the Self. How will you view it? The answer to
this question may implicate your whole way of being in
the world. For the Ego sees a mess and a problem. But the
Self sees all of life connected together and forming one
single image of incomparable beauty.
The Ego breeds
the patriot, who loves the nation with upraised sword.
But the Self engenders the matriot, who loves our Mother
Earth, and lives at peace. The one side lives in bitter
discord, the other in sweet harmony. Da Vinci asked,
“Did you know that our soul is composed of
Harmony?” It may be that our quest for our own
identity will take us through the exotic East only to
bring us back to this marvelous question of our own
Leonardo, and the answer that he rhetorically implied.
But we need to understand harmony here in its dynamic
sense. Harmony in music provides a most apt metaphor for
life because it encompasses the principles of consonance and
dissonance.
The universe is
so intricately constructed out of an infinity of mutual
relationships that nothing can exist in and of itself.
Every miserable flea and every disgusting fly is
necessary to the existence of the entire universe as it
is, for without it the universe would have been a
different universe. Furthermore, every time we kill a
flea or a fly we condition the universe that is coming
into existence. The point is not that we should view the
world as it is, and let it be. We only need to understand
the harmony that embraces everything that exists; we need
to respect that harmony, accept and have reverence for
it, and even love it.
Nature itself is
our guide. As healthy organisms, we maintain a constant
battlefield within the bloodstream, white-blood cells
indefatigably warring against a multitude of microscopic
invaders. Obviously, the conflict at one level is
productive of harmony at another level. We are looking
for a view of things that cuts through the Gordian Knot
of our accustomed categories. We can understand
Heraclitus when he said,
It should be understood
that war is the common condition, that strife is justice,
and that all things come to pass through the compulsion
of strife. Homer was wrong in saying, `Would that strife
might perish from amongst the gods and men.' For if that
were to occur, then all things would cease to exist.
But pity the poor man
whose immune system has become so militant as to devour
his own body. (Next
Page)
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