As mentioned in my previous blog to you - the idea is one which is quite strange, very modern but exceedingly exciting!
I'm learning more and more about it as we go - so let's fill you in as far as I've got to at the moment! The text is inspired, but not based upon the Diamond Sutra.
To give you a basic background to the sutra; it's the first ever printed book ever found. Like many sutras, it starts with the famous phrase, "Thus I have heard."
In this sutra, Buddha has finished his daily walk with the monks to gather offerings of food and sits down to rest. Subhuti, who was one of the more senior monks and considered a disciple of Buddha, goes to Buddha to ask him
a question.
In response to Subhuti's question, Buddha attempts to help the monk to remaster his understanding of reality; in other words he tries to help the monk "unlearn" his preconceived, limited and restrictive ideas of what exactly reality is, the nature of Enlightenment, and
compassion.
What follows in the sutra is a lengthy, bombastically repetitive dialogue about the nature of perception and
the re-enforced destruction and dissection of our nature of perception and our ideas of reality - i.e. A is no A, that's why it is called A - i.e. (again) I am therefore I say I am, but I am not I am, because I am not...confused again - yep me too! Basically, it's denegrating nomenclature - i.e. the naming of things, as well as the categorising of things. It means that the fact we call something a certain name, or way, it doesn't mean it is actually that thing. It's kind of like the way we call the colour blue, "blue", but it's not just blue as everyone may see it differently...clearer...?!
The whole point of this dissection and deep analysis of perception is that according to the Diamond Sutra, it is the perception of things that causes conflict and distemper. If one perceives something, invariably, that will be perceived differently by someone else. You can then enter into a limitless argument over who is right, when in actual fact both could be, none could be, or indeed one is and one is not, and so on - but you would never be able to definitively conclude this.
Also, by acquiring a perception, through your own which you have made, your own nature, those of your familiars, those crafted by your environment and any other elements which will seep into daily life, you yourself, and collectively with others, will categorise a perception and draw some kind of prejudice upon that; for, against, undecided and anything within the spectrum.
Using the Diamond Sutra as inspiration for AH! in this time, at this moment is particularly poignant, and that's part of the point of making AH! and making it exactly how we are; for example by bringing together 10 young composers from across the world. This is due arguably, to various world tensions which are being felt. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the issues of price hikes, the "credit crunch" and portent of world recession, healthy and political competition between countries etc. means that perceptions which do, and may have already existed, are now being projected across these world issues, and constantly being pressured and crafted, modified and mutated.
Plus one of the reasons why I use the phrase "world issues", if we look at this with a "diamond-sutra-eye" is because of my perceptions which make me form the concept that they are issues in the world...
It is very complicated, but just take a moment for a second or two, and think about a concert-length performance piece exploring, and notably not about this idea...
...good isn't it?!
To read a truncated translated form of the Diamond Sutra, translated by Charles Muller please click here
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