New Book Project

A new project

Hi folks. I’m happy to say that I’m working on a book. It has had me occupied for over a month now. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and then the idea began to actually take shape. Then there was a moment of clarity about how to proceed.

I’m not going to get way into it now, but it has to do with the relationship between composition and improvisation, and how they can feed each other in our development as musicians. It’s definitely for musicians, but we’ll see where it goes. It is taking shape the more I write and ruminate on it.

I’m using my own tunes as examples of both ideas about writing and as ways to expand our ability to play and improvise. Every time I write a tune, I’m challenged to learn a new thing about improvisation and performance, about making music. I encourage my students to write their own tunes for this reason.

I’ve been feeling inspired recently, and I think it’s largely because of the birth of my granddaughter. I wasn’t prepared for how it would affect me, but it certainly has. It’s an amazing thing, the sense of wonder it brings to look at her and hold her. That wonder makes your mind stop, if only for a flash. It’s a recognition that there’s something beyond what we can understand with the mind.

Uncaused joy is our natural state. It comes from the realization of what is real, the eternal. When we have that moment of recognition, the conceptual mind stops, if only for a moment. Seeing and knowing are here in this moment, every moment. My teacher liked to say, “What’s wrong with right now, unless you think about it?”. Problems only arise with the mind’s conceptualizing.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t practical concerns that must be dealt with, but they don’t have to become psychological problems. The problems, the dis-ease, arise when we allow our attention to become fixated on thoughts. At that point, we lose sight of the fact that thoughts constantly come and go. We feed them with energy. Then they form into conceptual networks that we accept as our reality, when actually, they’re just mental constructs with no tangible existence. If thoughts are not fixated on, they naturally dissipate. They don’t have to trouble us.

Bob liked to use the Hindu phrase “Sat Chit Ananda”, translated as “Being, Knowing, and Loving to Be”. We know that we are, we are present. We love to be. We want to be forever. We prefer even difficult situations to non-existence. We love our being-ness. We can relax into the beingness.

Beyond the witnessing of our beingness, we may have a glimpse of the space-like awareness. Everything arises in the field of awareness. It’s empty, like space, but suffused with intelligence. Bob liked to call it “intelligence energy”. It never changes. That is what we are. I Am That.

That awareness cannot be described in words or concepts. The Tibetans called it non-conceptual awareness. It is what’s there before any concepts have been formed in the mind. It is prior to any body or mind. But it is undeniable when it is recognized. With the recognition, the seeing, knowing, comes that subtle joy.

The direct seeing and knowing, the awareness of our beingness, is only in the present moment. Outside of the present moment are only memories and imagination.

Those moments can happen at any time. There are moments in playing music where we may have these moments. That has to be why musicians are hooked on playing. Once you have a taste of it, you want to be there again. You want to stay there. It can happen practicing Bagua, experiencing great art, being in nature, washing the dishes. It can happen anytime, in any moment. Actually, it is always there, we just don’t see it because we are distracted. That awareness is ever present, and it never changes.

All it takes is one taste.

I think that’s why I like writing music so much. Once you begin writing a tune, it seems to take on a life of it’s own. It can take you away from the ordinary stream of thoughts that are constantly arising. It takes you where you need to go, musically speaking. The same with playing and improvising. Funny, Bob used to say that about life. It takes you where you need to go.

Life is living us, living through us. When you hold that baby, or wash those dishes, or play a cool tune, see if you don’t notice it.