Buddhist Thought

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

Buddhist Thought

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.

Buddhist Thought

One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the messiah?"
"No", answered Buddha.
"Then are you a healer?"
"No", Buddha replied.
"Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted.
"No, I am not a teacher."
"Then what are you?" asked the student, exasperated.
"I am awake", Buddha replied.

Buddhist Thought

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Buddhist Thought

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

Buddhist Thought

It is better to travel well than to arrive late!!

Buddhist Thought

Let a man avoid evil deeds as a man who loves life avoids poison.

Luigi Russolo The Art of noises futurist manifesto

Dear Balilla Pratella, great Futurist composer,

In Rome, in the Costanzi Theatre, packed to capacity, while I was listening to the orchestral performance of your overwhelming Futurist music, with my Futurist friends, Marinetti, Boccioni, Carrà, Balla, Soffici, Papini and Cavacchioli, a new art came into my mind which only you can create, the Art of Noises, the logical consequence of your marvelous innovations.

Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men. For many centuries life went by in silence, or at most in muted tones. The strongest noises which interrupted this silence were not intense or prolonged or varied. If we overlook such exceptional movements as earthquakes, hurricanes, storms, avalanches and waterfalls, nature is silent.

Amidst this dearth of noises, the first sounds that man drew from a pieced reed or streched string were regarded with amazement as new and marvelous things. Primitive races attributed sound to the gods; it was considered sacred and reserved for priests, who used it to enrich the mystery of their rites.

And so was born the concept of sound as a thing in itself, distinct and independent of life, and the result was music, a fantastic world superimposed on the real one, an inviolatable and sacred world. It is easy to understand how such a concept of music resulted inevitable in the hindering of its progress by comparison with the other arts. The Greeks themselves, with their musical theories calculated mathematically by Pythagoras and according to which only a few consonant intervals could be used, limited the field of music considerably, rendering harmony, of which they were unaware, impossible.
The Middle Ages, with the development and modification of the Greek tetrachordal system, with the Gregorian chant and popular songs, enriched the art of musicbut continued to consider sound in its development in time, a restricted notion, but one which lasted many centuries, and which still can be found in the Flemish contrapuntalists' most complicated polyphonies.

The chord did not exist, the development of the various parts was not subornated to the chord that these parts put together could produce; the conception of the parts was horizontal not vertical. The desire, search, and taste for a simultaneous union of different sounds, that is for the chord (complex sound), were gradually made manifest, passing from the consonant perfect chord with a few passing dissonances, to the complicated and persistent dissonances that characterize contemporary music.

At first the art of music sought purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound. Then different sounds were amalgamated, care being taken, however, to caress the ear with gentle harmonies. Today music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.

This musical evolution is paralleled by the multipication of machines, which collaborate with man on every front. Not only in the roaring atmosphere of major cities, but in the country too, which until yesterday was totally silent, the machine today has created such a variety and rivalry of noises that pure sound, in its exiguity and monotony, no longer arouses any feeling.

To excite and exalt our sensibilities, music developed towards the most complex polyphony and the maximum variety, seeking the most complicated successions of dissonant chords and vaguely preparing the creation of musical noise. This evolution towards "noise sound" was not possible before now. The ear of an eighteenth-century man could never have endured the discordant intensity of certain chords produced by our orchestras (whose members have trebled in number since then). To our ears, on the other hand, they sound pleasant, since our hearing has already been educated by modern life, so teeming with variegated noises. But our ears are not satisfied merely with this, and demand an abundance of acoustic emotions.

On the other hand, musical sound is too limited in its qualitative variety of tones. The most complex orchestras boil down to four or five types of instrument, varying in timber: instruments played by bow or plucking, by blowing into metal or wood, and by percussion. And so modern music goes round in this small circle, struggling in vain to create new ranges of tones.

This limited circle of pure sounds must be broken, and the infinite variety of "noise-sound" conquered.

Besides, everyone will acknowledge that all musical sound carries with it a development of sensations that are already familiar and exhausted, and which predispose the listener to boredom in spite of the efforts of all the innovatory musicians. We Futurists have deeply loved and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. For many years Beethoven and Wagner shook our nerves and hearts. Now we are satiated and we find far more enjoyment in the combination of the noises of trams, backfiring motors, carriages and bawling crowds than in rehearsing, for example, the "Eroica" or the "Pastoral".

We cannot see that enormous apparatus of force that the modern orchestra represents without feeling the most profound and total disillusion at the paltry acoustic results. Do you know of any sight more ridiculous than that of twenty men furiously bent on the redoubling the mewing of a violin? All this will naturally make the music-lovers scream, and will perhaps enliven the sleepy atmosphere of concert halls. Let us now, as Futurists, enter one of these hospitals for anaemic sounds. There: the first bar brings the boredom of familiarity to your ear and anticipates the boredom of the bar to follow. Let us relish, from bar to bar, two or three varieties of genuine boredom, waiting all the while for the extraordinary sensation that never comes.

Meanwhile a repugnant mixture is concocted from monotonous sensations and the idiotic religious emotion of listeners buddhistically drunk with repeating for the nth time their more or less snobbish or second-hand ecstasy.

Away! Let us break out since we cannot much longer restrain our desire to create finally a new musical reality, with a generous distribution of resonant slaps in the face, discarding violins, pianos, double-basses and plainitive organs. Let us break out!

It's no good objecting that noises are exclusively loud and disagreeable to the ear.

It seems pointless to enumerate all the graceful and delicate noises that afford pleasant sensations.

To convince ourselves of the amazing variety of noises, it is enough to think of the rumble of thunder, the whistle of the wind, the roar of a waterfall, the gurgling of a brook, the rustling of leaves, the clatter of a trotting horse as it draws into the distance, the lurching jolts of a cart on pavings, and of the generous, solemn, white breathing of a nocturnal city; of all the noises made by wild and domestic animals, and of all those that can be made by the mouth of man without resorting to speaking or singing.

Let us cross a great modern capital with our ears more alert than our eyes, and we will get enjoyment from distinguishing the eddying of water, air and gas in metal pipes, the grumbling of noises that breathe and pulse with indisputable animality, the palpitation of valves, the coming and going of pistons, the howl of mechanical saws, the jolting of a tram on its rails, the cracking of whips, the flapping of curtains and flags. We enjoy creating mental orchestrations of the crashing down of metal shop blinds, slamming doors, the hubbub and shuffling of crowds, the variety of din, from stations, railways, iron foundries, spinning wheels, printing works, electric power stations and underground railways.

Nor should the newest noises of modern war be forgotten. Recently, the poet Marinetti, in a letter from the trenches of Adrianopolis, described to me with marvelous free words the orchestra of a great battle:

"every 5 seconds siege cannons gutting space with a chord ZANG-TUMB-TUUMB mutiny of 500 echos smashing scattering it to infinity. In the center of this hateful ZANG-TUMB-TUUMB area 50 square kilometers leaping bursts lacerations fists rapid fire batteries. Violence ferocity regularity this deep bass scanning the strange shrill frantic crowds of the battle Fury breathless ears eyes nostrils open! load! fire! what a joy to hear to smell completely taratatata of the machine guns screaming a breathless under the stings slaps traak-traak whips pic-pac-pum-tumb weirdness leaps 200 meters range Far far in back of the orchestra pools muddying huffing goaded oxen wagons pluff-plaff horse action flic flac zing zing shaaack laughing whinnies the tiiinkling jiiinglingtramping 3 Bulgarian battalions marching croooc-craaac [slowly] Shumi Maritza or Karvavena ZANG-TUMB-TUUUMB toc-toc-toc-toc [fast] crooc-craac [slowly] crys of officers slamming about like brass plates pan here paak there BUUUM ching chaak[very fast] cha-cha-cha-cha-chaak down there up around high up look out your head beautiful! Flashing flashing flashing flashing flashing flashing footlights of the forts down there behind that smoke Shukri Pasha communicates by phone with 27 forts in Turkish in German Allo! Ibrahim! Rudolf! allo! allo! actors parts echos of prompters scenery of smoke forests applause odor of hay mud dung I no longer feel my frozen feet odor of gunsmoke odor of rot Tympani flutes clarinets everywhere low high birds chirping blessed shadows cheep-cheep-cheep green breezes flocks don-dan-don-din-baaah Orchestra madmen pommel the performers they terribly beaten playing Great din not erasing clearing up cutting off slighter noises very small scraps of echos in the theater area 300 square kilometers Rivers Maritza Tungia stretched out Rodolpi Mountains rearing heights loges boxes 2000 shrapnels waving arms exploding very white handkerchiefs full of gold srrrr-TUMB-TUMB 2000 raised grenades tearing out bursts of very black hair ZANG-srrrr-TUMB-ZANG-TUMB-TUUMB the orchestra of the noises of war swelling under a held note of silence in the high sky round golden balloon that observes the firing..."

We want to attune and regulate this tremendous variety of noises harmonically and rhythmically.

To attune noises does not mean to detract from all their irregular movements and vibrations in time and intensity, but rather to give gradation and tone to the most strongly predominant of these vibrations.

Noise in fact can be differentiated from sound only in so far as the vibrations which produce it are confused and irregular, both in time and intensity.

Every noise has a tone, and sometimes also a harmony that predominates over the body of its irregular vibrations.

Now, it is from this dominating characteristic tone that a practical possibility can be derived for attuning it, that is to give a certain noise not merely one tone, but a variety of tones, without losing its characteristic tone, by which I mean the one which distinguishes it. In this way any noise obtained by a rotating movement can offer an entire ascending or descending chromatic scale, if the speed of the movement is increased or decreased.

Every manifestation of our life is accompanied by noise. The noise, therefore, is familiar to our ear, and has the power to conjure up life itself. Sound, alien to our life, always musical and a thing unto itself, an occasional but unnecessary element, has become to our ears what an overfamiliar face is to our eyes. Noise, however, reaching us in a confused and irregular way from the irregular confusion of our life, never entirely reveals itself to us, and keeps innumerable surprises in reserve. We are therefore certain that by selecting, coordinating and dominating all noises we will enrich men with a new and unexpected sensual pleasure.

Although it is characteristic of noise to recall us brutally to real life, the art of noise must not limit itself to imitative reproduction. It will achieve its most emotive power in the acoustic enjoyment, in its own right, that the artist's inspiration will extract from combined noises.

Here are the 6 families of noises of the Futurist orchestra which we will soon set in motion mechanically:

1	2	3	4	5	6
Rumbles	Whistles	Whispers	Screeches	Noises obtained by percussion on metal, wood, skin, stone, tarracotta, etc.	Voices of animals and men:
Roars	Hisses	Murmurs	Creaks		Shouts
Explosions	Snorts	Mumbles	Rustles		Screams
Crashes		Grumbles	Buzzes		Groans
Splashes		Gurgles	Crackles		Shrieks
Booms			Scrapes		Howls
					Laughs
					Wheezes
					Sobs

In this inventory we have encapsulated the most characteristic of the fundamental noises; the others are merely the associations and combinations of these. The rhythmic movements of a noise are infinite: just as with tone there is always a predominant rhythm, but around this numerous other secondary rhythms can be felt.

Conclusions

1. Futurist musicians must continually enlarge and enrich the field of sounds. This corresponds to a need in our sensibility. We note, in fact, in the composers of genius, a tendency towards the most complicated dissonances. As these move further and further away from pure sound, they almost achieve noise-sound. This need and this tendency cannot be satisfied except by the adding and the substitution of noises for sounds.

2. Futurist musicians must substitute for the limited variety of tones posessed by orchestral instruments today the infinite variety of tones of noises, reproduced with appropriate mechanisms.

3. The musician's sensibility, liberated from facile and traditional Rhythm, must find in noises the means of extension and renewal, given that every noise offers the union of the most diverse rhythms apart from the predominant one.

4. Since every noise contains a predominant general tone in its irregular vibrations it will be easy to obtain in the construction of instruments which imitate them a sufficiently extended variety of tones, semitones, and quarter-tones. This variety of tones will not remove the characteristic tone from each noise, but will amplify only its texture or extension.

5. The practical difficulties in constructing these instruments are not serious. Once the mechanical principle which produces the noise has been found, its tone can be changed by following the same general laws of acoustics. If the instrument is to have a rotating movement, for instance, we will increase or decrease the speed, whereas if it is to not have rotating movement the noise-producing parts will vary in size and tautness.

6. The new orchestra will achieve the most complex and novel aural emotions not by incorporating a succession of life-imitating noises but by manipulating fantastic juxtapositions of these varied tones and rhythms. Therefore an instrument will have to offer the possibility of tone changes and varying degrees of amplification.

7. The variety of noises is infinite. If today, when we have perhaps a thousand different machines, we can distinguish a thousand different noises, tomorrow, as new machines multiply, we will be able to distinguish ten, twenty, orthirty thousand different noises, not merely in a simply imitative way, but to combine them according to our imagination.

8. We therefore invite young musicians of talent to conduct a sustained observation of all noises, in order to understand the various rhythms of which they are composed, their principal and secondary tones. By comparing the various tones of noises with those of sounds, they will be convinced of the extent to which the former exceed the latter. This will afford not only an understanding, but also a taste and passion for noises. After being conquered by Futurist eyes our multiplied sensibilities will at last hear with Futurist ears. In this way the motors and machines of our industrial cities will one day be consciously attuned, so that every factory will be transformed into an intoxicating orchestra of noises.

Dear Pratella, I submit these statements to your Futurist genius, inviting your discussion. I am not a musician, I have therefore no acoustical predilictions, nor any works to defend. I am a Futurist painter using a much loved art to project my determination to renew everything. And so, bolder than a professional musician could be, unconcerned by my apparent incompetence and convinced that all rights and possibilities open up to daring, I have been able to initiate the great renewal of music by means of the Art of Noises.

July Furtoes

 

Buddhist Thought

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.-Buddhist Quote

Buddhist Thought

Pay no attention to the faults of others, things done or left undone by others. Consider only what by oneself is done or left undone.-Buddhist Quote

Buddhist Thought

You only lose what you cling to.-Buddha

Furtoes for June 26th 2010

Buddhist Thought

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law.
-Buddha-

Buddhist Thought for the Week

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. 
When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
The Dharmapada

Buddhist Thought

The only unchangable certainty in life is that nothing is unchangable or certain.
John F. Kennedy

FURTHER FURTOES

Buddhist Thoughts for the Week

How to reach Enlightenment the Jodo Shu Way

In Jodo Shu Pure Land Buddhism, you put your faith in Amida Buddha and his vow of universal enlightenment. By doing so, you are assured of rebirth in Amida Buddha's Pure Land, where you will hear the pure Dharma and attain enlightenment.
The creed of Jodo Shu is as follows:

1. Believing in the salvation by Amida Buddha as preached by Shakyamuni Buddha in his teachings, we pray to Amida Buddha as our anchor, and give thanks and services in return.
2. Following the teachings of Honen Shonin, the founder of Jodo Shu Buddhism, we repeat the sacred name of Amida Buddha (Namu Amida Butsu), and always try to be sincere and to be introspective.
3. We extend the circle of prayer to Amida Buddha, help one another, and try to contribute to the promotion of social purification as well as to peace and welfare.

How to reach Enlightenment in this lifetime

Many sects and traditions will have different practices to complement the Eightfold Noble Path laid out by Shakyamuni Buddha, but all have these as their basis:

1. Right Views: i.e., Knowledge of the Four Noble Truths:
   
   
   1. The world is full of suffering and stress.
   2. The cause of this suffering and stress is desires of physical instincts.
   3. If desire can be removed, and suffering and stress will be ended.
   4. Desire can be removed by following the Eightfold Noble Path: Right Views, Right Thoughts, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.
2. Right Thoughts: Aspire to attain realization of Nirvana, i.e., perfect wisdom, the ultimate true permanent reality.
3. Right Speech: Abstain from all lying, falsehoods, evil, abusive and frivolous speech.
4. Right Conduct: Keep the Five Precepts:
   1. Abstain from taking life,
   2. abstain from taking that which is not given,
   3. abstain from misconduct done in lust,
   4. abstain from lying,
   5. abstain from all forms of intoxication.
5. Right Livelihood: Abstain from all evil living and all manner of ill-gotten gain or means of livelihood.
6. Right Effort: Abstain from all evil states of mind; foster and maintain virtuous states of mind; compassion, pity, sympathy, calmness and tranquility
7. Right Mindfulness: Regard everything as being impermanent, ill and corrupt: i.e., all feelings, perceptions, inclinations, consciousness, thoughts, mental states, mental images and mental activities.
8. Right Concentration: Foster dispassion, detachment, and revulsion for the things of the world as being decaying and impermanent. Practice aloofness from evil states of mind, from the senses and all sensations. Practice dwelling in solitude and seclusion, meditating and reflecting with singleness of mind.

Buddhist Thought

Let your love flow outward through the universe, To its height, its depth, its broad extent, A limitless love, without hatred or enmity. Then as you stand or walk, Sit or lie down, As long as you are awake, Strive for this with a one-pointed mind; Your life will bring heaven to earth. - Sutta Nipata

Buddhist Thought for 4~20!!!!!

Everything you can imagine is real.


- Pablo Picasso

Buddhist Thought

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. - Buddha

"A Toned Deaf Singer"

"A Toned Deaf Singer"

                    

      In the September 1999 issue of the New York Times Magazine, Peter Singer exposed the American consumer to his views with "The Singer Solution to World Poverty". Singer, an Australian philosopher and bio-ethicist, starts this narrow minded essay off with a fictional person in order to make his point about the spending habits of the average American family. Singer uses this criminally minded character in a way that might cause an insulted American reader to put off buying anything new.  He finishes this color blind article by saying that American citizens should give away all unneeded income to help those in need.

    

    Singer leaves no doubt whose shameful actions deserve the most scrutiny. Readers of the New York Times were the original target audience; a left-leaning American college student may find Singer's socialist views relevant today. Singer seems to think that Americans are overindulgent when spending. In this essay, there is also the idea that those who spend money earned honestly are similar to those whose income is earned dishonestly. Singer asks, "...what is the ethical distinction between a Brazilian who sells a homeless child to organ peddler, and an American who already has a television set and upgrades to a new one?"  This hypothetical question is asked and answered in "The Singer Solution to World Poverty". There is little doubt that Singer's essay "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" does a poor job of persuading Americans to donate more of their resources to help those in need.

    

    The first piece of proof that "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" misses its mark, is by the lack of donations that this writer or his fellow classmates gave to Unicef or Oxfam when reading Singer's essay in class. Singer listed both numbers in his essay, yet not one student called either when the article was read aloud in class. Despite all his calls to action within this essay, not one cent was raised by it. Singer seems to suggest that everyone in the US should drop what they are doing and immediately pick up the phone, wallet, and donate. Singer forgets that most Americans live check to check or on fixed incomes therefor extra monies are hard to find and use as donations. Despite this fact, Americans donate top other nation year in and year out! In the March 2008 issue of The Journal of American Enterprise Institute, Arthur Brooks writes that the American people had given close to 300 billion in 2006.

                      

    Singer sees the problem of world poverty through the eyes of a utilitarian philosopher. This vantage point allows only two positions: right or wrong. Such a simplistic philosophy can not be applied so easily here. Let us try to imagine what would happen if every single American consumer stopped spending? First, industry would grind to a halt, causing the U.S. stock market to crash. Companies large and small would cease to exist, and company after company would die. Natural resources would soon become nonexistent. It would not be long until war enveloped every nation. Is this what Singer wishes for this planet or its people? Singer’s argument takes a narrow minded  stance and does not account for the nuances of a global economy.

      

    The illogical and hypothetical example Singer uses to start this essay is most distasteful. Singer introduces us to the Brazilian movie Central Station by the character Dora. Once a school teacher, Dora partakes in the kidnapping of a child in order to pay for a television. Equating her criminal act with American spending habits is like saying murder and prostitution are the same. These are two completely different things, thus, the ethical dilemmas he presents are just as different. Singer seeks to coral support for his position by suggesting Americans are criminal in the way that they lead their lives. This idea is wrong and at the very least, mean in spirit.

    

    This essay seeks to browbeat the American reader into changing their ways. Judging from the lukewarm reaction to this piece by the class, it is obvious Singer has failed; the utter lack of impact in class was clearly visible. Therefore, we must question the overall impact it had. The fact that world poverty still exists is obvious, but American spending habits should not be held up as an example of moral misconduct. The fact that Americans lead the world in donating proves the country is doing its part. If there is one place Singer is successful, then maybe it is by showing how complex issues cannot be shaped or understood so easily from a philosopher and bio-ethicist. This is an issue that cannot be understood so easily. Therefore, Singer's solution is no solution at all. Finally, Singer comes off sounding like a tone-deaf vocalist who falls short of hitting the right note in "The Singer Solution to World Poverty".

Buddhist Thought

To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. - Buddha

Buddhist Thought

It is fairly obvious that most of us are confused intellectually. We see that the so-called leaders in all departments of life have no complete answer to our various questions and problems. - J. Krishnamurti

Photos I've taken of recent note