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Like Phantoms Haunting Leaves and Grass

from On The Arc of the Beautiful Decay by West Riding

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The title to this track is a direct reference to what is possibly the most famous koan (a semi-paradoxical teaching story) in all Zen literature - "Joshu Says Mu." In that koan, a monk asks Master Joshu if even a dog has the Buddhanature - to which Joshu answers "mu." In everyday Japanese, "mu" is usually used as a negative, like the word "no" in English - but Joshu's meaning here goes far deeper, to what I interpret as saying "wrong question." It's not a matter of "have" or "have not," but rather that the dog - and everything else in the universe - simply IS Buddhanature.
But the title doesn't come from the koan - it comes from Master Mumon's commentary on the koan, another very famous piece in its own right. There, Mumon states that the practice of Zen involves extinguishing all thoughts of the ordinary mind (a paradoxical statement in itself, considering later in the koan collection Mumon goes on at great length to support the koan that states "ordinary mind is The Way.")

Otherwise - if we don't extinguish thoughts of the ordinary mind, and are caught up in worry about past and future, our own ego identity, our craving and clinging and desire to be - then we are nothing more than "phantoms haunting leaves and grass." Which is to say, not our true selves but merely holograms pretending to be our true selves - small selves which are more concerned with the inanities and details of trees and grasses and weeds (ego, desire, me versus them) than we are big selves in tune with the whole wide universe. Which is to say...the way we usually are.

In this, I follow my usual pattern with 3-movement works, where 1st movement/track opens up the idea and sets the story, but the 2nd movement/track goes to a dark place and establishes the "problem." The very problem that the Buddha was trying to address through his 40 years of teaching before passing into paranirvana.

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from On The Arc of the Beautiful Decay, released February 15, 2024

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West Riding Portland, Oregon

West Riding (aka James M Gregg) produces ambient, neo-classical and cinematic music inspired by quiet mountains, intrepid journeys and Zen koans, as well as artists such as Olafur Arnalds, Phillip Glass, Max Richter, Arve Henriksen, Hans Zimmer, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Gustav Mahler and many more westriding.net ... more

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