● KODO

KODO
— Walking to a new chapter of the world, naked
————————————————

When I was in Taiwan I once attended a performance of Japanese drum
group 神鼓童. The impact of the beating had always been in my mind.

Yesterday, I went to the Ravinia in north side of the Greater Chicago
to watch Japanese KODO professional drum performance.
http://www.kodo.or.jp/frame.html

Again I totally submerged myself into the drum sounds. In one of the
programs, the repeating of the pure, simple, concerted, cooperative
sound of drumming got heavier and heavier, deeper and deeper into my
soul.

I felt disintegrated, exposed, dismentled … I felt that every layer
of outter facades of mine were pealed off completely, and what was
left was the bare, naked self — a simple, pure, innocent core …

I was so touched and suddenly found myself standing there crying. The
tears just kept pouring in accordance with waves and waves of the
drum rhythm, which seemed to expose a hole, a missing part of my life,
that has been there awaitig me to discover and fill it full for all
my life.

I then suddenly realized what a simple person I am; I felt I have taken
too much from this world — the clothes, the car, the tables, the
computers, the financial support … everything.

And most profoundly, the love and care and help from people … I have
taken too much thus have been in too much debt to this world, to these
people, that the sense of this debt has turned into a sense of guilt
way too much and too heavy for my simple form of life to bear.

I felt that I haven’t been honest to myself — I haven’t been recognizing
how much I need a simple way of life. I have kept asking for something
and expecting for something from this outside world, but seldom sit down,
quiet down to face myself, to look at what the real me is, to really pay
attention to how critical it is to me to tend to that bare core of the
simple and innocent me. I felt that I have been so weak thus I surrenderred
too easily to the desire of gain, to the seduction of material worlds, and
got myself lost in the sea of glory and applauding.

I wish that I could get rid of everything right now and turn myself into a
simple living being — just like the simple form of drum beating — pure,
simple, free, precise, and independent and powerful … I wish that I
could cut away from myself any redundant residual of desire and emotion,
and make myself stand solid like a warrior, with a confidence not based
on whatever I poccessed or grabbed or achieved in this world, but based
on just me, just the knowledge and recognition of the existence of a pure
me.

With this simplicity I wish I could walk bravely, straight forward toward
the goal of a warrior and a wiser, without the distraction of desire,
entertainment, over joy or sadness or whatever emotion or non-rational
thinking that might cut me off or lead me into a wrong direction.

With the drum sticks were still beating on the stage and the tears still kept
rolling down on my cheeks, I realized that a new world has sent her gesture
to me, that a new chapter of my life has been opened. I learned that I
would be walking solid toward the goal of a hunter, a warrior, a wiser,
with a new realization of the bare, innocent, intrinsic, primitive core of
me.