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Northern Rivers Performing Arts and ELISION Ensemble present Bar-do'i-thos-grol(The Tibetan Book of the Dead) Domenico De CLARIO and Liza LIM
Hillside Auto Dismantlers and Summerland Demolitions,
Performers: The Tibetan Book of the Dead traces a series of preparatory instructions given traditionally, in Tibetan Buddhism, to individuals nearing death. These instructions guide the individual through the journey between death and rebirth, a journey of purification and clarification, one in which the baggage of ego-projections that have been gathered up in life can be `played out´, and used to gain `liberation´, or insight, into the trappings and limitations of the ego. This process traditionally takes a metaphorical seven days. Some excerpts from the edition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead prepared by Francesca FREMANTLE and Chogyam TRUNGPA: The fundamental teaching of this book is the recognition of one's projections and the dissolution of the sense of self in the light of reality. As soon as this is done, the five psychological components of the confused or unenlightened state of mind then become factors of enlightenment. They are transmuted into their transcendent or purified form (p.XVII). So, although this book is ostensibly written for the dead it is in fact about life. The Buddha himself would not discuss what happens after death, because such questions are not useful in the search for the reality here and now. But the doctrine of reincarnation and the bardo state refer very much to this life, whether or not they also apply after death. It is often emphasised that the purpose of reading the Bardo Thotrol to a dead person is to remind him of what he has practiced during his life. The `Book of the Dead´ can show us how to live (p.XIX).One could refer to this book as the `Tibetan Book of Birth´. The book is not based on death as such, but on a completely different concept of death. It is a `Book of Space´. Space contains birth and death, space creates the environment in which to behave, breathe and act . . . Bardo means gap; it is not only the interval of suspension after we die, but also suspension in the living situation; death happens in the living situation as well. The bardo experience is part of our basic psychological makeup. There are all kinds of bardo experiences happening to us all the time, experiences of paranoia and uncertainty in everyday life, it is like not being sure of our ground, not knowing quite what we have asked for or what we are getting into. So this book is not only a message for those who are going to die and those who are already dead, but it is also a message for those who are already born; birth and death apply to everybody constantly, at this very moment (pp.1-2). The visions that develop in the bardo state, and the brilliant colours and sounds that come along with the visions, are not made out of any kind of substance which needs maintenance from the point of view of the perceiver, but they just happen as expression of silence and expression of emptiness. In order to perceive them properly, the perceiver of these visions cannot have fundamental, centralised ego (p.12).
Bar-do'i-thos-grol at Hillside Auto Dismantlers and Summerland DemolitionsThe conceptual structure of this work refers to a number of aspects discussed in The Tibetan Book of the Dead: the Liberation Through Hearing, or Understanding In Between. The experience of engaging with this performance-cycle takes one through the whole of seven days and seven nights, even though the performance on each of seven evenings lasts only two hours. Given that the Bardo journey can be described as the experiencing of an infinite number of ego-projections in the space between Death and Re-birth, then the first performance begins at the end of the Day (Death) at sunset: on subsequent evenings the performances begin at 8pm, 1Opm, midnight, 2am, 4am, and finally, at the pre-dawn time of 5am (Rebirth). These two-hour performances constitute a nexus between two worlds, or two perceptual states: the Visible World, the world of cognition as we perceive it in our daily lives, and the Invisible World, an unquantifiable world in which our intellect plays no part, and cannot decipher, and in which we are free to experience the paradoxical.If we can define Paradox as a reconciliation of opposites, or, as Darryl Reanney explains in his Music of the Mind: `Things which seem opposite in ignorance are reconciled in knowing´, then the form this `knowing´ or `liberation´ takes can be manifested through an integration of the Visible and Invisible Worlds. The two-hour performance time can provide the nexus between the two, in order to allow this process to take place. On either side of this nexus lies the province of our ordinary lives: this province constitutes the screen on which we project our illusory and delusory ego-states, and is therefore a necessary part of the bardo process. The structure defining this performance-cycle then comprises the entirety of the seven days and nights: the Bar-do'i-thos-grol includes, in its conceptual and perceptual framework, the experiences undergone by the audience when they are not at Hillside Auto Dismantlers and Summerland Demolitions viewing the performance. These experiences provide the building-blocks that can be used to erect individual ego-screens, which, during the performances, are subjected to various projections and illuminations. These could be described as constituting the potential for a Liberation through Hearing. By the end of the entire seven-day cycle some provisional conclusions may be reached, by those who have undergone this experience, about the relationship each has developed between the inner, invisible world, and the outer cognitive one.
The nightly performances, each lit in turn by the Healing and Integrating Light of the Seven Chakras, thus perform a clearing-house role for the previous day's ego-activities. The coloured Rays, emitted by the body's energy transmutation centres, integrate and balance the Selfs progress through increasing states of awareness: from the initial Red to the final White, each coloured Ray manifests an increasing rate of vibration, through the increased frequency of its light-waves, thus guiding the Self through the equivalent healing/balancing states. From the pre-personal state (Root Chakra), the vibratory rate increases until it reaches the universal trans-personal state (Crown Chakra), from where it integrates with the Oneness. Thus the Chakra-balancing process, taking place in the relative darkness of the evening's Invisible world, alternates with the normally unbalancing experiences undergone in the relative light of the day's Visible World; Invisible substance, Visible shadows. The performing Septet of the Bar-do'i-thos-grol thus are able to act as an integrating device, during the seven evening/night/dawns. In the light of the potential of such a device, the willingness to examine possibilities for a redefinition of our belief-structure becomes a matter of personal responsibility. The purpose of this Work is to provide opportunities for such issues to be identified and addressed, thus allowing for a possible re-assessment of one's relationship to the inner Self. Working Notes made available to the performersThe seven Tibetan chants used as the basis for each night's music are drawn from a dbyangs-yig, or songbook, written down from memory by the Lama Senge Norbu of the Karma-Kagyu-pa Buddhist sect. The title of the book can be translated as:The diamond song melodies give rejoicing to the Glorious Great Black One, his Consort and Retinue; by clearly seeing and understanding them, magical rites will succeed and bring blessingsThe `Great Black One´ refers to Mahakala, the chief of the seventy-two (or seventy-five) forms of Mgon-Po. His character and powers are equivalent to the Hindu God, Shiva, the Creator and Destroyer. His Consort is called Lha Mo, equivalent to the Indian Goddess Sri Devi. These two `protectors of religion´ form a union, expressing the tantric concept of the indivisible male-female principle, manifested here as the deity Mahakala embracing his female energy, or Shakti. The Songbook contains seventy-nine pieces which are used in tantric rites. When performed in succession, the songs are begun at midnight and end, after numerous repetitions, seven days later. As the texts of the songs often appeal to various terror deities and the songs form part of the `terrible rites´, the night is deemed the most appropriate time for their performance. The female representations, goddesses and she-devils, are subject to special worship because they are believed to be custodians of natural and supernatural forces.
The seven selected chants are as follows:
(from Walter KAUFMANN Tibetan Buddhist Chant)
to have the mind in tune with the sacred thought
This is the inscription prefacing the last song of the dbyangs-yig, the Mantra Song of `Intense Sacred Contemplation´ that is performed on Day 7. Over successive days of the cycle, the musicians engage in a process, which is, on an utterly pragmatic level, a process of intense listening and tuning. The performances arise from the musicians' attempts to come into resonance with each other and the entire continuum of sound around them. the function [of resonance] is the elimination of boundaries because it brings the wave forms it integrates into direct union. It results in a loss of `edges´ leading in the case of cognitive awareness, to the dissolution of the sense of `self´The listening/tuning process is guided by the seven Tibetan chants, which provide a mechanism for investigating the world of audible and inaudible vibrations (sounds and silences). The chants and the listening techniques explored in the rehearsal process, are the tools with which the musicians enter and amplify the inner world of sounds, with its minute shifting and seething motion. Yet, preparation can only guide, and ultimately techniques demand to be transcended. Paradoxically, when there is nothing for the musician to do, when they are simply aware of every present moment, not desiring a future, not clinging to a past, an immense silence arises which is the essence of a great flowering of sound. When sound and silence are understood in their complementary relationship, the presence of the musician-listener and audience-listener can become transparent, woven indissolubly with the continuum of life. ---L.L.
Utter simplicity utter one-pointedness is the oath, because it affords no deviation in purpose, is non-intellectual, thus without the escape clause of the safety we get from constructs or pre-defined approaches to the unknown. When disorientated, we feel in `trouble´ this may encourage the thought to rise: there is no `trouble´, only another moment, another viewing point within the kaleidescope, and equally as valid as any other point in the continuum, the kaleidescope's inner membrane. This one-pointedness has the potential to become the catalyst for a `Liberation through Hearing´, or `Liberation through Understanding In-Between´. The Mirror that may be constructed through this process, then reflects an image intelligible from any point within the Continuum, an image that can be described as the Bardo. Even though what is being attempted cannot be achieved, to attempt an impossibility can act as a catalyst for the myriad forces that cannot find manifestation in the causal world; this act of defiance in the face of our limitations liberates. It frees us from the oppressiveness of devising our actions; in accordance with perceived outcome-boundaries, thus not allowing for the possibility of those boundaries' removal. One has to be able to imagine, before manifestation can occur. Paradoxical constructs, in order to be understood, require paradoxical means of understanding. These are often described as constituting the keys to psychological and spiritual liberation; the `non-sense´ often liberates us from the prison of the sensible. Action freed from the constraints of its results liberates. The Buddha's dying words: All effort is transitory; strive ceaselessly. When action is freed from all assessment, another, deeper, `action-self´ emerges; that action-self can be used as both music and instruction, as an inner map. Once that first step is taken into that inner landscape, liberation may be experienced not as revelation OF jOY, but as a silent, boundary-less desert, in which, free from all ego-constraints, the Self can neither see nor desire a `preferred path´, all points being of equal value on this reverse side of the kaleidescope's inner membrane. This is the place of Transcendence.
What do we truly want to give an audience?
The Greater Performance is on-going; the Bar-do'i-thos-grol at Hillside Auto Dismantlers and Summerland Demolitions acts only as a reminder of the continuum's complexity, and the endless opportunities it affords us for experiencing increasing awareness, and subsequent liberation.
Domenico De CLARIO and Liza LIM
Bardo-space activated every night from 6pm
Lyndon TERRACINI, artistic director NORPA; Daryl BUCKLEY, artistic director ELISION Ensemble Special thanks to: John of Hillside Auto Dismantlers and Reg of Summerland Demolitions, Liz Terracini, Petrina Hennessy, Petrina Boies, Dee Tipping, Marianne Saulwick, Kim Welch, Michelle Tonkin, Cliff, Tracy, Jasmine, Aaron, Michelle, Steve, Bob Crimmins. Northern Rivers Performing Arts and ELISION Ensemble gratefully acknowledge financial assistance from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council, the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body and Playing Australia. Domenico DE CLARIO gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council. Liza LIM gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Michael Vyner Trust, U.K. |
Last updated Monday 02 February 2004
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