The Musical Offerings

October 1, 2011.

Yet again a drowsy day today with bone-biting cool breezes that trouble me a lot at the teaching, especially during the latter session from 1pm to 3pm. It forces me to warm up my knees, in cross-legged, by chafing with open palms. As my first experience of attending such teaching with punctuated gaps for the translation (not like the one that synchronizes along as there is such in English today) in Chinese this time as for the main devotees are Taiwanese, I find it rather hard to get adapted but I can utilize the interval moments for reading the book I have with me rather than reflecting on what have been just taught by His Holiness that I find like too taken away to follow so. Yeah, the case of distraction that sucks the will and effort to do so. But I don’t waste them. I see the case can be for better or clearer communication than with an earpiece could do.

The special scene this time as like the welcoming melody that I see for the first time here is a group of musicians from Taiwan with violins, flutes and harps on the rows of cream-white plastic chairs set in the reserved gallery of the main temple paved front yard. Each stringed musical instrument has a piece of paper, may be a set of notes, attached on its shaft raised upright from the lap. Yeah, the welcoming notes or what we call ‘musical offerings’ for His Holiness, the master, the Guru—in meaning for what he is going to impart, the holy teachings of Lord Buddha, this time Nagarjuna’s In Praise of the Dharmadhatu, the most subtle mind-consciousness and its pristine luminous nature.

It’s melodious and must be calming if one knows how to listen. Even if I can’t find the latter, I feel this appreciation for their dedications through such way that His Holiness, when walking to the main temple for teaching in the morning from his abode over the yard, acknowledges gracefully by studying them for a moment. Even just after the lunch break and before the latter session they play for almost an hour amid applause at the end of each piece. It’s really imparting as played by mostly experienced seniors.