Less is more conditionally a small state arms around to embrace no weapons avoiding thus back and forth listen and see can be enough for three or ten a teacher asked only one for three all the others ten they wished for more not less but turns out three horses ten guinea pigs as this happened so very long ago still a small child now all grown rather old at long last less is more.
(Inspired by Lao Zi, Daodejing, #80, and a 2nd grade school memory)
“Future memory past now” — neither minor nor major
HexaReMix, a derivative w/o third, on D# (rel. A 432 Hz) — 8-string guitar, nepali cymbal — 5:37
Looking to dismiss ego delusion?
“What is inside is me, What is outside is mine — When these thoughts end . . . Freedom dawns.”
— Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, 18.4 / Stephen Batchelor, Verses from the Center, p. 114
“Destroy ‘the ego’, hound it, beat it, snub it, tell it where to get off? Great fun, no doubt, but where is it? Must you not find it first? Isn’t there a word about catching your goose before you can cook it? The great difficulty here is that there isn’t one.”
— Wei Wu Wei, Posthumous Pieces, p. 48
“The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, Until only the mountain remains.”
— Li Po, translated by Sam Hill, Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese
When and where is less becoming more?
At home dancing flames — Sept. 2025 — Switzerland
万事如意 / wànshì rúyì — May all your wishes come true!
“As we look, we find that all the beguiling narratives are basically about ‘me’: what I like, what I don’t like, what I want, what I fear, what I hate, what I believe, what I’m like. These I-thoughts are frequent and compelling — just try giving them up for two minutes. We sense that they are being thrown up by some strong motive force like a turbocharged engine. What is behind all this power? It is the belief in a self, in the story of ‘I, me, mine’ that we tell ourselves over and over. We do this to convince ourselves that we are real in the way we imagine ourselves to be. But this self is a fiction. There isn’t actually an entity that corresponds to this fabrication.
To convince ourselves that the imagined self is real, we tell the I-story continuously, using past and future, likes and dislikes, hates and loves, views and beliefs, engaging our deepest emotions to keep us turning on this hamster wheel. It’s not a pleasurable or satisfying habit.”
Memory, past, future, and the present
“We have this peculiar faculty called memory. Memory retains and stores up fragments of what consciousness experiences; then we build all kinds of concepts around these fragments. We call that the ‘past’ and believe that it’s real. Extrapolating from some selective elements of memory, we imagine that certain things will happen at some other time. We call that the ‘future’, and we believe that it’s real. But past and future are only concepts. They don’t truly exist. The past is gone and the future hasn’t arrived. What is real is the present moment. Body and consciousness are real, and so are thoughts and feelings. [They] are real and present. But there is nowhere behind us called the ‘past’ and nowhere in front called the ‘future’. When we remember something from the past or imagine something in the future, in either case it is a thought in the present moment.”
— Guy Armstrong, Emptiness: a practical guide for meditators, pp. 61 and 78-79
Nature, beauty, life, and love will not be owned nor own!
Before and after the circle closes becomes round like it always is here and now so long before and also after the foundation a consciousness and awareness in one’s heart independent of all creations impermanence like every religion that comes and goes such as days, weeks months, and years or even lifetimes all that is just is a reality of life and also death comes or goes before and after the sound of silence awakes in every heart.
“Octahedron moment” — even before and also after
octatonal ReachNaBal derivative w/minor (and major) third on E+ 333 Hz (rel. A 444 Hz) — 7-string guitar, lap slide guitar, soprano recorder, tanpura — 6:14
Awareness, the sound of silence, and emptiness
“You can trust awareness. As you begin to recognize it and know it, you can rest more in being aware and listening to the sound of silence. As you sustain awareness in this way, consciousness can expand and become infinite. When this occurs you are just present in a conscious moment and you lose the sense of being a self — being a person, this body. It just drops away and can no longer sustain itself. “It is not possible for emotional habits to sustain themselves, because, being impermanent, their nature is to arise and cease. You then begin to recognize the value of this expansiveness, which some people call emptiness. Whatever you choose to name it doesn’t really matter, so long as you can recognize it. It’s a natural state, it’s not created — I don’t create this emptiness.”
“I encourage you to rest and relax into this awareness that comes when you recognize the sound of silence. Just rest in this state of openness and receptivity. Don’t attach to the idea of it.”
“Behind it all is the sound of silence. It’s like this enormous, vast, infinite space that allows things to be what they are, because everything belongs.”
“Letting go is not resisting or getting rid of but letting it be what it is.”
— Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence, pp. 300, 304, 307, 314
Arch of light above and below, before or after
Not a rainbow, but a fog-bow with its reflection below — July 2025 — Poplar Lake, BWCA, Minnesota, USA
namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa — Homage to the blessed, noble, and awakened ones!
A small child hides in my heart and firmly believes in fairies and gnomes in the good in people in everyone and all in peace and love recalling all good letting go the bad always open to give and receive what is without concepts plans or schemes free of I and mine dissolved the self to individualized consciousness spiritually free happy what is always best for you and all a small child in our heart.
“Iech körenes Glöggli” — I hear a little bell
PentaIon / PentaProLa (pentatonic major) on F and HexaMixLa on G# (rel. A 438.2 Hz) — sopranino recorder, crotales, voice — 7:26
Awareness, it’s like this — free from conditions
“Things change. So we are open to change. We’re not demanding that things change in any way that we want it to or that when it’s at a peak that we can keep it that way. That’s impossible. But you can be aware when you’re at your best or your worst, when you’re feeling good, inspired, and enthusiastic or despairing, depressed, and disheartened. This awareness is your refuge. Awareness of the changingness of feelings, of attitudes, of moods: stay with that, because it’s a refuge that is indestructible. It’s not something that changes. It’s a refuge you can trust in. This refuge is not something that you create. It’s not a creation. It’s not an ideal. It is very practical and very simple but easily overlooked or not noticed. Whenever you’re mindful [aware], you’re beginning to notice: it’s like this.”
“There is the unconditioned; therefore there is an escape from the conditioned. So then apply that to the here and now, to this moment. Time is an illusion, the past is a memory, the future is a possibility, but now is the knowing. In this knowing position, … escape from the conditioned is possible. We’re not getting rid of the conditioned, but we no longer react out of fear and desire to the conditions that are impinging on [us].”
— Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence, p. 209 & 244
Once upon a time a small child, and still a little kid at heart…
Ulrico as a small child — some time ago — Gstaad, Switzerland
Devadūtas — messengers like angels not all light or beautiful but all colors of every kind also suffering opportunities help wake up from delusion a human form of self ‘nd mine to however it is no more nor less entirely what it is to totally let all be in boundless space and consciousness embracing freedom as the divine realizes the present moment for what’s here now with all the angels one to each other divine messengers with a big welcome to accept and learn wake up and open!
“देवदूत Devadūtas, angels here and now” — where are you?
PentaMin / PentaEol or pentatonic minor on C# — shamisen, harmonium, and spoken word (Swiss, English, French, Italian, German) — August 2025 — 6:50 — text (Swiss & English) and word only version in blog post “Wo bischt” of May 2023
Also suffering can be welcomed
“Knowing the world as the world is not a resignation in a negative way — ‘Oh, you know how the world is’– as if it is bad, that there’s something wrong with it. That’s not knowing the world as the world. ‘Knowing ‘ is a matter of studying, and taking an interest, investigating, examining experience, and really being willing to look at and feel [also] its negative side. It’s not [only] about seeking sensory pleasures, pleasurable experiences, but about seeing even your most disappointing ones, your worst failures, as opportunities to learn, as a chance to awaken: one can say that they’re devadūtas or ‘heavenly messengers’ that tap us on the shoulder and say, ‘Wake up!’
That’s why in Buddhism, aging, sickness, disabilities, and loss are seen not as things to fear and despise but as devadūtas. This word devadūta is a Pāli word; dūta means a ‘messenger’ of some sort, deva is ‘angelic’ or ‘heavenly’; so they’re heavenly messengers sent to … us.”
— The Sound of Silence, Ajahn Sumedho, p. 149
Devadūtas like angels or ancient trees
Looking up to an over 300-year old linden — July 2025 — Gîte El Jire, Montpreveyres, Switzerland
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