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!
“Swami Uodalric puja” is an 8½-minute spontaneous celebration and meditative improvisation by Ulrico, a 4-track recording with vichitra veena, lap slide guitar, conch, and tanpura – based on G# relative to A 438 Hz in LoMidReach, a special tonality that includes two augmented seconds and is akin to the Hindustani raga Puriya Dhanashre. Uodalric is an ancient form of the name Ulric. A puja aims to show reverence, seek blessings, and establish a spiritual connection with the divine. This single is a preview of the future album “Tonalibus R, S & T”.
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!
Hexatonalities consist of six pitches to the octave. HexaBluNaReach contains no whole steps but three Reach steps (augmented seconds) and three halftone steps alternating with each other. BluNa indicates that it is a partial blue tonality (Blu) with an initial Reach step off the fundamental to the minor third, with the quint but no tritone. With the quint and the major third it includes the initial or most prevalent natural overtones (Na). BluNa thus indicates that both the major and minor third are present and generally no quart. Therefore the second Reach step leads from the major third to the quint over the middle of the scale, a quality shared with the Mid tonalities, which however don’t have the initial Reach step. Finally, the upper tetrachord of HexaBluNaReach features, as the name indicates, a regular Reach step, that is from the minor sixth to the major seventh.
All this gives this special tonality a unique symmetry overall and a remarkable equilibrium between major and minor. Its name could therefore also be minor major or major minor.
You may enjoy a sound sample or tonality loop as sound mantra for contemplation or meditation. This can help with upliftment, purification, and focusing. Or it could simply be used as soothing background sound for relaxation and regeneration. If you care to hum, chant, or sing along, you could use a spiritually charged syllable like Ōṃ / Aum ॐ, or HU, or another mantra syllable that suits you.
