|
What is Shomyo?
| The word, shomyo, refers to the calling of God's name by
the Brahman monks of India, the expression of prayer to God, and the
versification and voicing of God's teachings (sutra); in other words, the act of
chanting. From India, shomyo was transmitted to China, and along with
Buddhism, from China to Japan, where it was adopted as part of esoteric
Buddhism. The act of chanting shomyo was introduced as a method of
salvation, an ascetic practice to be performed by believers themselves.
|
|
Rikkyoku and Ryokyoku
|
In the Tendai sect of Buddhism, during the late
Heian Period, Ryonin (1072- 1132) standardized and compiled the shomyo
texts that had been introduced from China sometime in the middle of the 9th
century, and built the original shomyo seminary at Raigoin, a temple in the
Ohara region of Kyoto. From this time on, Tendai shomyo was called, Tendai
Ohara Shomyo. To the south of Sanzenin, a temple in the heart of Ohara, runs
the Ryo River, and to the north of it runs the Ritsu River. The Ryo flows wide in a
gentle, curving motion, while the Ritsu's current is made up of a group of
bouncing billows. By using these characteristics as a metaphor, shomyo was
broken down into two styles: ryokyoku and rikkyoku. Simply put, ryokyoku
shomyo might be described as foreboding and difficult to understand, as
compared to rikkyoku shomyo, which is relatively easy-to- understand and
easy-to-remember. Many of the ryokyoku texts are written in Bongo (Sanskrit
transliterated into Japanese), and of those that are written in Kango (Chinese
characters), most contain only one short extract from the original sutra.
Rikkyoku, on the other hand, is made up of a collection of Kango verses. By
repeating these phrases and adding a melody, the sutra began to sound like
coherent musical compositions. This coherence gave rise to a form, and the
flow of the melody created a tempo. The rikkyoku style is believed to have been
the basis for many of the distinguishing features of Japanese music, and was
later connected to the creation of Japanese traditional music. Which is to say,
rikkyoku is musical and songlike whereas, in ryokyoku, chanting strikes the
listener as being a stronger element. When structured, as in rikkyoku or music in
general, singing becomes a method of communication between human beings.
It is a method similar to speaking, which is structured by grammar. However,
chanting is the act of linking oneself, as a human being, to God using the
spiritual power of the voice. This is, at least, the ideal on which shomyo as it is
found in esoteric Buddhism is based. |
|
What is Ryokyoku? |
Personally, I am more attracted to the difficulty of
ryokyoku than I am to the ease of rikkyoku. The ryokyoku compositions all
seem to sound about the same and have few distinctive characteristics. There is
no melody to stick in your head, since there are only a few intervals to begin
with, and no changes in pitch. If you listen to ryokyoku for one minute, you
might assume that the piece will continue on in about the same way until the
end, making it difficult to concentrate on the music and easy to start feeling
sleepy. Shomyo isn't the only music like this. Similar characteristics can be
found in the music of great ceremonies such as the Nobeyahyoshi style of
gagaku (Japanese imperial court music), and gending in the Indonesian
gamelan. That is, formless compositions created in sound. Not music in which a
form is created by sound. Not something firm and easily broken like form, but
rather something flexible and free. For that reason, this music is vague and
incoherent, and as a musical form, it remains incomplete. |
|
How to Listen to Music |
After becoming charmed by music like ryokyoku, the
way I listen to music has changed: I have begun to listen to music with my
inside. Although I was at first attracted to it, after chanting ryokyoku a few times, I
found I couldn't remember it at all, thought it was boring after all, and for some
reason, started to feel irritated. I think this was because there was something
inside me that continued to try and catch the music. But I finally gave up and
began to let my body become submerged in the sound. Then even though I
didn't understand the form, the sound began to come inside me. There was no
form, but I felt myself resonating with and being enveloped by the sound, and by
allowing this to happen, I experienced a feeling of well-being, and so, began to
understand the sound. The way that I had studied and listened to music up until
that point had been to draw on my past knowledge and refer to every
conceivable form, formula, grammar, language, principle, and idea. Then by
finding something even slightly applicable, I would find some place to start, and
try to listen to and remember the music. This method had been extremely
effective in every other genre. But for ryokyoku, it just wasn't valid. By throwing
out all the formulas and facing the sound, I began to see the sound itself as it
was. The sound of ryo(kyoku), then, demanded that I throw away everything.
|
|
How Sound Should Be |
The sound of ryo doesn't appear according to the
music, it appears when all of the formulas are thrown away. It makes no
difference whether the music is heard and understood through the existence of
one's self, the sound of ryo is sound that exists either with or without the self.
Disciples of Tendai shomyo chant to reach this state of mind. Among other
methods of ascetic practice, there is a form of meditation called shikan in
Tendai. Ryokyoku is a guide toward this state of mind. Ryokyoku itself is the
power of sound. In this way, ryokyoku allows you to see sound or fill the body
with sound until the beat of your life and the oscillations of sound become one.
When you have the sensation that your entire body is listening, or that you have
become sound itself, you can remember the composition. Moreover, sound
doesn't have an opposing relationship to the self that is suggested by
expressions such as, "I memorized that music," but naturally becomes a part of
your body. The sound moves your body and this allows you to chant. Sound
that becomes one with you tries to take you to another place. In the sound of
ryo, there exists the power to lead you in many directions.
|
|
Where the Sound Leads | In both gending in gamelan music and ryokyoku,
the first sound is expressed in a weakened manner. It feels as if you are being
pulled toward or falling to the final sound. When listening to either gending or
ryokyoku, it seems as if you are counting backwards in time to find out how long
it will take to reach the final sound. Then the final sound brings with it a slight
feeling of happiness. This was the opposite of every kind of music I had heard
until that point: compositions that stimulated me, compositions that called up my
emotions, impressive compositions, intelligent compositions, and in one sense,
the opposite of all music that contained some form of tension. In these kinds of
compositions, the first sounds give form to the rest of the music. And whether the
first sounds are strong or weak, or the number of sounds is many or few, they
create a situation in which music can be made. The place, where it is made, is
then filled with the life force of the new sound and the more sound is made, the
more it seems to take on the qualities of human life. Yet what happens after the
last sound in shomyo is "death." Or, a situation in which physical energy is lost
and spiritual energy is increased. The soul and spirit fill the place and it seems
as if a messenger is coming to accompany you to the next world. But just
because you chant ryokyoku, doesn't mean that you will die. There's no reason
to think your life span will be shortened either. It is an experience of temporary
death. There are several sections (like those at the end of sentences) that are
scattered within each ryokyoku--and these can be thought of as "little deaths."
After experiencing several of these little deaths, at the very end of the ryokyoku
a "big death" occurs. This too is to me a feeling of bliss. It is an affirmative
feeling toward the thought of death. This is the goal of the religious activity of
chanting. And to mention ascetic practice again, whether it is meditation, some
other austerity, or chanting, I believe that it is all practice for death .
|
|
What is Chanting? | Five years have passed since I first started to chant
shomyo. In that time, I have heard comments like these over and over again:
"Why do you chant shomyo in front of an audience?," or, "If you're going to
chant, do it at home by yourself." I think these comments probably arise from the
puzzled feeling people get when they see chanting occur before their eyes. This
is because more than a regular singer's performance, there is something about
shomyo that people find unforgivably unsightly. It makes them consider their
own ideas about religion and makes me appear to be selfish to be involved in
an activity that should be extremely selfless. Chanting shomyo makes
something appear. In other words, an idea is not being expressed through
sound. Nor is it being used to try and explain something. Chanting makes
something appear through the act of chanting. I feel that this something is the
"universe" as well as "truth." This also allows us to feel relaxed and be at peace.
But my voice is still a prisoner of my body and my self can still be seen. This is
why I must practice death day-after-day. More than the physical effort it takes to
practice death, it becomes important to ask yourself how aware you have
become. Awareness is a state separated from things, a state in which the heart
is released and can be free. This is because it has become possible to go to
and return from the world of the dead. This is not a physical technique, it is a
kamuwaza (a Shinto term meaning 'superhuman feat'), the art of separating the
spiritual from the physical. To realize peace through this art, I believe I must
continue the ascetic practice of chanting.
|