Waning Moon Conrad

And thus they're not a literal question asked with the expectation of a literal, empirical answer. They're simply one among many of the skilfull means employed by the varying schools of Buddhism to introduce one to the nature of mind in itself.

Gurdur

No. No pipes. The "organ" is made of one rotating axle, on which glass bowls of descending sizes are mounted (the axle runs through the centre of each bowl - the axle is mounted horizontally, but if you were to mount it vertically, it would look like a heap of glass bowls nested, with a rod running through them).
The organ-axle was sped by foot-power, and "strikers" applied to each bowl as wanted via a keyboard.
Franklin built it to imitate better playing musical glasses.
It worked a treat, but only some models were built. I have a photo of one such model (from the Bach family house museum, Eisenach, Eastern Germany).
I recommend greatly a trip to that museum; a whole range of musical instruments from the time of J.S. Bach is there, as well as a lot of ifo on the various Bachs; and the house and garden are quite beautiful in summer.
Plus, if you're lucky, a curator will play many of the intsruments for you (harpsichords, clavichords, house pipe-organ, virginal).

There are several firms here in Germany that specialise in kits for building historically accurate clavichords and harpsichords. I always wanted to get one, but other things intervened.

Thanks for the conversation !
If you like, email me (address in profile), since I might miss replies on this thread.

Demosthenes

I thought the glass bowls were also immersed half-way in water in the trough.

Answerer

Actually, Zen is......


:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

RED DAVE

a) Zen is:

Zen Gardens

b) With regard to Franklin's armonica:

Franklin's armonica

RED DAVE

boneyard bill

Yes, but I will try to elaborate just a little bit. The point of Zen is to apprehend the world directly without the filter of the individual ego. That ego is based on language so Zen tries to overcome the illusions that infest our thinking due to language.

kalamasutta

There is a daily meditation in "Sons and Daughters of the Buddha" (Christopher Titmess) that seems relevant to this thread.......

"All this Zen stuff is nonsense," said the sceptic.

"You are perfectly correct," responded the master, "but that is a teaching I normally reserve for my most advanced students."



Anyway, I did read an essay once by a Zen master who spoke of certain misunderstandings about enlightenment. He spoke of how we could imagine being free of gravity, how nice it would be to just float freely.............yet the reality is that we would just spin out of control...............and soon make a grab for the moon boots! This particular master said that there was an analogy here with certain ways of understanding enlightenment..........the wish to be free of ego, language etc. His point was that we need language - our "everyday mind" - and that true enlightenment is not a "freedom" from anything but more a correct use and understanding of what our experience already is. That we can only express, and know, reality by using "everyday mind".

(Zen is not my homeground and perhaps I misunderstand the point he was making. Perhaps others would be able to clarify.........or even reject such a view!)

gwh00

The ego, IMO, is based on the observer (attention) falsely identifying the content of conscious as the source of being or self. That content surrounds the clear mind or Buddha mind as a line encompasses and defines a circle. The work is to move attention from the frenetic and addictive activity of the content (line) to the still point of the source or clear mind, which is prior to the conditional mind.

Gary

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Revelation-Initiation