In Japan, the Buddhist monks tell of a mythical vision. A flash of enlightenment that can befall any man, woman or child.
Kensho.
For a split second, our true nature is laid bare. The unending stream of energy which knows only the eternal now, the stream of which we are but a tiny drop, is seen. And all distinctions of form and duality vanish.
It comes without warning, disappears just as suddenly. It leaves the recipient in awe, walking the path of the Buddha till they can find it once more…
No one can offer you Kensho. Certainly, I can’t.
Or can I?
________
It is 1899. Anxious clouds scramble across the moon, alternating black and silver-blue. The trees whisper their disgust at two figures picking their way between them.
At last, the woman confesses:
‘I am carrying a child, and not by you. I walk with you in sin…
I longed to be a mother, and so, shuddering, I gave myself to another man.
Now life has taken its revenge. I have met you.’
A mother at last. Re-united with her true love. Yet more alone than ever. Made outcast by the child she so craved.
Silent once more, in desolate D minor, she stumbles on, sliding through a kaleidoscope of keys: pain, despair, anguish, rage.
This is the story of Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht.
But not the whole story. For beside her, silent, eyes brighter than the moon, the man carries his own secret.
Finally, after 15 hopeless minutes, he speaks it. And from his lips, bottomless, unfathomable, an ocean of sound pours forth.
Incandescent D major extinguishes the darkness, eclipsing the stars above.
Glowing harmony after harmony fills every fissure between them.
His secret is no secret at all, simply a shining, boundless, all-forgiving love. A love that washes over this fatherless family, transfigures them, makes them complete.
Its splendour hangs, vibrates about them, then vanishes.
The two figures join arms, their breaths embrace.
And in silence, they walk on through the high, bright night.
Sudden. Impossible.
Kensho.
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