"Goddard: Meditation on the Clear Light." genre: Choral
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	By Philip Goddard - http://www.neptunethemystic.co.uk/goddard.htm. A short intense and mysterious choral work based on statements by Padmasambhava about the deepest and most subtle level of consciousness - effectively the enlightened state - that exists within every one of us. (MIDI realization)
	MP3.com CD: CMM - Our composers II - buy it! Credits: Composition and Realization: Philip Goddard
	Story Behind the Song This is a work of uncompromising rarefaction -- as befits a contemplation on the profoundest subject known to anyone -- and it is thus unlikely to be many people's favourite! It is so terse that I strongly recommend that newcomers to the work listen to it twice in the first sitting. Also, its full effect will not be achieved if it is listened to close to other works. Ideally there would be at least 10 minutes clear of other music before this work and at least an hour afterwards. This may seem unrealistic, but nonetheless I joke not. Lest all this seems very off-putting, I can report that the people who have heard the work here so far have responded very positively to it, despite the choir's words going right over the heads of some of them. One of these people -- a decidedly unsophisticated character in the field of music, who is all too ready to communicate in harsh negativities -- went as far as to claim that this was my best work yet (and he was definitely very much taken with my previous works), so I must have done something right! The so-called Clear Light has various other names, such as primordial consciousness, ground luminosity, pristine awareness, Dharmakaya, Mahamudra, and so on, but essentially it is the subtlest, innermost level of consciousness of every sentient being, and is the fundamental 'empty' nature and essence of all objects and phenomena and indeed everything that the mind experiences. It equates roughly with what non-Buddhist mystical traditions call the Universal Consciousness, The All, or simply God, but not with the personal God of religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In Buddhism the part of this fundamental level of consciousness that manifests in an individual being is called Rigpa or the path luminosity, though many writers confuse the issue by using the word Rigpa interchangeably with Dharmakaya, but in any case the difference is in viewpoint rather than substance. I have taken rather a liberty in, and can understandably come under criticism for, adapting such profound texts of great masters. The adaptation was necessary to impart the necessary rhythmic inflections to what, in their English translations, proved too unrhythmic for me to use. To the average Western person the texts of this work will seem total gobbledygook, but I can report from my own relatively primitive experience of recognition of the innermost essence of consciousness that the texts do a pretty good job in conveying something of what, although it can be experienced directly, is in fact beyond all concepts and thus beyond any possibility of direct and accurate description. This innermost essence is not a light in any conventional sense, but rather a vivid and clear awareness, devoid of any conditioning or framework of reference. It is perfect and untaintable, and is the nature of all buddhas (fully enlightened beings). That perfection is also the fundamental nature of each one of us, but in all of us ordinary people it is more or less obscured by our habitual tendencies and negative karma (the consequences of past negative thoughts and actions over countless lifetimes). The various mystical spiritual paths give us means to gradually uncover our underlying perfection and compassionate splendour and eventually become manifest buddhas ourselves. For a fuller explanation in everyday language, see The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche (Rider, 1992). (This title is not to be confused with The Tibetan Book of the Dead.) Samsara, referred to in the text, is the term used by Buddhists to cover all the realms of cyclic rebirth and suffering. Humans are but one of those realms. The final (Tibetan) exclamation, 'Emaho!', means approximately 'How wonderful!'. In this work there is no earthly emotion -- just a rapt absorption and sense of mystery and wonder. There is no fast music, and the dynamics remain mostly level and quiet apart from a few coloristic effects. The scoring is very sparing. For example the choir is a double one for antiphonal effects only, not for elaborate textures or massive sound, and the poor trumpeters -- three of them -- have only five notes to play, albeit telling ones, and the orchestra lacks trombones and tuba. However, full string sections playing very quietly are preferred rather than reduced string sections playing less so, to achieve the most spacious and detached sound; any vibrato of individual players should not be heard, for 'sweetness' of sound is quite out of place here. The backbone of the main part of the work is nothing more than two very slow but gradually accelerating ever-ascending chromatic scales a minor third apart and out of sync -- effectively in close canon. Both of these are harmonized a minor third below, in lower octaves. Against this continual spacious shifting between consonance and dissonance, sections of the choir weave austere fragments of mostly unharmonized chant-like melody, punctuated by the refrain 'How amazing!' in modal three-part harmony, usually with strange woodwind sonorities (equivalent to use of mutation stops on an organ), using variants of a motif used in my 6th Symphony. Lyrics The nature of all is open, empty, naked like the sky. Luminous emptiness, without centre or boundary: the pure, naked Rigpa dawns. (adapted from The Tibetan Book of the Dead, referring to the dawning of the ground luminosity during the death process) (these 2 lines are repeated, in canon) This Clear Light, spontaneously present, from the beginning never born, Is the child of Rigpa, itself without parents -- how amazing! This pure wisdom, source of its own origin, by no-one created -- how amazing! Unborn and holding no seed of death -- how amazing! Evidently visible, it has no-one to see it -- how amazing! Having wandered through countless lives in samsara, it has come to no harm -- how amazing! Having seen buddhahood itself, nought has it gained -- how amazing! Existing in everyone everywhere, unrecognised is it still -- how amazing! And yet still you hope to attain some other fruit than this -- how amazing! Even though it's the thing most essentially yours, you seek for it elsewhere -- how amazing! This Clear Light, spontaneously present, from the beginning never born, Is the child of Rigpa, itself without parents -- how amazing! (the words of Padmasambhava as quoted in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, freely adapted) I am, yet there is no 'I' to behold -- how amazing! (added by the Composer) This Clear Light, spontaneously present, from the beginning never born -- How amazing! Emaho! (these 3 lines sung simultaneously)

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