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my zen practice taught me how unhurried speech invites us to slow down
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
(bell and breath)
When I was a student at the White Wind Zen Community in Ottawa I had the privilege of listening to recorded teachings by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi. You can hear some his recording on wwzc.org.
During these teisho, the roshi speaks very slowly, with a lot of silence between words, a bit like what I’m doing now.
Silence between words.
As well as words between silence.
Now I love listening to spoken words at this kind of slow pace.
It invites other sounds to permeate the acoustic space, such as the traffic that is in the background now, a bit of birdsong, muffled sounds.
But we can also notice other things like our breath – it’s pace, depth, odor, weight – so many dimensions that we usually don’t pay attention to and minute movements such as cracking of the floor from the weight of the chair, oscillations of light and so many details we normally don’t notice.
I love the way spoken words linger in the air, hugging the clouds and floating down like rain or snow.
I love the way unhurried speech invites us to slow down.
So you might ask : how does the pace of speech relate to the sound of modernity?
The sound of modernity is the opposite of slowness. It’s fast moving and generally saturated, isn’t it?
Constant in overdrive, with technology accelerating our lives, faster and faster every day,
We seem to have lost touch with slowness – there’s my phone reminded me to be fast.
We’ve also lost touch with the notion, the feeling of distance.
So I’m going to slowly walk away from this microphone, while repeating this narration again as an exercise in listening to slowness but also to distance.
Thanks for listening.
(Gets up and walks away)
When I was a student at the White Wind Zen Community in Ottawa I had the privilege of listening to recordings of teachings, by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi. You can hear some on wwzc.org.
During these teisho, the roshi speaks very slowly, with a lot of silence between words, like I am speaking now.
Silence between words.
Words between silence.
I love listening to spoken words at a slow pace…
*
CREDITS
For more information on the White Wind Zen Community, see https://wwzc.org/.
I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible).
My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to White Wind Zen Community.
The post e132 slow – how does the pace of speech relate to the sound of modernity? appeared first on conscient. conscient is a bilingual blog and podcast (French or English) by audio artist Claude Schryer that explores how arts and culture contribute to environmental awareness and action.
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About the Concient Podcast from Claude Schryer
The conscient podcast / balado conscient is a series of conversations about art, conscience and the ecological crisis. This podcast is bilingual (in either English or French). The language of the guest determines the language of the podcast. Episode notes are translated but not individual interviews.
I started the conscient project in 2020 as a personal learning journey and knowledge sharing exercise. It has been rewarding, and sometimes surprising.
The term “conscient” is defined as “being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts and motivations”. My touchstone for the podcast is episode 1, e01 terrified, based on an essay I wrote in May 2019, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues. The conscient podcast / balado conscient follows up on my http://simplesoundscapes.ca (2016-2019) project: 175, 3-minute audio and video field recordings that explore mindful listening.
season 1 (may – october 2020) : environmental awareness and action Season 1 (May to October 2020) explored how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action. I produced 3 episodes in French and 15 in English. The episodes cover a wide range of content, including activism, impact measurement, gaming, arts funding, cross-sectoral collaborations, social justice, artistic practices, etc. Episodes 8 to 17 were recorded while I was at the Creative Climate Leadership USA course in Arizona in March 2020 (led by Julie”s Bicycle). Episode 18 is a compilation of highlights from these conversations.
season 2 (march – august 2021 ) : reality and ecological grief Season 2 (March 2021 ) explores the concept of reality and is about accepting reality, working through ecological grief and charting a path forward. The first episode of season 2 (e19 reality) mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from simplesoundscapes and from my 1998 soundscape composition, Au dernier vivant les biens. One of my findings from this episode is that “I now see, and more importantly, I now feel in my bones, “the state of things as they actually exist”, without social filters or unsustainable stories blocking the way”. e19 reality touches upon 7 topics: our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, ecological anxiety and ecological grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures. The rest of season 2 features interviews with thought leaders about their responses and reactions to e19 reality.
season 3 (october 2021 – february 2022 ) : radical listening Season 3 was about radical listening : listening deeply without passing judgment, knowing the truth and filtering out the noise and opening attention to reality and responding to what needs to be done. The format is similar the first podcast format I did in 2016 with the simplesoundscapes project, which was to ‘speak my mind’ and ‘think out loud’. I start this season with a ‘soundscape composition’, e63 a case study (part 1) and e64 a case study (part 2), a bilingual speculative fiction radio play, set in an undergraduate university history seminar course called ‘History of 2021 in Canada’. It concluded with a soundscape composition ‘Winter Diary Revisited’.
season 4 (1 january – 31 december 2023) : sounding modernity
About
I’ve been retired from the Canada Council for the Arts since September 15, 2020 where I served as a senior strategic advisor in arts granting (2016-2020) and manager of the Inter-Arts Office (1999-2015). My focus in (quasi) retirement is environmental issues within my area of expertise in arts and culture, in particular in acoustic ecology. I”m open to become involved in projects that align with my values and that move forward environmental concerns. Feel free to email me for a conversation : claude@conscient.ca
acknowledgement of eco-responsibility
I acknowledge that the production of the conscient podcast / balado conscient produces carbon. I try to minimize this carbon footprint by being as efficient as possible, including using GreenGeeks as my web server and acquiring carbon offsets for my equipment and travel activities from BullFrog Power and Less.
a word about privilege and bias.
While recording episode 19 “reality”, I heard elements of “privilege” in my voice that I had not noticed before. It sounded a bit like “ecological mansplaining”. I realize that, in spite of good intentions, I need to work my way through issues of privilege (of all kinds) and unconscious bias the way I did through ecological anxiety and grief during the fall of 2020. My re-education is ongoing.
View the original: https://www.conscient.ca/e132-slow-how-does-the-pace-of-speech-relate-to-the-sound-of-modernity/