ID Music: Original Face Digest
Faceplanting into the dharma
This three episode series of Inter-Dimensional Music uses the classic Zen koan sometimes known as “Original Face” as an organizing principle. I’ve puzzled over this story in interviews with my teacher at the Indianapolis Zen Center, but I first encountered it via the author Adyashanti, who explains it in his 2013 book Falling Into Grace like this:
It’s a way, in a riddle, of asking: What are you, really, when you look beyond all images and all ideas about yourself, when you look absolutely directly, right here and right now, when you stand completely within yourself and look underneath the mind, underneath the ideas, underneath the images? Are you willing to enter that space, the place that casts no image, no idea? Are you really wiling and ready to be that free and that open?
Falling Into Grace is simultaneously one of the most useful and most annoying collections of mindfulness teaching that I’ve had the pleasure of digging through. Adyashanti’s way of talking about letting go of the stories we use to formulate our identity – both the negative stories and the positive stories – is one of my favorite expressions of a radical concept at the heart of Buddhist teaching. My gripes with him are minor in comparison. Many of them also apply to the mindfulness industry at large; I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming series that goes deeper into his work.
As one might expect for a story that has been passed around since the 13th Century, Original Face has many translations, and even more interpretations and commentaries. It’s alternately known as “The Sixth Patriarch’s Robe and Bowl” and “Eno’s Good and Evil.” For the purposes of this series we used the koan as it appears in the Entangling Vines collection, which you can purchase here, read online here, or check out from the library here. You’ll find the full text, along with links to several commentaries that I find useful, on the individual program pages.
The videos that accompany this series are taken from King Hu’s sublime 1979 Zen-informed martial arts classic Raining in the Mountain. I recorded several atmospheric sequences with my camera phone, and then slowed, saturated, and inverted them into something mostly unrecognizable. There’s more on the film on the program pages, and it’s currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
Each show is available to stream in perpetuity, and available for a limited time to download in broadcast and instrumental formats.
Inter-Dimensional Music 20210827
North America's Gnarliest Mix for observing your original face
Inter-Dimensional Music 20210903
North America's Gnarliest Mix for illuminating your original face
Inter-Dimensional Music 20210910
North America's Gnarliest Mix for tasting water and knowing for yourself whether it's cold or warm
I’ll be joining Justin Gage, Jason P. Woodbury, and Tyler Wilcox on Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard this Sunday from 4-8p (PT) on dublab. Dublab is also the organization behind LOOKOUT FM, ID Music’s home on-the-actual-air in Los Angeles. The hour-long “Rituales de lo Habitual” set will close out the supersession, an audio companion to my recent essay on organic drone, ritualistic metal, and the power of not knowing. I’m guessing it will be the first time that Grave Upheaval, Phrenelith, and Kwan Seum Bosal chanting will grace the airwaves of either dublab or Aquarium Drunkard. I hope you heady nerds are ready to open up this freakin’ pit!
Thank you for reading! That’s the most important thing as far as I’m concerned.
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