Re: loop religion

[scott kungha drengsen <kungha@earthlink.net>]

It's good to hear such varied and deep insight. I hope this adds to the
discussion ..
  As a practitioner of Vajrayana(Tibetan) Buddhism for a number of
years.(Thats where I got the funny second name) I find not only a "Zen"
aspect to loop creating and listening ie; repetition, like breaths, like
prostrations, like mantra...But, also, and I think a deeper simularity
to Tibetan Tantric Ritual. In the Buddhist practices of Tibet the
"meditater" will be ringing bells,chanting,playing drums,performing
mudras,praying and visualizing, often simultaneously.  
It is nearly impossable to be a part of this kind of magic and maintain
self conscious or self critical awareness.And of course thats one of the
points of doing it...Also the Diety being meditated upon is often
visualized as oneself as well as being enthroned in front of you. Just
as in looping you are both the active creater and the passive
listener.In both activities there is the potential for the complete
merging of the two.Diety/Supplicant-Creater/Listener When my awareness
expands to include sevral layers of loops(I'm now using both a Jamman
and Echoplex) I'm no longer there as an individual, I'm feeling
sounds,sometimes seeing them,the air around me thick with light,the
music is a symbol for the ongoing vibration of the universe,and it IS
the ongoing vibration of the universe.The microcosm has attuned itself
to the macrocosm through an act of individuality that has lead beyond
the idea of being an individual.An act of self indulgence(just ask my
girlfriend)that can lead me beyond myself and bring me to questions
about whether I had any choice in beginning that loop in the first
place.Or any choice about being myself w/all its musical choices and
apparent failures since(as the tibetans would say)beginningless time...

Then again,sometimes I'm just practicing scales over changes;)

 I'd like to recomend the work of Jean Gebser as a fine model for
understanding the modalites of different structures of
consciousness.ie;why harmonic music tends to be a more"emotional"
experience while modal tends to be more trance inducing and atonal
effects us another way.(Although I don't know if he's caught up w/some
of the people on this list.)His book is The Everpresent Origin.
 

I remember I had lunch w/this SUFI master once who said the whole
Universe from the highest nature of the Absolute on down was like a
infinate echoe,giving back to us what we put out with endless ripples
and returns..Sounds like LOOPING to me.   Kungha