Pursuing the Rest Symbols to Listen to Master Tue Sy's Choruses for the Piano

Master Tue Sy's poetry domain is extensive and immense. His lyrics ascend to infinity and beyond. Its profundity is bottomless. How can one fathom it in pursuit of meaning?  

To the writer of this article, it would probably be better to sit down, staring at the rest symbols in the Master’s Choruses for the Piano, to hear, maybe “all Greek to him”, some soundless notes of surreal melodies.

Choruses for the Piano is a collection of 23 poems -- or more accurately 23 refrains, published in Vietnam in 2009 by Master Tue Sy. This compendium of poems was translated from his native language by the renowned French artist Dominique de Miscault and presented in an artistic work called Refrains pour Piano, with unique images of Master Tue Sy.

This article only reflects some of the writer's feelings while he is reading Master Tue Sy's Choruses for the Piano in Vietnamese.

The rest symbols in music represent profound moments of a pause without music, without words. Their presence in the musical composition is as essential as any other sound beat. Sometimes they are even more essential and carry more magical meaning than other sound pulses and beats.

Similarly, in daily life, with the constant entrapment of wanton desires in our body, speech, and mind, people are pulled into the maelstrom of hallucinatory aspirations; therefore, those moments of laxity, of letting go, of meditative states are necessary and have significance in life. Those are the rest symbols in the music piece of our lives.

Indeed, have you ever quieted your heart enough to enjoy the moments of absolute silence that unexpectedly occur amidst the voluminous cascading stream of worldly sounds and musical melodies? If you have ever experienced this incredibly magical moment, you certainly must have been aware that it feels as though you were swimming in an infinite space, where there does reside only mythical joy in the absence of all kinds of self-indulgence and unwholesome anxieties in this world.

The life of a Zen master is the moment of the tranquil rest symbols that is prolonged indefinitely, self-existent, and independent of all worldly afflictions. Master Tue Sy is such a Zen master.

In the Master's brilliantly sparkling eyes, the endless cycle of birth and death is merely a dim shadow behind the flickering flame of enlightening wisdom that throws insight into it to realize that it is merely an illusion. So, life and death are no different from the bird that suddenly appears and disappears in the vast firmament! The first chorus vibrates to open the nonchalant way to and from the eased and free realm of this human world:

I drown time into the corners of my eyes

It then reddens the sacred night

The night suddenly turns into illusory winter

An adventuresome bird coming from Infinity

In the Aggaññasutta of the Digha-nikàya, did the World-Honored One (bhagavān) not

describe how humans came from the Heaven of Light (Abhassara) to the Heaven of the Realm of the Sensate World (Rùpa-dhàtu). Thus, Master Tue Sy stated as much in the second refrain.

From there, we’ve returned to the Heavenly Realm,

A blue hue obfuscates Infinity

The star lengthens the night to no end

Real or unreal, the evening is dropping woes

On such an evening, the low musical notes languish

Sore at the fingertips, but the melody keeps playing on.

Embracing the rest note, the piano rhythms abruptly break.

Where are you, dear? silky smoke is out yonder, beyond the eaves.

Humans descend from Abhassara to the sensate world, resulting thusly in the piling up of woes, anguishes, and classified levels of human existence. But when the moments of the silence of the rest symbols arrive, then there does the Realm of Infinity reveal itself; therefore, the scenery outside, beyond the eaves, is but illusory silky smoke of existence and non-existence. 

In a musical composition, how can one possibly have only rest symbols? In human existence how can one avoid grief? It’s a wonder, however, that the Master has so deep and so clear an insight into the black keynotes and the white keynotes of the music of life to realize that they are but illusory images. And then, he transports all the woes accumulated over the years and places them onto those rest symbols. Sending them to the rest symbols is no different from transforming them into the Realm of Infinity. Therefore, the 9th refrain reverberates as follows:

Eyes burnt 

Black keys, white keys

Black and white chasing each other

Turning into illusions

Above Infinity

Lie the rest notes perfectly round

Wherewith I’m entrusting

Woes of chilliads of years

Immediate cognition of the nature of one’s existence is not only the seemingly true awareness about reality that a Buddhist needs to have, but also the exceptional patience of a virtuous monk and his sustained endurance from suffering and death to transcendent ecstasy with a tranquil and emotionless mind. The 13th refrain reverberates that melody:

Oops! Snap the piano strings suddenly

The ghostly night appears so real

Biting the frozen fingertips

The chorus sunk deep into the eyes

Then the piano frets let loose

A group of disconnected sounds; fingers burning

All of a sudden is spreading an ambrosial fragrance of orange jasmine

The chorus is slowing down, following the rest symbols

At times the piano chorus melody is so profound that it appears to dissolve into the fragrance of orange jasmine or to transform itself into an ant crawling along a mountainside or weaving beneath a clump of grass. Chorus 20 is an enigmatic, mythical melody that seems to require the listener to shed their grandiose human form of self to follow the ant crawling beneath the grass and hearing the earth breathing. In his book Exploring Poet Seamus Heaney’s Source of Poetry, published in California, the United States in 1996, philosopher Pham Cong Thien referred to this fragrance as "the smell of terrestrial habitat." Here, not only could one smell the soil, but also the air that the earth exhales. The extreme depth of the profoundness of the rest symbols in Choruses for the Piano is here. One can hear and smell the “scent the earth breathes out”.

Following the ant’s path

Threading one’s way through the clump of grass

Gloomy overcast

the universe falters

Intervals of silence

Smell the fragrance the Earth breathes

Refrain 23 closes out Choruses for the Piano as if it were the tail end of the life of a person lying permanently in the deserted graveyard.

Ancient tombstones are lining up

The evening rain is welling up with tears

Overcast with desolation

Legends stand forlorn

Frost dampens

The shoulders jealous of the orange jasmine

Embracing the Monument

In love with all wilderness

The chorus vividly depicts the scene in the cemetery, with the evening rain, tears, desolation, and dampening frost as poetic images that reveal the state of mind and circumstances at the tail end of a person's existence. However, in this commonly shared scene, still shines a very precious, very attractive, and very loving individuality. That is the Master's infinite love for life, for people, and all sentient beings.

Embracing the Monument

In love with all Wilderness

That kind heart obviously must have found its abode deep in the rest symbols of Choruses for the Piano that the Master just played.

Does anyone hear?

Yes, for sure: the gods in the Heaven of Light, the ants scurrying beneath the grass, and also the breath of the earth moving hither tither all over this globe.

Now you can read Chorus for the Piano by Master Tue Sy.

Choruses for the Piano by Tue Sy

1.

I drown time into the corners of my eyes

It then reddens the sacred night

The night suddenly turns into illusory winter

An adventuresome bird coming from Infinity

2.

From there, we’ve returned to the Heavenly Realm,

A blue hue obfuscates Infinity

The star lengthens the night to no end

Real or unreal, the evening is dropping woes

On such an evening, the low musical notes languish

Sore at the fingertips, but the melody keeps playing on.

Embracing the rest note, the piano rhythms abruptly break.

Where are you, dear? silky smoke is out yonder, beyond the eaves.

3

On the sharp note

the piano’s melody hangs heavy

The corners of the lips are imprinted with an eternal hatred

Into that melody

Deeply sunk are illusory aspirations

Heartbeats stop, the hollowness of time

Time stops

The sun is a burning patch

Time stands still

A thread of smoke hanging loose

I’m traveling always 

The moss on the perron is thinning off 

Since the sunlight is wearing out

The wild grass along the riverside

4

Flying along the glimmering flame

Wavering in the summer desert

The sky tilts halfway down

By the velvet drapes, your eyes turn blood-red

So far away reigns the Lyra constellation

Obfuscating the way back home

5

On my way home that evening

You were painting a dingy yellow

The color of the dirt road dried up from the moonlight

The faded road

The solitary moon

Did you ever wait

For the ugly weather-beaten moss in the night?

6

The pitch-black color is spreading on the cliff

Immensely missing those farewell eyes

Then forever vanish 

leaving sullenness in the wuthering mountain top

Where am I?

In the thin ephemeral wings of dreams

7

The cup of tea already immersed in smoke

Yet the lines of words continue to lengthen 

Worldly affairs emulate wildflowers

Embalming the burning eyes with darkness

8

Her Highness forgets a little bout of sullenness on the rest symbols

The string of cadences brings anxiety to the fingers 

Pressing the woes deep down onto the white keys

A half-note key jars the rhythm of exile

9

Eyes burnt 

Black keys, white keys

Black and white chasing each other

Turning into illusions

Above Infinity

Lie the rest notes perfectly round

Wherewith I’m entrusting

Woes of chilliads of years

10.

The door tightly closed, clouds rolling up the distance

Absent-mindedly counting words in blurry eyes

The woeful hand caressing the billet-doux decayed

It’s mizzling sparsely over some cluster of houses

11

Summer cicadas suddenly come back to town

A group of old trees is shading against the desolate sunlight

A blanket of white dust spiraling upwards about the gate

The fragrance quietly shying away from the piano keys

The cicadas resonate rippling tiny tones

That shed tears for the summer that is drying up the ocean

12.

The Monk is prinking himself in the stream

Forgetting his eyes somewhere in the middle of the night

Hurriedly he jounces his steps along the ravine

Wearing out the gully imprinted with bird tracks

13

Oops! Snap the piano strings suddenly

The ghostly night appears so real

Biting the frozen fingertips

The chorus sunk deep into the eyes

Then the piano frets let loose

A group of disconnected sounds; fingers burning

All of a sudden is spreading an ambrosial fragrance of orange jasmine

The chorus is slowing down, following the rest symbols

14

Night slumps down

Pushing darkness into one direction

The melody stirs up ice-cold sounds

Begetting aberrant heartbeats

At the frontier

The trees turn bright red

Over the aged warrior’s ancient tomb

The sunshine extinguishes the battlefield

The drop of blood desolates the fog

15

One day of drifting frivolously on top of the waterfall

Feeling fluttery upon the call of Emptiness

The low melody fills up in the eyes

The surface of the lake is still; its reflection glimmering

Still the surface of the lake is; its block of colors immense

Religious images are blurred; the tiny amount of limpid mist

During the interval of quietness drops of time hang heavy

I hear life in the musical composition “Desolate Heaven” 

16

Washing my hands off, frightened of rampant skulldudgeries

I follow the ant along the deserted ridge

17

The breath ceases at the profound of the ocean

Multiple delusional colors awaken in immense forms

A sky of tiny stars twirling around the doorframe

Emitting fireworks in the galaxy momentarily.

18

The sound of cars rushing across the gate

The orange jasmine quivers

Its fragrance dissolves into the rest notes

The perfect melody shimmering

19

The little leaf of grass falls; startled

The earth trembling; Demons unruly all over the world

The fragile breath is lying on the rest notes

A magical night; wordless melody.

20

Following the ant’s path

Threading one’s way through the clump of grass

Gloomy overcast

the universe falters

Intervals of silence

Smell the fragrance the Earth breathes

21

How yearning that memory is

Fingers running through the hair

Arms around the spiral of smoke

Consternated

Half-finished the cup of mist tea 

On a pedestal

You reign high above

So interminably high

The clouds are closing up

To corrode

The self-existing religious images

Oh! Orange jasmine!

The moonlight blurs the eyes

Oh! How about you, dear?

Why keep striking the same keynotes?

The ancient melody

Furtively melancholic

Somber

Formerly loving you 

Stirred up moons and mountains

22.

I resurrect over the reeky forlornness

Still loving you in every moment of my dreams

From primeval times even not a single word uttered

Like the immense ocean constricting the reflection of a peach blossom

Listening to the pulsating melody from the flagging wings

Loving you, I reach out for the thousands of stars.

23.

Ancient tombstones are lining up

The evening rain is welling up with tears

Overcast with desolation

Legends stand forlorn

Frost dampens

The shoulders jealous of the orange jasmine

Embracing the Monument

In love with all wilderness

Translated by Phe Bach
(Vietnamese version)

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Sources:

https://hoangphap.org/huynh-kim-quang-theo-dau-lang-nghe-diep-khuc-duong-cam-cua-thay-tue-sy/

https://hoangphap.org/tue-sy-nhung-diep-khuc-cho-duong-cam/