Sound

One of the things I remember about that first Saturday, ten years ago, was sitting on one of the pews in the Buddha Hall, the sun heating the back of my head, listening to Linda Ruth lecture, and not being able to concentrate on the words. This was less due to jet-lag or not understanding what she was talking about, than the fact that the ino at the time, although being hard of hearing, controlled the sound system, and there was a distinct edge of feedback happening as Linda Ruth talked, which was painful for me. Not in the physical sense, but more in the professional sense: coming to the States, I left behind a job as a sound engineer (we were called studio managers, which we loved to abbreviate of course) at the BBC World Service.
This had been a job I had loved doing for eight years, and I soon realised that it had been a good 'zen' job. Mostly I was working in live radio, the broadcasts usually in a language other than English, with people from almost every country of the world, so concentration, mindfulness, acceptance and a certain unflappability were good attributes to develop. I often repeat to doans these days a lesson I learned through years of experience: if you make a mistake, just make one mistake. It is easy to get something wrong, and then to dwell on that, and find you are getting other things wrong as well. Mistakes certainly happened, all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons, and the chilling feeling that you are responsible for a few seconds of silence rather than whatever audio was supposed to be happening, and there are literally millions of people listening, is very sobering. But, once it has happened, as Eric Dolphy used to say about his jazz performances, 'it's gone in the air'. You can't take your work home with you after a live transmission.
Anyway, I ventured to offer my services to the ino after a week or two, and ended up running the sound system here - my notes from the time are still on the cabinet - as well as the one at Tassajara when I was there, and now I am back doing it here again as ino, as well as editing, tweaking and uploading all the dharma talks; in those days, we did everything onto cassettes....
Greg was just in a couple of days ago with the first crop of this summer's talks at Tassajara, which had one or two technical problems to play with. The Abbot is also interested in getting new equipment in for classes and workshops, so Keith and I will probably be installing some new mics next week. I understand that the dharma talks page is one of the most popular on our website, and unlike live radio, these offerings are here to stay and enjoy repeatedly; but even if no-one was listening to them, I would still enjoy polishing the sound, just to keep my hand in - and my ear.