三升万悟

The #1 piece in the Fantasia Synesthesia series is titled "三声万悟". Comparing the three notes to three colours, the founder of Enlightenism Zuo Jin gave the piece a nickname in Chinese: “三声万悟“. This is a wordplay in Mandarin, alluding to the 42nd chapter of Tao Te Ching （道德经）, that literally translates into English as ”three sounds and ten thousand ways to enlightenment.“

While this play on words was a perfect title for the piece, the origins of this concept of ”三生万物“ has a much deeper meaning which has been subject to interpretation and dispute amongst scholars from past to present.

In the original context: “道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物”. The character 生 (Shēng) means to live, or brings life to, to give birth to. The character 物 (Wù) means material, objects or things. Traditionally this phrase has always been interpreted as meaning from Tao comes one, from one comes two, from two comes three, from three comes ten thousand things, where ten thousand things refers to all things.

Mr. Zuo Jin's interpretation of is quite different. He believes there's another level of metaphor under these words. In Chinese, Shēng could be 生, but it can also be 升, which means rise, or to elevate, to transcend. Meanwhile the word Wù could be written as 物 to mean material objects, or it could also be 悟, which means to understand without being taught, to perceive by inspiration, or enlightenment.

Mr. Zuo Jin's concept of 三升万悟 takes human understanding of the world into three levels. Level one, the most fundamental level is the physical level, food, shelter, material things. Level two, a more advance level, where basic survival and material possessions are no longer able to satisfy, and that's where art, music, philosophy comes in. Level three takes human desire to a completely new dimension, but it's impossible to describe, and few can truly understand or appreciate its beauty, and that is the level of enlightenment.

The 三升万悟 (Sān Shēng Wàn Wù) project is a process where we use art and music as a vehicle to attain enlightenment. Some may even say that the very act of creating art and being in the flow of music is already a state of enlightenment.