A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter J

Jataka

World Religion
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A collection of tales recounting the Buddha’s previous lives as a bodhisattva, illustrating moral virtues and karmic lessons.

Detailed Definition
The Jataka stories are among the most narratively rich elements of Buddhist literature, blending fable, ethics, and cosmology. Frequently adapted into poetry, drama, and visual art across Asia, they provide allegorical frameworks for exploring compassion, sacrifice, and destiny. Poets use Jataka motifs to humanize the Buddha’s path and to embed ethical teachings within compelling, emotionally resonant narratives.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem on past lives: “The Jataka tales are Buddha’s résumé of compassion”; A modern verse: “Each Jataka is a mirror: what would you sacrifice for a stranger?”; A minimalist lyric: “Wisdom in animal skins”; A student’s reflection: “I read Jataka not for myth—but for moral muscle.”
Additional Notes
Jataka tales recount the Buddha’s past lives as animals, merchants, or kings, illustrating virtues like generosity (dana) and patience (khanti). The final birth is Siddhartha. These stories, compiled in Pali, inspired art across Asia (e.g., Ajanta caves). In poetry, Jatakas offer allegory—modern writers adapt them for children or social commentary. For literary students, they reveal narrative as pedagogy: moral lessons embedded in engaging plots, showing how karma unfolds across lifetimes—a structure influencing Buddhist fiction and cross-cultural fable traditions.
Also Known As
Jataka Tale Birth Story
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