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 K

Kensho

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 Japanese Zen term for initial insight or awakening into one’s true nature, often described as “seeing into one’s Buddha-nature.”

Detailed Definition
Kensho is not final enlightenment but a breakthrough that transforms perception. In poetry, it flashes like lightning, shatters mirrors, or reveals mountains as mountains again. Poets use kensho to capture the sudden, wordless recognition that changes everything—yet leaves the world exactly as it is.
Example
Example in poetry:
A Zen poem describes kenshō as “the mirror wiped clean—suddenly, no face, only sky”; In a modern verse, “Kenshō isn’t enlightenment—it’s the first gasp of clarity before the long swim”; A minimalist haiku: “Bamboo snaps—/ kenshō in the silence / after thunder”; A student’s lyric: “I sat for years—kenshō arrived when I stopped seeking it.”
Additional Notes
Kensho is an initial, often sudden, glimpse of one's true nature or the nature of reality. It is a pivotal but not final experience in Zen practice, leading to further deepening. Unlike Satori, which can imply a deeper, more abiding enlightenment, Kensho is the first breakthrough. For poets, this concept is rich with imagery of flashes of insight, sudden clarity, and the shattering of conventional perception, offering a metaphor for moments of profound artistic or personal realization.
Also Known As
Seeing Nature Initial Enlightenment Awakening
Skip to main content