Abstract
This essay discusses the creation of "One Thought, Flowing Mind," a chamber ensemble work for guqin, flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, strings, percussion, and piano. The composition explores how principles associated with Zen Buddhism and meditation inform contemporary compositional practice, with emphasis on breath, listening, and the perception of time. Rather than presenting Zen as a narrative or symbolic subject, the work treats it as a framework that shapes musical process and performer interaction. The piece is organized around three interrelated states drawn from Zen thought: emptiness, presence, and satori. These concepts are realized through contrasting temporal conditions, including free time, breath-based cycles, and moments of transformation. Breath functions as a structural element that governs duration, density, and ensemble coordination, allowing musical events to emerge and dissolve without linear progression. This approach encourages performers to engage with time as a shared and perceptual experience rather than a fixed metric system. The guqin serves as a source of resonance, temporal orientation, and pitch focus within the ensemble. Pitch materials are abstracted from the traditional guqin piece "Ping Sha Luo Yan," not through direct quotation, but as a contemplative pitch field that supports non-teleological melodic motion. The essay contextualizes the work through discussions of Zen aesthetics, meditation, listening practices, and the guqin tradition, and analyzes how these ideas are realized in sound.