Not in sound — breath, seed and drive under three covers: the words, their transmission, their translators

On 27 June 2024 a speech-art evening at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg recited a German version of a Warring States inscription on leading the breath. While the text was spoken, the screen showed two other plates. One of them carries the Diamond Sutra a few lines before its verse: whoever seeks the Buddha in form or in sound walks a wrong path. This paper reads the plate and follows its point through three layers in which the knowledge of breath, seed and drive was covered: the words of the texts themselves, their transmission, their modern translators. Where the knowledge was covered, fear took its place: death for the son who strikes his father, hell for the child who fails its parents. In Genesis the breath comes before the word; John begins with the word; the jade begins with leading the breath.