Pachelbel – Canon in D: The Beauty of Divine Simplicity (Simplicity of Truth)
What is a Canon?
A musical form in Western classical music using counterpoint, where one voice begins a theme and other voices imitate it exactly, aligning with the harmonic progression. The simplest and most familiar example is a “round,” like the children’s song “The clock goes tick-tock from the morning.” Among all canons, Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D is by far the most famous.
Pachelbel was a Protestant.(Lutheran composer who was influenced by both Protestant and Catholic traditions) He composed this piece using the simplest musical measures and repetitions. But as you listen to it repeatedly, you begin to realize: Truth is not difficult. In fact, Truth is so simple that we often miss it.
Our perception of Truth often gets cluttered with useless greed, vain dreams, and delusions. We fill our lives with noise, thinking, “Truth can’t be this easy,” or “No, this can’t be it,” and then we crawl back into our mundane routines.
However, after my awakening last year, as I began to understand a series of realizations, I found that Truth was hidden within that very simplicity.
In the midst of a repeating environment, the fact that these rules remain constant allows us to realize that this world is a Design and a Creation. Seasons cycle repeatedly; trees stay in their places, blossoming and generating life over and over. All life flows from parent to child. No living being can exist solely by itself; paradoxically, we can only survive by helping one another. In that process, we naturally learn the preciousness of life and the environment. Perhaps life on Earth is simply a process of learning how to Love.
The reason those who dive deep into science and physics eventually have no choice but to believe in Creation is likely because the facts they tried to deny stared them in the face as they acquired more knowledge. Saying “I believe in God” is also a testament to having great wisdom.
Development is the same. Countless syntaxes have emerged, but in the end, most logic is written with simple if statements and for loops. It’s the same as creating a beautiful, timeless masterpiece through the repetition of a simple 8-bar measure. In architecture, the aesthetic of simplicity—using limestone and repetitive arches—can support overwhelming loads without complexity. In cooking, simply roasting or frying can bring out the best flavor of an ingredient.
“There is no need to laboriously prove that this world is a realm of electrical signals based on the quantum mechanical fact that atoms are mostly empty space. The ultimate proof that this world is a simulation lies in the simple truth that when we die, we cannot take a single piece of this world’s matter with us.”
God placed the answers in the most efficient ways through the simplest methods.
Complexity always breeds problems. And those complexities ruin our lives.
I believe in God. No, it’s not just a “belief”—it is the natural logic of the world. “Believe”? To me, God simply is, so saying I “believe” feels awkward. It’s like a child saying, “I believe in the existence of my father.” It’s a foolish thing to say about the one who brought you into existence.
Listening to Pachelbel’s Canon after a long time made me want to write.
Truth was not a complex score; it was the simplest sheet music that anyone could play. Our only task is to play that score through our lives without doubting it. Just as Pachelbel did, I want to live my life sensing His greatness through the simplest syntax given to me.
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