Zen Shakuhachi Lessons

"Too many steps have been taken
returning to the root and the source.
Better to have been blind and deaf
from the beginning!
Dwelling in one's true abode,
unconcerned with and without -
The river flows tranquilly on
and the flowers are red"

8/10 Shakuhachi and self, transcended

Performance, practicing, respect, adulation -
"All merge in No thing.
This heaven is so vast,
no message can stain it.
How may a snowflake exist
in a raging fire.
Here are the footprints of
the Ancestors"

7/10 The shakuhachi transcended
The shakuhachi in my hands, no surprises
I am comfortable. I know the Zen in its music.
The dawn has come. In quiet repose,
Within my world of music
I no longer practice the shakuhachi.

6/10.Becoming proficient
Playing my shakuhachi
Countless times
The voice of my flute echoes
through my life.
Measuring with breaths
the flow of the melody,
I play all the melodic resolutions.
Whoever hears these melodies
will join me.

5.Taming the shakuhachi
While still practicing
I become proficient instead of clumsy.
Transforming, I begin to see
How Zen Buddhism shines through
The patina of sound
As revealed in the notation
And performance practices.

4.Catching the shakuhachi
I struggle with the mouthpiece,
The half-tones formed with embouchure and fingerings,
The long notes pushing the capacity of my breaths,
The pitches with complex finger articulations,
The katakana notation and Japanese explanations;
A steep learning curve

3.Perceiving the shakuhachi
I directly experience the plangent melodies of the shakuhachi
The sound is pure, the pace, unhurried.
I see a shakuhachi for the first time
An amber bamboo body, five finger holes
A notch on the blow-hole, for playing vertically
Sophisticated low-tech.

Ten Bull pictures, number 2: discovery of the soundprints

Along the Canadian urban landscape
I discover shakuhachi sound bites
Even in the movies and malls
I hear the flute.
Deep in the memories of my encounters
The flute sound is unmistakable
To my curious ear, listening inwardly

Ten Bull paintings: number 1, in search of a flute

In the concert halls of the western world
I relentlessly move through the exalted yet threatening
World of the professional western flutist,
Playing countless classical music performances
Lost upon the interpenetrating
Paths of fame and frustration
My resolve failing and my vitality exhausted,
I cannot find the flute.

I am approaching my three-hundredth weekly post, dating back to 2019. (Does anybody look further back than last week when they are following a page?)
My plan was always to share my interests, observations and discoveries in the study of the shakuhachi and its relationship to Zen Buddhism. Since I began my posts, many new websites and videos have appeared that presented the technique of the shakuhachi and its traditional Zen-inspired literature in a more skillful manner than me. But I hope that my perspective still remains unique, given my blend of professional flutist, buddhologist, ethnomusicologist and music educator.
Now that I have explored almost all the topics that have driven my curiosity, it will soon be time to end this long journey of shared thoughts. But before we part, I want to explore one last topic -- the parallel between the Ten Cow-herding paintings and Zen shakuhachi.
For those of you who are new to the Ten Cow-herding paintings (aka the Ten Ox-herding paintings or the Ten Bull paintings jūgyūzu 十牛図), the illustrations (and their accompanying poems) are a sublime distillation of the process of discovering Zen Buddhist insights. They have been described in minute, academic detail on Wikipedia and elsewhere. For whimsical and lyric views, there are several beautiful videos on YouTube, including animated versions. People of my generation first saw the pictures in Allan Watts' book The Spirit of Zen (John Murray Press, 1936, reprinted many times).
In the next ten posts, I will do something very radical, and substitute the shakuhachi for the cow/ox/bull while freely borrowing from the accompanying poetry translated by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki.