Someone asked me what the workshop would be about in New York on the 14th of
July, check under http://www.shakuhachi.org
and then look under Calendar for the particulars.
So here goes with more description for anyone interested:
The morning of the workshop will be on the Bamboo Way....that is, a
discussion of the philosophical underpinings of learning the
shakuhachi....how to approach your practice when you are alone with your
music...there will be a series of exercises presented to bring you to an
awareness.....as shakuhachi is not just the learning of the instrument but
the learning of oneself also and to learn shakuhachi means also that one is
in a process of learning music but also to harm oneself and others less and
less and it is about the opening of the heart in compassion, but how to do
this using the learning of music/shakuhachi.....this also makes for rich
content in your music once you play well (a life lived deeply).
The afternoon will be about the same thing but using the listening of pieces
and in this case the old honkyoku. I will play about 4 or 5 as announced.
How to listen....how to use the sound to learn oneself and to break into a
greater awareness, a new place...waring away the old thinking habits.
We think from little on that we know how to breathe and how to listen and
when learning shakuhachi one of the first things we learn is that this is not
so. Listening only with the ears is not listening....and listening with
judgment is not listening. So what is? How to listen deeply? I think for a
shakuhachi player it is very hard to listen, really listen to shakuhachi
music especially, we are always thinking....oh, look what he did there....how
did she finger that?....this is left brain listening...or really a
continuation of study, but not deep, real listening.
To my knowledge a workshop of this nature has never been given before..
addressing the underpinnings... most teachers think students will get all
this after years and years of practice... but I don't think that we
necessarily do as Westerners... and even maybe they don't always. What I
have tried to do is reunite shakuhachi with its zen origins....this was
prohibited by law in Japan at the time of the Meiji restoration in 1868...
shakuhachi could have nothing to do any more with "religion" and was then
relegated to being only a "gakki" a musical instrument as opposed to a
"hokki" or dharma instrument....anyway I have tried to find my way back to
what real "Chikudo" or the Bamboo Way was/is and of course we have learned a
few things about ourselves as a human race in the last 500 years so that is
reflected there too a little. I hope you will like it and attend. Looking
forward to meeting other shakuhachi people...in San Diego we are very few.
Thank you for your kind consideration of my presentation. Just trying to
understand and experience things in a deeper way.
All my best, Mary Lu
PS: (As you may know Joko Beck, my zen teacher is also a musician)...
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