The Spiritual Side

From: Nelson Zink (zink@newmex.com)
Date: Wed Mar 27 2002 - 11:19:41 PST


To all,

While the shakuhachi means many things to different people there seems to be
two general categories of interest: musical and spiritual. Although it
appears that these two are linked in that it's hard to have one without the
other, I'm curious about the spiritual side.

The musical side has songs, notation, recordings, public performance, etc.
and seems somewhat codified and available. Spiritual is one of those big
fluffy words that lacks any concrete definition. So when the shakuhachi is
characterized as a 'spiritual tool' what are we talking about?

Are we talking about a feedback device which isolates and amplifies the
effects of the autonomic nervous system? Are we talking about a tool to
reveal and explore presumptive thinking? What are we talking about?

What characteristic of ordinary human experience needs fiddling with? And
how is a shak an aid in doing so? Somewhere in the shakuhachi-spiritual
connection is an unstated belief/theory, what is it?

Nelson



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