>Hi Jonas and all,
My last letter wasn't meant for the list. Marceil is a former
student of mine and I unthinking clicked. She said she felt the
conversation was over her head and I wanted her to know she didn't
need to be overwhelmed by the zen talk. It shouldn't scare people
off from learning.
As far as talking or not talking about zen, or practising zen, I'm
not suggesting it stop, or that it isn't helpful. It was a knee jerk
reaction of the moment. Often I have moments of oneness with the
bamboo and ego loss while performing or recording. I myself do tai
chi and meditate most mornings. I'm not saying shakuhachi isn't
deeply profound and wondrous. It's just that some comments about
something that is so difficult to put into words provoke humorous or
sarcastic comments from me. Talking too much about zen is like
taking balloons to a pin factory. Some guy is gonna be tempted to
use his pin. Doesn't mean balloons are bad.
Once at a craft show someone asked me if I go to the desert for two
days and contemplate where to put the holes in each flute. At the
time I was making around 200 flutes a year and those kind of silly
romantic projections about shakuhachi were hard to deal with with a
straight face. Another guy offered to open my third eye in trade for
a flute. Maybe I should have taken him up on the offer.
I've met a lot of players that want to out-zen the Japanese. If they
play out of tune, or have a poor sense of timing, they say "I'm a zen
guy. I'm not a musician". Well, their teacher's somehow could do
it all. And why is timing, or being in tune only a musical concept?
I think meditating can help one be less frustrated with learning
shakuhachi or any discipline. I have had several students who were
zen priests and while they had patience and a sense of humor, they
didn't learn any faster than any one else. You still need to
develop a good embouchure. That can take years. It did for me. If
there is a god of embouchures out there I wish someone would have
told me. I drove myself nuts for years experimenting with the lips,
the jaw, the teeth, the throat, before I came to a comfortable,
consistent way to blow. For better or worse, I finally found my
voice. It was tough going. I don't believe you become one with your
instrument at the beginning. It comes later. All beginners are Two
with their flutes no matter how much they meditate.
I've heard discussions on the list about how one can play better at
900 feet elevation and not as well at 1,200 feet. One discussion I
think may have been about whether you can play better after eating an
egg salad sandwich as opposed to tuna fish. (Though that might have
been a response I almost sent in, but thought, no I'd better not).
If you are a player you can do that gig or recording session even if
you are sick with a fever, or hacking cough. Not because you can
pray well, but because you can play well. You've put in the time and
effort. You put the flute to your lips and your HOME. As long as
you're not dead you can play your flute.
Looking back to when I first started, I wish I had been a lot less
serous in an uptight way about shakuhachi. I would have had a lot
more fun and perhaps a few more friends.
My favorite performance by a student at our shakuhachi Christmas
parties in Seattle was by a retired Japanese businessman who had been
taking lessons for about 5 weeks. He went up to the stage and played
a few notes of a folk song. He ran into difficulty and nothing came
out. He looked at his flute and said loudly "Hah. No Sound !"
Best to all,
Peter
>In a message dated 4/11/04 3:38:20 AM,
>shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu Peter Ross writes:
>
>>It doesn't do any good to get too serious about the zen connection
>>to shakuhachi.
>>I think the overly serious ones are mostly beginning players who get
>>caught up in trying to out-zen each other. They need to be poked at
>>a bit. Some of us have been playing for over 30 years now and it
>>gets tiresome to hear all that brain twisting talk. You have to put
>>in many years and thousands of hours. There's no way around it.
>>
>
>
>Greetings. I agree with Peter that one only gets better by actually
>playing the instrument. I also agree with him that sometimes, what
>passes for serious Zen talk can be merely a disguised form of
>machismo peacocking. This masculine strutting can be hidden in the
>talk of anyone who is on a spiritual path--Buddhist, Jewish,
>Christian, New Age, Muslim or whatever. I'm up, you're down: Who
>has the biggest, deepest. . . .what? My equanimity, wisdom,
>insight, peace, clarity, compassion or whatever! is deeper than
>yours.
>
>On the other hand, such "I'm right, you're wrong" motivations and
>self-righteous judgementalism can also be exhibited by those who
>eschew any kind of spirituality. In the shakuhachi community there
>are both beginners and advanced players who express (sometimes
>undisguised) disdain and contempt for a spiritual understanding of
>shakuhachi music, Zen or otherwise. Some of these folks (not all)
>apparently believe only in material reality, reason, craftsmanship
>and scientism (the belief that there is one and only one method of
>science or reasoning and that it alone confers legitimacy and
>meaning). For some of them, who has played the longest, who can
>play the fastest sankyoku or who has the most CDs is the "one-up"
>move, and for some, who can make the most accurate Tsu meri is the
>one who "wins". Is one-upmanship a satisfying way to live? Naw!
>
>I think it's great that some players on our list make the Zen
>connection, or any other spiritual connection they want to make.
>And I think it's fine that we have expert craftsmen and seasoned
>players who don't make a Zen connection. I think it's fine Not to
>talk about Zen, and fine TO talk about Zen. I appreciated hearing
>from Jeff Cairns that only rarely do Japanese shakuhachi teachers
>think of their playing as a Zen practice. Let's call each other on
>cliches and romantic projections. On the other hand, whether or not
>Japanese teachers practice Zen has nothing to do with whether any of
>us might take up the shakuhachi as a Zen practice. This is a
>democracy, not the territory of zealot Ayatollahs who require a
>party line.
>
>Let a ten thousand flowers bloom, but I do think that democracy
>isn't enough. I don't think it really works if people are
>mean-spirited engaging in put-down's, judgementalism and
>condescension. Generally speaking, I think that the folks on this
>newslist are civil to one another. We may not ever meet in person,
>but I think that it's more pleasant when we expect the best from
>each other and support each other instead of scanning messages to
>see how we can one-up one another. (In writing this, I fear that I
>will now be accused of one-upping the one-uppers; and I don't know
>how to escape the merry-go-round).
>
>All spiritual paths have their shadow side, but most of the major
>religions and spiritual paths do require that one live by a set of
>ethical principles in community. In Zen Buddhism (and therefore,
>for serious Sui-Zen practitioners), we have the Four Noble Truths
>and the Eightfold path as a guideline. One element of the path is
>right speech. Right speech is a discipline that requires a
>thorough-going self-examination of one's motives when one speaks (or
>listens). Zen is not just about being clever at what Peter calls
>"brain twisting talk". It's a way to live.
>
>I don't agree with Peter that shakuhachi players who talk about Zen
>on our community list are necessarily beginner shakuhachi players
>and I don't agree that all Zen contributions are merely
>grand-standing. In Zen, words, concepts and theories can be a way
>to avoid reality or to accomplish certain ego-goals, but sometimes,
>the right word, koan or story can bring insight or a flash of wisdom
>and bring a healing. Zen is not about putting words down or raising
>them up. Everything depends on the moment, the motive and the
>milieu. If one practices from within the Buddhist context of
>Sui-Zen, then one is obliged to respect the spiritual dimension of
>the shakuhachi, and to focus not only on the correct pitch, but also
>upon the moment, the motive and the milieu. If one is not a Sui-Zen
>practitioner, one isn't obliged to reflect upon these contextual
>dimensions of body, ethics, spirit and soul. Each player must
>decide, and players of both types subscribe to this list.
>
>The guidelines for contributions to our shakuhachi newslist are
>extremely broad, and that's fine, as long as people try to be a
>little forgiving. We're all busy fellas (where are the women?).
>It's up to each of us to monitor our behavior-in-community and to
>simply delete what is "tiresome", threatening, or irrelevant. I am
>sometimes irked by the strong, self-righteous opinions expressed by
>some in our community, but I hang in there because we have such rich
>diversity, and the comments often force me to be more open to others
>and to my ignorance and prejudices.
>
>Thanks,
>Jonas
-- Peter Ross http://www.cloudhandsmusic.com APDO 542-4100 Grecia, Costa Rica Central America 011 (506) 494-5170 _____________________________________________List subscription information is at: http://communication.ucsd.edu/shaku/listsub.html
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