Herb,
The characters actually mean "if you can read this, you'll be playing the
electric guitar anyway." Amazing what a compact language Japanese is.
Seriously, both the "ko" and the "mu" mean "empty," although in slightly
different ways. I'm not sure about the "ko" as it is more of an arcane
character, and is hardly used in present day Japan. I just looked it up,
however, and found that it can also mean "empty" as in "inauthentic,"
although this has nothing to do with the way it is used in either "komuso"
or, by the way "koku."
"Mu" is much easier. It is used pretty frequently in Japanese, but it is
also used often, for example, in classical Chinese Buddhist sutras. In the
Heart Sutra, for instance, "mu" is used to mean the nothingness of the
absolute reality. It is also used as a nullifier, as the "no" in "no color,
no form." In modern Japanese, you combine it with "meaning" to mean
"meaningless," and "consciously" to mean "unconsciously." You get the idea.
There are many ways that two character compounds can be built. Sometimes
one character describes the other, sometimes they both mean different things
and the meaning of the compound is born from the combination of both, and
sometimes both characters mean pretty much the same thing. This is the
case with "ko-mu." Each character points to a different nuance of the same
general concept, so putting them together is kind of like a way of covering
more bases.
It's also a way of making yourself look smarter, which the Japanese and
Chinese scholars both (not unlike the upper education I received, by the
way) were very occupied with. Someone hundreds of years ago probably coined
the phrase more because they could than because they really needed yet
another way to say "empty." It *might* have meant a very specific kind of
emptiness originally, but I bet anyone these days would be hard-pressed to
define how it is different.
The only other word I could find that uses "komu" is "nihilism," in which
"komu" is combined with the characters for "belief system."
OK, now back to work. :)
Zachary "we translators are paid to be pedantic" Braverman
----------
>From: Herb Rodriguez <Herb.Rodriguez@Colorado.edu>
>To: shakuhachi@weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: Komuso Characters
>Date: Tue, Sep 7, 1999, 3:22 PM
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I'm wearing my Komuso t-shirt to work today. Someone asked about it and I
> described the chinese characters as meaning "Priests or Monks of
> nothingness or emptiness".
>
> I was reminded that when I bought the t-shirt at the festival, last year, I
> went to a fast food chinese place for lunch and the wait person tried to
> read the shirt. He had a hard time and said one of the characters meant
> "nonsense". Monks of nonsense???
>
> Now, I can certainly see how some of our family and friends might think our
> devotion to shakuhachi is nonsense after hearing some of the music. And
> that the only emptiness we achieve is between our ears and pocketbooks. But
> I was wondering if the characters mean different things in Japanese vs
> Chinese. Anybody know? Also, what is the range of the various different
> meanings to the Komuso characters?
>
> Herb
>
>
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