This is really interesting.... while I'm by no means to the level of playing
Chosi or anything else for that matter... (I played RO for 3 months, I'm
playing scales now)... I have plans to do a pilgrimage on foot from San
Francisco Zen center to Tassajara Monastery in the Big Sur Mountains in
about 2 years (as soon as my daughter is off to college and I have fulfilled
my family responsibilities)... it would be interesting if I could play some
small piece by that time to play as I go, but in any case I am planning to
take a flute on the walk... the idea of a walking pilgrimage being something
that has appealed to me since reading Basho many years ago...
now we actually have enough Buddhist Monasteries and centers in California
that we would be able to do a walking pilgrimage right here in this
country... and such beautiful views along the way!
Trungpa Rimpoche, the Tibetan Master, used to teach that in his secular
teachings, the Shambhala teachings, that Man was that which connects Heaven
and Earth, much like "chosi", no?
Brett "Bud" Breitwieser ( bud@zenbud.com <mailto:bud@zenbud.com> )
please visit my zen site at http://zenbud.com
zen hermit mailing list: http://www.coollist.com/group.cgi?l=zenhermit
Impermanence:
"To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane's bill."
-Dogen-Zenji
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldin [mailto:nyogetsu@nyc.rr.com]
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 5:21 PM
> To: Bruce Jones
> Subject: CHOSHI
>
>
> "What is Choshi?" What a beautiful
> > way to pause after such an intense round of discussion and wide-ranging
> > investigation of our Sui-Zen tradition. What is Choshi? The
> question rings
> > out clear as a bell. (I know that there are many shakuhachi
> historians among
> > us who will actually take up your question).
>
> OK..
> I'm finally ready to jump in..
> I'm too emotionally exhausted (and not nearly as talented in
> writing as the
> many who have written in this newsgroup recently) to talk about
> my feelings
> in detail..Although I feel like saying ,"Stop fighting, my children." (I
> feel that I have the right to say this as almost all of the
> members who have
> been writing this week are either my students or have studied
> with me some:
> Phil Gelb, James Nyoraku Schlefer, Robert Jonas, Phil James, Bruno
> Deschenes, Zach Braverman, Allan Nyoshin Steir, Brian Ritchie, Michel
> Dubeau, Brian Miller, Brian Franklin, etc.)
>
> But as for CHOSHI.. It means "condition" , as in ,"What shape (condition)
> are you in.?" ("CHOSHI IKAGA DESU KA?").. Of course it is also a warm-up
> piece, and can be played directly into another piece.. A
> "clearing" of the
> Bamboo.. But my teacher also told me that CHOSHI was the unity of "Heaven,
> Earth, and Humanity" (TEN, CHI, HITO).. I like this explanation..
> When I was
> in Japan ,2 different students of my teacher became KOMUSO for one year
> each.. They walked the entire Island of Honshu, and played CHOSHI 50 times
> each per day.. At night they would sleep in Zen Temples or in
> rice-fields..
> They were after ICHI ON JO BUTTSU, or as my teacher would say,"To play the
> perfect sound to cause world peace.."
>
> This is why I play Shakuhachi - what I have told my daughters and anyone
> else who has asked for the last 30 years.
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 08 2002 - 09:19:36 PST