I realize this thread is wandering a little (sorry for perpetuating
that) but Bud's post was a nice reminder for me that the shakuhachi has
always had an appeal to me that is slightly different than my love of
Coltrane or well performed Bach. No matter how high the spiritual
content of the latter I have not found an element that resembles the
feeling of Buddhist chanting (well maybe Ascension, but generally...).
That was one of the unique and wonderful things that I found in the
shakuhachi tradition and I think it's reflected in the training methods.
While there may be as much gossip and infighting in the upper echelons
of the shakuhachi world as in any musical tradition (and maybe not; that
was just a statement of general ignorance) the training of beginners has
a quality that I never found in western musical training, no matter how
effective and/or compassionate the teacher. With the good shakuhachi
teachers I've encountered there has always been a genuine (it seemed so
to me anyway) element that felt something like that the most important
thing is what your flute/body/tone feels like right now (which is very
similar to my experience chanting a sutra). I suppose there are rare
teachers of western music who engage in such teaching methods but it is
certainly not a mainstream element. Maybe I'm just being duped by the
Zen du jor touchy feely aspect of the portrayal of the shakuhachi for
westerners but what the hell, I'm enjoying it.
Also, re. Bud's post, I've always been interested in studying whether
there are connections between specific honkyoku and specific sutras
(e.g. the heart sutra, since we're on the topic...). I had a wacko idea
that Ajikan and some of the sutra's favored by the Shingon sect (which I
fancifully connected via the sutra on the Perfection of Wisdom in One
Syllable) were connected. In any case I'd appreciate hearing about it if
anyone had any source material on such connections (I think I've read
many of the most common English sources on the shakuhachi such as
Riley's thesis).
>
> You make a lot of very good points here...
>
> I would like to add that many of the types of music I like are based on my
> conditioned responses and my personal odyssey:
> i.e.: classical western music (grew up in Cleveland around the Cleveland
> Symphony),
> bluegrass (went to college in Southern Ohio in the foothills of Appalachia),
> R&B and later hip-hop (hung out with a gang of guys from Harlem and
> Westchester, lived in the Fillmore in San Francisco)
> African music (I served in the Peace Corps there)
> etc. etc. etc.
>
> But shakuhachi music seems to fall in a separate category in that it
> actually seems to *deprogram* and move me beyond my *conditioned*
> existence... it thereby falls into the category of "healing" or meditative
> music... it opens my pure awareness, moves me beyond "the vicious cycles of
> samsara." It's long moments of silence, lack of predictable cadence,
> surprising twist and turns always surprise and "cut through" the more
> predictable patterns of consciousness and redirect me towards "no eyes, no
> ears, no nose... no consciousness....no object of consciousness..."
>
> The other types serve a useful purpose as well, they awaken different
> chakras, open different avenues of exploration.
>
> Brett "Bud" Breitwieser (bud@rajah.com)
> check out my zen site at http://rajah.com
> or my tech support site at http://rajah.net
> walking, greens, and my recumbent trike at http://rajah.ws
> the dragon is at http://rajah.org
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Dan Gutwein [mailto:dfgutw@prodigy.net]
> > Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 9:24 AM
> > To: Bud; shakuhachi@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: RE: tradition
> >
> >
> > I've been debating about getting involved in the discussion of "musical
> > taste", especially since I'm involved in a profession that, in
> > the minds of
> > most people, is about teaching "great" music. But, with this
> > email list I
> > feel freer about speaking from the heart rather than from a "politically
> > correct" perspective (i.e. every musical activity is equally worthwhile
> > because every human is equally valuable). Music means more to me
> > than the
> > sensual experience of figuratively or literally bathing or dancing in
> > vibrating air. Its meaning for me is inextricably linked to
> > being actively
> > aware of and engaged in using set of skills and concepts that have taken
> > hundreds if not thousands of years to evolve and develop. Skill-sets and
> > concepts that require my concentration and discipline in order to
> > use,
-- Karl Young kyoung@slac.stanford.edu SLAC M/S 71 PO Box 20450 Stanford, CA 94309 650-926-3380 (voice)
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