To everyone who has contributed to the "spirituality" question in relation to
Sui Zen, thank you for tackling such an important, complex question. An
impossible question. Each person's response has caused me to think more
deeply about what I'm doing with the shakuhachi.
I just want to add a word to the last interchange between Mark Miller and
Windsor Viney. Personally, I like Kobun Chino Roshi's phrase, "unrestricted
being". Yes, perhaps "beingness" is a mouthful of marbles. But I don't
agree with Mr. Viney that Mark and the Roshi have read too much Heidegger.
Someone who speaks Japanese might give us the Japanese word for "being".
I'll bet that, in the Zen lexicon, that "being" word has been around along
time before Heidegger. And I think it's a good word that points to something
ineffable but real.
I also want to respond to Mr. Viney's statement when he writes, "I conjecture
that the spiritual sensations brought on by shakuhachi playing are mostly due
to repeatedly taking deep breaths and then exhaling slowly and with fine
control through a tiny opening between pursed lips: changes blood-gas levels."
This sentence, and the others which follow seem to fall into the category
of material or scientific reductionism, that is, an attempt to reduce all
spiritual phenomena to the mere interplay of (predictable) physical forces.
As if the human person is only, in the end, mindless, animated matter. One
clue is his phrase, "spiritual sensations". I certainly don't experience
the spiritual dimension of shakuhachi playing as a matter (sic) of mere
sensation. And I don't experience myself or any other person (about animals,
who knows?) as composed only of a material body. I believe that the ancient
words "spirit", "soul", "mind", and the more recent "subjectivity" and
"consciousness" point to something real that transcends (but perhaps doesn't
leave behind) the physical level of reality that Mr. Viney focuses on. Sure,
when one plays shakuhachi, something happens with lips, diaphragm, blood
gases, cognitive concentration and perhaps endorphins. But there's something
else as well, something that maybe only poets should try to talk about.
To his credit, Mr. Viney tries to cover his reductionistic, scientistic
tracks when he writes at the end, "If (any of) this is true, it does nothing
to infirm the beauty or value of
shakuhachi music and playing. Explanation need not be denigration or
dismissal,
though it might sometimes (but not by me, here) be intended, and is often
construed, as such."
But I'm afraid it's too late. By now there's no mind, heart, spirit,
intention or subjectivity left in our poor shakuhachi players. By now, the
beauty has been reduced to gas bubbles in the bloodstream.
Blessings,
Jonas
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 06 2004 - 14:09:32 PST