Interesting post Mark and it reminded me that I had a slightly
different slant. While I agree that Mahayana Buddhism is generally
associated with the Bodhisattva ideal and that emptiness is a
significant doctrinal focus I'm not sure I go along with the strong
distinction made in the west between Hinayana and Mahayana,.e.g. that
Hinayana is more concerned with personal development than
compassionate action. This feeling is the result of reading parts of
the Pali Canon (I'm working with a group that is trying to make it
through much of the translated Buddhist canon - a course for which the
teacher says "no big deal, each cycle should only take about 16 years"
!). In particular, some of my favorite sutta (sutra for the Mahayana
types) readings (uh oh, picking and choosing !) in the Samyutta Nikaya
or Connected Discourses contained passages that were as cogent re.
emptiness, dependent origination, and compassion as anything I've read
or heard about in the Mahayana canon (e.g. the perfection of wisdom
texts). Which brings me to wonder re. the continuing discussion on the
list about associations of shakuhachi practice with particular Buddhist
traditions. While useful, perhaps we need a broader context to consider
shakuhachi as spiritual practice (which I still like to ponder despite
the fact that most of the discussions I engage in on the topic leave me
more confused than when I started - maybe that's the point !). On the
other hand saying forget all that and just play, i.e. playing music is
as much a spiritual practice as anything else, seems TOO broad.
Spiritual practices seem to me to require a specific focus on
compassion as Mark pointed out. Musical training alone can provide a
meditative focus but doesn't seem sufficient. So perhaps there could be
something specific about shakuhachi as spiritual practice (obviously
only for those that were interested !) that could help to focus on
compassion and that needn't derive from any particular sectarian
doctrine. And I think this discussion is slightly more than trivial as
it concerns the ways in which shakuhachi could be taught and what
students could derive from that teaching. Sorry for rambling.
Karl Young
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