zen & the music of the shakuhachi

8/9/2019 Zen & the Music of the Shakuhachi

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The shakuhachi and its music emerged as a form of meditation

many centuries ago. This type of meditation practice was based on awareness and control of the breath,

and of keeping one’s mind in the present.

Too often we try to live in the future, with our minds rarely dwelling in the present moment. We are so

busy chasing after yesterday’s memories or tomorrow’s dreams. Yet the only way to be in touch with life,

is to live in the present moment.

Thank you all for coming this evening. Tonight I am going to do a variety of things, both playing the

shakuhachi and talking about it. The shakuhachi and its music emerged as a form of meditation many

centuries ago. This type of meditation practice is based on awareness and control of the breath. So when I

play the music shortly, please treat it as a meditation. Be focused on the sound of the music. Try to be

with the sound. Don’t try to second guess the next note. Just be with the sound of the music in each

moment.

I’ll start by playing in the traditional cross-legged meditation

position on the floor for six minutes. Perhaps you may also like to

sit cross-legged while you listen ...

That piece was called the “Yamita-Cho-Chi.” It was one of a

category of original pieces of the “Honkyoku.” These pieces were

composed especially for the Japanese bamboo flute, by wandering

Zen monks as a practice for meditation. The music and meditation

practices developed over several centuries from about 1300 to

1400 AD.

The shakuhachi is made of bamboo. It has five finger holes, four

on the front, and one on the back. The mouthpiece is cut across at

an angle, and polished. Western flutes usually have a piece of

ebony wood or buffalo horn with a hard edge for the lips. But the

shakuhachi has nothing for the lips to work with, just an edge.

This means that it is usually quite difficult to play. The player needs a high degree of focus on the lips,

the body and the breath.

In Buddhism, we don’t often hear of references to music, but here is one story about the Buddha and a

flute.

Dr Jim Franklin

and the music

of the

Shakuhachi



One day the Buddha walked along a path into the bush. After finding a suitable spot, he sat down under

the shade of a tree to meditate. While meditating, he heard several young men with a musical instrument,

and a woman laughing and talking at a picnic. The Buddha continued meditating.

Some time later, the young men came rushing through the bushes. They saw the Buddha and asked him if

he had seen a young woman go by. The Buddha asked why they were trying to find her. The young men

explained that the young woman had robbed them, and had then disappeared into the bushes. The Buddha

asked the young men, if it was better in this moment, to find the girl or themselves. The young men

stopped and thought.

The Buddha explained that life can only be found in the present moment. Too often we try to live in the

future, with our minds rarely dwelling in the present moment. We are so busy chasing after yesterday’s

memories or tomorrow’s dreams. Yet the only way to be in touch with life, is to live in the present

moment.

The Buddha asked the young men to sit down, and to look at the green of the leaves, swaying in the

afternoon breeze. The Buddha said to one young man, “I see you have a flute. Please play something.”

The Buddha listened, and watched carefully. After the young man had finished playing, he asked if the

Buddha would like to play. The Buddha nodded, and the young man passed him the flute. After a littlewhile, the Buddha took several deep breaths, and raised the flute to his lips. The Buddha began to play ...

The sound was as delicate as a thin strand of smoke, drifting and curling gently up from a simple dwelling

outside Kapilavastu. Slowly the thin strand expanded. It became the sound of one lotus, then slowly, a

thousand lotuses. Even the birds of the forest stopped to listen to the Buddha.

The young men, now dwelling with their minds in the present, asked,“Who taught you to play ? Can you

be our teacher ?” The Buddha replied, “I haven’t played in seven years, yet I seem to play much better

now.” The young men asked,“ How can you play better, without having practised ?” The Buddha

answered that he had found his true self. The Buddha then explained the Four Nobles Truths, and the

Eightfold Noble Path to the young men.

The flute talked about then, would have been an Indian flute, and played transversely. The moral of this

story should be our aspiration when playing. We should try to keep our minds totally in the present while

playing or listening to this music.

So how did this come to be part of Buddhist practice in Japan ? Originally, the music came from China,

through Korea, and through the music of the Imperial Courts in 800 to 900 AD. In those days, the

shakuhachi was shorter than this instrument that I have here today. It had six fingers holes. However at

that time, the other Japanese court orchestra instruments became louder, more strident, more penetrating,

and therefore considered more regal. As the loudness of the shakuhachi couldn’t keep up with the

developments of the other instruments, it was lost. People stopped playing it.



It dropped out of sight for several centuries, but later it reappeared in the Fuke Sect of Zen monks. The

monks would play the shakuhachi as they passed through the town square or village on their almsround

with their begging bowl, and afterwards give a Dhamma talk.

The Zen monks call sitting meditation “Za-Zen” while Shakuhachi meditation is called “Zwee-Zen” or

blowing meditation. For a long time, it was considered only a Buddhist musical instrument, and a

spiritual tool. After some centuries, it lost one hole to have five finger holes. This fitted in well with other

contemporary music in Japan at the time. The shakuhachi also got slightly longer. Shakuhachi is aJapanese abbreviation. In Japanese “ish-shaku hasoon”, is a 1.8 shaku. One shaku equals one English

foot, so loosely translated, it means 1.8 feet long (approx 54cm). The standard instrument was considered

to be 1.8 shaku long, and music for it developed over several centuries.

Several temples developed and used the shakuhachi as an integral part of their meditation practices.

These practices still exist in Japan today, but are now limited to three or four temples. The principal

temple is Kyoto Naoangie, in East Kyoto. It is a very small, but very beautiful temple. They practise the

Fuke Sect traditions, part of Rinsei Zen, the main branch of Zen.

The Fuke Sect began as group of wandering monks. Unfortunately like many things in religion and

politics, it became quite corrupt in the 14th and 15th Centuries, during a transition from the Imperial

Court of a ruling dynasty to Shogunates. The Shogunates outlawed the carrying of weapons. Only the

Samurai or warrior class were permitted to carry any sort of weapons. Of course the Samurai wore

swords, and were in the service of the Shoguns.

Now the shakuhachi is traditionally made of a species of bamboo called madake, which has been cut off

at ground level. The roots of the bamboo are cut off, and this is how the mouthpiece hole is made for the

lips. But if you turn the shakuhachi upside down, it could became an excellent club.

So as a result, it is possible to find very old wood engravings and pictures of Samurai warriors fighting

with shakuhachi players ! The shakuhachi players are depicted trying to disarm the Samurai, or else theSamurai are trying to cut the shakuhachi into pieces with their swords ! Shakuhachi players were then

used as spies, and tended to become corrupt mercenary monks.

In another development, the straw hat, commonly found around Asia, gradually became larger and larger

in Japan. The straw hat developed in size until it covered the whole face, and a shakuhachi could be

hidden inside. No one could see, or identify who the monks were, and no one could tell if they were

carrying a shakuhachi !

Because monks were accepted as being able to wander everywhere without question, others with less

pure intentions, began masquerading as wandering monks. They carried weapons, and were often the

spies of the shogunates. But then the shakuhachi also became a form of identification. Certain pieces of

music emerged as the “call” and “response” pieces. Players had to give the right password by playing the

flute. If two shakuhachi players met on the road, one would initiate the call, and the second player would

have to play the correct answering phrases response. Otherwise the first player would know the second



player was a fake, and if this was the case, there would be some kind of fight on the road, and who knows

who won !

Unfortunately all the shakuhachi players tended to get drawn into this whirlpool of corruption and

politics, to the point that they were eventually outlawed. The Fuke Sect was totally outlawed in Japan,

and shakuhachi players went underground. The genuine monks who were using it as part of their practice,

retired to their temples, and stayed there for about a century.

During the 1860’s Meijji Restoration, there were many changes in society and cultural outlook. Monks

who were still playing the shakuhachi, were able to come out of the temple. During this time, there was

also a change in the way the music was transmitted. Originally, as the music was a meditation practice, it

was passed on from master to student. Eventually the student became a master, and passed it on to his

students. There were no written scores, and the music was just passed down aurally. This meant that the

melodies were in a continual state of flux. Someone might forget a phrase, and yet claim they were

playing the correct piece. As a result, there was a divergence of pieces, and many different schools

developed with different versions of the same pieces.

During the Restoration, a class of professional musicians, who were also devout Buddhists, became

interested in the music, and developed notations for it. Certain pieces were then accorded to each of the

temples, and these pieces remain distinct down to the present day.

The original shakuhachi-meditation temples have remained separate and antagonistic to each other. If you

were a member of one school, you couldn’t then go to a teacher of another school and learn their

traditions. However, as a Westerner, I was allowed to practice and learn at different temples, but the local

Japanese were not permitted to do this, and had to change their names if they wanted to move around.

The creativity of the professional musicians changed and considerably improved the melodies from the

monks who were playing it just for their own practice. As a result of their efforts, Shakuhachi music

became more widely known, and people also became more aware of both the similarities and thedifferences of the various melodies. By comparing the different tunes, the history and lineage of the

pieces could be traced through both branches of the same and different schools.

The current situation in Japan is that the temple shakuhachi meditation pieces exist

along with music developed by the professional musicians. Most of these musicians

are still devout Buddhists, who use the instrument as a spiritual tool.

For example, I trained at two schools. The first school was in Australia, under Riley

Lee, a Japanese Shakuhachi Master who now lives in the Blue Mountains west of

Sydney. His tradition follows the Chiko-Ho School. These practices are very close

to one of the main temples in Japan, the Naonjie temple.

The other school I trained at was in Japan, and this school followed the “Watazhini Yokoyama Lineage.”

Watazhini Dozo was one of the last people we can identify as a trained Zen Master or “Zen Roshi.” He

trained using the traditional Zen practices using Koans, and was also a Master flute player. He was past

90 years old, when he died several years ago. His lineage was being passed on by Katiyo Yokoyama, who

is a devout Buddhist practitioner, but a professional musician, not a monk. He was my teacher, and it was

from him that I received my Master of the Shakuhachi.

So now we have both the monastic traditions and the lay traditions working with the shakuhachi, and

maintaining its spiritual purpose. But where did its spirituality origininate, and how did it develop as a

spiritual tool ? To introduce this, I’d like to tell you a story about the Fuke Sect. This story is a legend,

and can’t be definitely confirmed historically. However, the story is still valuable and inspiring !



This story is about the Zen master Fuke. Fuke was the founder of the Fuke Sect. He was an old man, and

he didn’t play the Shakuhachi. He had a hand bell to ring, when he went on his almsrounds. Fuke used the

bell to teach the dhamma to people. He didn’t talk to people, he just rang the bell.

Everyone thought Fuke was a bit mad, but he did have one disciple. This disciple didn’t ring a bell. He

just looked after Fuke, and was his attendant. When Fuke was getting old, he sent his attendant off. Fuke

decided he was going to die. He put together a wooden coffin, and carried it all around the city, asking

everyone to nail down the lid - with Fuke inside !

All the villagers thought he was a bit of a nut, so they didn’t take any notice, and thought he still had

many years to live. Fuke dragged his coffin outside the city where a wondering merchant finally obliged

by nailing Fuke into his coffin. Later, the merchant told a few of the city dwellers what he had done.

The city dwellers were horrified, and sent for Fuke’s disciple. They all went to Fuke’s coffin, and quickly

removed the nails from the lid. But they couldn’t find the body of Fuke ! The only sign of Fuke’s

remains, was the distant sound of a bell ringing faintly in the sky ...

Fuke’s disciple went back to his temple. There he had a dream. He dreamt he cut a shakuhachi, and heard

himself playing music in tune with Fuke’s bell. As he played, he could hear Fuke’s bell in the music.

When the monk woke up, he could still remember music vividly. So he cut some bamboo, made a

shakuhachi, and sat down and played the music

His pieces were called the “Curey Rab” - meaning “empty bell”; “Reibo” - meaning “longing for the

bell”; and “Cukoo” meaning “empty sky.” These are considered to be the original Shakuhachi pieces, and

you will find different versions of them at each of the different shakuhachi-meditation temples. Most

often these three pieces, or variations of them, were played. Later, other pieces emerged as “searching

pieces”, such as; searching for balance; warming up your bamboo; and searching for true nature within

yourself.

The story and the pieces also tell us the nature of what the music is supposed to be; a longing for the old

Master. But perhaps not a longing for the old Master, nor just the sound of the bell, but a longing for the

realisation of the way of the Buddha !

Abridgement of talk given by Dr Jim Franklin to the University of NSW Buddhist Society (UNIBUDS)

on Friday, May 16th 1997 at the University of NSW.

zen & the music of the shakuhachi

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