Zen shakuhachi torrent

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This video is documentation of several Zen demonstrations staged at the Spencer Art Museum on the University of Kansas campus in the early 90s. This first section is a Shakuhachi flute concert with musician John Neptune and his band. The second section is a demonstration of Zen archery and the process of the meditative process of loading and launching an arrow at a fixed target.

By the thirteenth century, samurai warriors had begun preparing and drinking matcha in an effort to adopt Zen Buddhism. Among the students of Zen, I have few friends. Shakuhachi: A bamboo flute with a very shrill sound.

Wandering mendicant monks called komuso played the shakuhachi as they went about begging. Barbarian flute: A flute made of reed with no holes for fingering. It was used among the barbarians on the borders of China and was renowned for its sad sound.

This is a description of Ikkyu's loneliness. He hears an unfamiliar song played on a shakuhachi at the crossroads and imagines that he is at some frontier post in China hearing the strange music of the barbarians.

The poem as a whole is reminiscient of lonely duties at frontier outposts. Ikkyu himself was known to have played shakuhachi in the streets. Does the bell hold the sound or does the wind? An old monk jangled out of his midday nap. How is this? The midnight bell at high noon? The realm of sights and sounds is endless, Yet, imperceptively, a pure note crystallizes.

That old fellow P'u-k'o knew a trick or two. Wind and bell hang together, there above the jewelled railing. In Ching-te Ch'uan-teng lu Transmission of the Lamp there is a passage in which two monks argue about a banner waving in the wind. How can one really tell, they wonder, whether the wind moves the flag or the flag moves the wind?

Finally, they are told it is neither the wind nor the banner that moves, but only their fluttering minds. In the first poem, Ikkyu restates the issue in auditory terms. The last two lines introduce a second theme--the fact that, according to Zen, mere sights and sounds can, under proper conditions, bring enlightenment. This was, of course, the case with Ikkyu's own satori which was triggered by a crow-call in the middle of a summer's night. The second poem carries the image of the ringing bell still further with a reference to the T'ang eccentric, Chen-chou P'u-k'o Jpn: Chinshu Fuke.

P'u-k'o was a wild fellow who liked to sham spells of madness. Often he refused to speak a word to those around him. At other times he waved a small bell in the air shouting "If something bright and clear appears, I'll hit its brightness. If something dark and mysterious appears, I'll hit its darkness. Or he might hide it behind his back, and if anyone peered over his shoulder to see the bell, P'u-k'o would declare, "That will be a copper please; I'll use it for food when there isn't anything.

There he climbed into the casket and had it nailed over him. When the crowd that had gathered around finally grew restive and oped the casket up, they found it quite empty--though the faint sound of the bell, as if from a far distance, could be heard fading into the sky.

P'u-k'o was also the mythical founder of the komuso monks of the Tokugawa period who wandered about Japan "playing the wordless message of Zen" on their long shakuhachi flutes. Ikkyu, too, is sometimes placed in the lineage of these mendicants of the so-called Fuke P'u-k'o sect of Zen--perhaps because of his own wandering lifestyle and his often-expressed love of the shakuhachi.

At any rate, P'u-k'o was one of Ikkyu's favorite figures, and it is clear that it is P'u-k'o's bell that rings through both poems. That old madman from Chen reallty startled the crowds. Some die in meditation, some on their feet, but he beats them all. Like a distant bird call, his bell rang faintly. Now, blowing up again, the same old madman, A sensual youth, howling at the door.

A number of his poems touch on these images. Over the distant rattle of dancing villagers' drums, The clear line of the flute turns everything to tears, Yet startles me from a long, sorrowful dream. The painter, Bokushitsu Sochin, was one of Ikkyu's close disciples. Once agian the world's number-one rake lacks a friend. In the teeming universe just that music. He leaves the painting to enter a bamboo flute. The shakuhachi is a symbol for lonliness here. Ikkyu has apparently been looking at a portrait of the famous poet, Ton'a Nikaido Sadamune, and found in him, if not a physical, at least a spiritual companion.

Empty bell, no wine, colder than ice. Yet, the song of the angel's shining cloak. Lost among refugess, the rural priest takes comfort. On the surface of this poem, it appears that Ikkyu spent some uncomfortable days at a hermitage in Uji. The story of the angel who came to earth one day and foolishly laid her feathered robe down where a fisherman was able to snatch it up was made into one of the most famous plays of No repetoire, Hagoromo The Feathered Cloak , written by Zeami The "rural priest" of the last line can be taken to be either the unidentified hermit of Uji or Ikkyu.

Although, if we accept the highly mythologized traditions of the Fuke-shu sect of Zen, we would have to identify the hermit as Roan also known as Ichiro who was supposedly a central figure in the founding or, according to its own legends, the refounding of the flute-playing komuso tradition is the s.

These traditions attribute several shakuhachi poems not found in the Kyoun-shu to Ikkyu, as well as include some poems that we know are his.

However, it is not clear whether Ikkyu had actual contact with early figures in the Fuke-shu or was simply adopted into the legends at a later date. His love of the flute and also the Fuke sect's namesake, Chen-Chou P'u-k'o, would have provided sufficient cause to make such an allegation. A yamabushi happened to meet this priest strolling up the path playing his flute like a wandering komuso.

Feigning stupidity, the yamabushi approached and asked him, "I say there, wandering priest, where are you going" "I go wherever the wind takes me. But what do you do when the wind stops blowing? Outdone, the yamabushi clapped his mouth shut and passed by without a backward glance.

Notes 1. Ikkyu's love of the Japanese flute is well documented. The Komuso were an eccentric fraternity of itinerant monks of the Tokugawa period. These members of the so-called Fuke sect of Zen were noted for their odd hats which resembled a beehive and covered the monk's entire face. They wandered all over Japan "playing enlightenment" on long shakuhachi flutes. Often they carried swords as well, and it was generally suspected that no small number of their ranks were nothing more than mercenaries in clerical disguise.

Because of the bad reputation that it developed, the sect was often made subject to government regulation, and it was entirely supressed in Since Ikkyu dedicated poems to bamboo, to P'u-k'o, and to the shakuhachi, the later Fuke sect claimed him as one of their founding figures, though the supporting evidence for this thesis is very weak.

A wonderful autumn night, fresh and bright; Over the echo of music and drums from a distant village The single clear tone of a shakuhachi brings a flood of tears-- Startling me from a deep melancholy dream. Source: Nakatsuka, , p. Presto anche il Daitoku-ji divenne bersaglio dei suoi strali, nonostante fosse stato, per un breve periodo nel , abate di un padiglione minore di questo monastero, il Nyoi-an.

Le conoscenze maturate durante la sua vita errabonda, gli consentirono tuttavia di raccogliere donazioni per la ricostruzione del monastero Daitoku-ji che venne rifondato e che lo ebbe come abate fin dal I suoi ultimi anni di vita li trascorse in disparte, nei pressi di un piccolo tempio, insieme ad una cantante cieca di nome Mori. Lo stile della sua poesia non prevedeva l'uso di caratteri fonetici hiragana non presenti nell'alfabeto cinese.

After Kaso recognized him as his successor, Ikkyu spent a further thirty years as a wandering monk living and associating with all classes of the people. From the age of sixty he lived at Daitoku-ji, and was eventually made abbot of that great temple. One of his accomplishments was the restoration of the buildings of Daitoku-ji after their destruction during the Onin Wars — Ikkyu remains a popular figure to this day, and is remembered for his wit and humor as well as his poetry and paintings.

James H. Sanford, Mandalas of the Heart. The earliest Japanese masters brought Ch'an from China in the hope that its discipline would revitalize traditional Buddhism. Since Eisai's temple was the first to include Ch'an practice, he has received credit for founding Japanese Rinzai Zen.

History, however, has glorified matters somewhat, for in fact Eisai was little more than a Tendai priest who dabbled a bit in Ch'an practice and enjoyed a gift for advancing himself with the Kamakura warlords. Nor was Dogen inspired to establish the Soto sect in Japan. He too was merely a reformer who chanced across a Chinese Soto master devoted to meditation.

It was the powerful discipline of meditation that Dogen sought to introduce into Japan, not a sectarian branch of Zen. Only later did Dogen's movement become a proselytizing Zen sect. These and other thirteenthcentury Japanese reformers imported Ch'an for the simple reason that it was the purest expression of Buddhism left in China. During the early era Zen focused on Kyoto and Kamakura and was mainly a reformation within the Tendai school.

The Japanese understanding of Ch'an was hesitant and inconclusive—to the point that few Japanese of the mid-thirteenth century actually realized a new form of Buddhism was in the making. Over the next century and a half, however, a revolution began, as Zen at first gradually and then precipitously became the preoccupation of Japan's ruling class.

The Zen explosion came about via a combination of circumstances. We have seen that the warrior ruler Hojo Tokiyori was interested in the school and offered Dogen a temple in Kamakura, an invitation Dogen refused.

However, in an emigre Ch'an master from the Chinese mainland named Lan-ch'i appeared in Japan uninvited, having heard of Japanese interest in Ch'an. He went first to Kyoto, where he found Zen still subject to hostile sectarianism, and then to Kamakura, where he managed in to meet Tokiyori. The Japanese strongman was delighted and proceeded to have the temple of another sect converted to a Zen establishment, making Lan-ch'i abbot.

Shortly after, Tokiyori completed construction of a Sung-style Zen monastery in Kamakura, again putting Lan-ch'i in charge. This Chinese monk, merely one of many in his native China, had become head of the leading Zen temple in Japan.

When word got back, a host of enterprising Chinese clerics began pouring into the island nation seeking their fortune. Thus began the next phase of early Japanese Zen, fueled by the invasion of Chinese Ch'an monks.

This movement occupied the remainder of the thirteenth century and was spurred along by unsettled conditions in China—namely the imminent fall of the Southern Sung Dynasty to the Mongols and a concurrent power struggle within Ch'an itself, which induced monks from the less powerful establishments to seek greener pastures. Wu-an subsequently certified. Tokiyori with a seal of enlightenment, making the military strongman of Japan an acknowledged Ch'an master.

Tokiyori's interest in Zen did not go unnoticed by the warriors around him, and his advocacy, combined with the influx of Chinese monks appearing to teach, initiated the Zen bandwagon in Kamakura. Tokiyori died in , and his young son Tokimune — 84 , who came to power five years later, initially showed no interest in Zen practice. But he was still in his teens in when there appeared in Japan envoys from Kublai Khan demanding tribute.

The Mongols were at that moment completing their sack of China, and Japan seemed the next step. Undeterred, the Japanese answered all Mongol demands with haughty insults, with the not-unexpected result that in Kublai launched an invasion fleet. Although his ships foundered in a fortuitous streak of bad weather, the Japanese knew that there would be more.

It was then that Tokimune began strengthening his discipline through Zen meditation and toughening his instincts with koans. He studied under a newly arrived Chinese master whose limited Japanese necessitated their communicating through a translator.

When the enlightened Chinese found cause to strike his allpowerful student, he prudently pummeled the interpreter instead. For their own part, the perceptive Chinese missionaries, hampered by the language barrier, rendered Zen as simplistic as possible to help the faith compete with the Salvationist sects among the often illiterate warriors. In the Mongols launched another invasion force, this time , men strong, but they were held off several weeks by the steel-nerved samurai until a typhoon later named the Kamikaze or "Divine Wind" providentially sank the fleet.

The extent to which Zen training aided this victory can be debated, but the courage of Tokimune and his soldiers undoubtedly benefited from its rigorous discipline. The Japanese ruler himself gave Zen heavy credit and immediately began building a commemorative Zen monastery in Kamakura.

By the time of Tokimuni's premature death in , Rinzai Zen had been effectively established as the faith of the Kamakura rulers. His successor continued the development of Zen establishments, supported by new Chinese masters who also began teaching Chinese culture calligraphy, literature, ink painting, philosophy to the Kamakura warriors along with their Zen.

Since the faith was definitely beginning to boom, the government prudently published a list of restrictions for Zen monasteries, including an abolition of arms a traditional problem with the other sects and a limit on the number of pretty boys novices that could be quartered in a compound to tempt the monks. The maximum number of monks in each monastery also was prescribed, and severe rules were established governing discipline.

Out of this era in the late thirteenth century evolved an organization of Zen temples in Kyoto and Kamakura based on the Sung Chinese model of five main monasteries called the "five mountains" or gozan and a network of ten officially recognized subsidiary temples. Furthermore, Chinese culture became so fashionable in Kamakura that collections of Sung art began appearing among the illiterate provincial warriors—an early harbinger of the Japanese evolution of Zen from asceticism to aesthetics.

The creation of the gozan system at the end of the thirteenth century gave Zen a formal role in the religious structure of Japan. Zen was now fashionable and had powerful friends, a perfect combination to foster growth and influence. On the sometimes pointed urging of the government, temples from other sects were converted to Zen establishments by local authorities throughout Japan.

Temples were built in Kyoto or converted from other sects , and even the cloistered emperors began to meditate perhaps searching less for enlightenment than for the rumored occult powers. When the Kamakura regime collapsed in the mid-fourteenth century and warriors of the newly ascendent Ashikaga clan returned the seat of government to Kyoto, the old capital was already well acquainted with Zen's political importance.

However, although Rinzai Zen had made much visible headway in Japan—the ruling classes increasingly meditated on koans, and Chinese monks operated new Sungstyle monasteries—the depth of understanding seems disappointingly superficial overall.

The gozan system soon turned so political, as monasteries competed for official favor, that before long establishment Zen was almost devoid of spiritual content. In many ways, Japanese Zen became decadent almost from the start. The immense prestige of imported Chinese art and ideas, together with the powerful role of the Zen clerics as virtually the only group sufficiently educated to oversee relations with the continent, meant that early on, Zen's cultural role became as telling as its spiritual place.

Perhaps the condition of Zen is best illustrated by noting that the most famous priest of the era, Muso Soseki , was actually a powerful political figure. This Zen prelate, who never visited China, came to prominence when he served first an illfated emperor—subsequently deposed—and later the Ashikaga warrior who deposed him.

Muso was instrumental in the Japanese government's establishment of regular trade with the mainland. He was also responsible for a revision of the gozan administrative system, establishing in official Zen temples in all sixty-six provinces of Japan and spreading the power base of the faith.

Although Muso is today honored as an important Japanese master, he actually preferred a "syncretic" Zen intermingled with esoteric rites and apparently understood very little of real Zen.

A prototype for many Zen leaders to come, he was a scholar, aesthetician, and architect of some of the great cultural monuments in Kyoto, personally designing several of the capital's finest temples and landscape gardens. Thus by the mid-fourteenth century Zen had become hardly more than an umbrella for the import of Chinese technology, art, and philosophy. The overall situation has been well summarized by Philip Yampolsky: "The monks in temples were all poets and literary figures..

In the headquarters temples men interested in literary pursuits withdrew completely from temple affairs and devoted themselves exclusively to literature. To be sure, priests gave lectures and continued to write commentaries.

But the gozan priests seemed to concern themselves more and more with trivialities. By the mid-fifteenth century Zen teaching had virtually disappeared in the temples, and the priests devoted themselves mainly to ceremonial and administrative duties.

The political convolutions of fourteenth-century Japan, as well as the organizational shenanigans of the official Rinzai Zen sect, need not detain us further. Significantly, however, a few major monasteries elected not to participate in the official system. One of the most important was the Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, which managed, by not becoming part of the establishment, to maintain some authenticity in its practice. And out of the Daitoku-ji tradition there came from time to time a few Zen monks who still understood what Zen was supposed to be about, who understood it was more than painting, gardens, poetry, and power.

Perhaps the most celebrated of these iconoclastic throwbacks to authentic Zen was the legendary Ikkyu Sojun The master Ikkyu, a breath of fresh air in the stifling, hypocritical world of institutionalized Zen, seems almost a reincarnation of the early Ch'an masters of the T'ang. Historical information on Ikkyu and his writings is spread among various documents of uneven reliability. The major source is a pious chronicle allegedly compiled by his disciple Bokusai from firsthand information.

Whereas this document has the virtue of being contemporaneous with his life, it has the drawback of being abbreviated and selectively edited to omit unflattering facts. Then there is a collection of tales from the Tokugawa era which are heavily embellished when not totally apocryphal. The picaresque character created in the Tokugawa Tales led one commentator to liken Ikkyu to the fabulous Sufi philosopher-vagabond Nasrudin, who also became a vehicle to transmit folk wisdom.

Finally, there is a vast body of his own poetry and prose, as well as a collection of calligraphy now widely admired for its spontaneity and power. Bokusai's chronicle identifies Ikkyu's mother as a lady-in-waiting at the imperial palace of Emperor Gokomatsu, who chose from time to time to "show her favor. Consequently, the master Ikkyu was born in the house of a commoner on New Year's Day of the year , the natural son of an emperor and a daughter of the warrior class.

At age five his mother made him acolyte in a Zen monastery, a move some suggest was for his physical safety, lest the shogun decide to do away with this emperor's son as a potential threat. His schooling in this gozan era was aristocratic and classical, founded on Chinese literature and the Buddhist sutras.

By age eleven he was studying the Vimalakirti Sutra and by thirteen he was intensively reading and writing Chinese poetry. One of his works, written at age fifteen and entitled "Spring Finery," demonstrates a delicate sensibility reminiscent of John Keats:. How many passions cling to this wanderer's sleeves? Multitudes of falling blossoms mark the passion of Heaven and Earth. A perfumed breeze across my pillow; Am I asleep or awake? Here and now melt into an indistinct Spring dream.

The poet here has returned from a walk only to find the perfume of flowers clinging to his clothes, confusing his sense of reality and place. It recalls Keats' nightingale—"Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? At age eighteen he became a novice to a reclusive monk of the Myoshin-ji branch of Zen in Kyoto; but when his mentor died two years later he wandered for a time disconsolate and suicideprone.

Then at twenty-two he decided to try for an interview with Kaso Soton , the Daitoku-ji-trained master known to be the sternest teacher in Japan. As was traditional, the master at first shut him out and refused an audience. Ikkyu resolved to wait outside until death, "taking the dew for his roof and the grasses for his bed. After Kaso repeatedly failed to discourage him, even once dousing him with water, the master relented and invited Ikkyu in for an interview.

They were made for each other and for many years thereafter Ikkyu and Kaso "pursued deep matters tirelessly. Ikkyu came to revere Kaso, probably one of the few authentic masters of the age, and he stayed to serve this teacher for almost a decade, even though life with Kaso was arduous. Since they lived near a major lake, Ikkyu would each night meditate in a borrowed fisherman's boat until dawn.