I was recently inspired to read how the founder of the Tsugaru clan, Lord Tamenobu, had gone to Kakuo Zenji for spiritual instruction after the death of his adoptive father. The same Tamenobu was the one who managed to unite the war-torn region now known as Hirosaki. Kakuo Zenji’s method of instruction was apparently the “Fuke Bell” method.
I don’t know if this means that they were playing Shakuhachi together, but it’s quite possible. Regardless, Fuke’s song “Come bright, be bright; Come dark, be dark…” would have come into play, along with its themes of emptiness and acceptance.
This, being the foundation of Komuso shakuhachi spirituality, shows us that the original roots of shakuhachi were not technical or musical, as the primary emphasis of much of the international shakuhachi community has come to be. Modern players hear old shakuhachi masters and think, “they sound like beginners.” We have to change our values to hear them, and to play as they played. This is not “music” in the sense that we evaluate it on accuracy of pitch, technical merit, and the capacity to move an audience.
Incidentally, when I thought of “spiritual guidance,” I was also struck by the similarities between the 12-step program and the way of shakuhachi. Today, 12-step programs are used for all sorts of addiction, and not just alcohol: food addiction, screen addiction, porn addiction, you name it. It began as a Christian program, but happens to have many similarities with Buddhist thought as well. Let’s take a closer look:
The first step is to admit that you are powerless over your addiction (and addiction, as hinted above, really refers to any character defects we may have. Everyone who has looked at themselves honestly has an addiction - an addiction to work, an addiction to seeking others’ approval, etc. etc.) In Christianity, we call it the admission that we are sinners, “sin” being simply an inability to live fully, a falling short of being a perfectly loving person.
In Zen, we call it “no-self.” Some seem to have the impression that no-self is some mystical, far-off state of mind reserved for the elite who have meditated to the point of realizing that they don’t actually exist. Really it’s not quite so obtuse. No-self just means, at least in this case, that your conscious efforts to re-create yourself will always come to nothing. This “self” that we constantly strive with is utterly incapable of producing true goodness in us.
In a sense, though, this is a “far-off, mystical state of mind.” Why? Because we never want to admit that we aren’t able to do it, that we don’t live up for the standards of worthiness that we’ve set for ourselves. We have convinced ourselves that if our addiction to X is discovered, we’ll be seen as worthless, and thus must hide it at all costs. Or, we think that if we give up our efforts to achieve X, we’ll never find the worthiness that we seek. So, for many, until we hit “rock bottom,” we never give up our vain efforts to make ourselves lovable. This giving-up, this renounciation of our own efforts to be good, is so simple and easy, so very close at hand, yet for most of us is further than the East is from the West.
What does this have to do with shakuhachi? The first lesson is the same: you are powerless to make a sound by your own will. The more you try to blow and figure it out, the more elusive or strained your sound becomes. The more you relax, and even give up the idea of making a sound, the more you will find it coming out - and beautfully, even - on its own.
For Christians, this seems obvious, though the method of seeking is not, as many Christians believe with their heads but never get to the point of truly giving up self-effort and letting God fill their lives with God’s own life-giving spirit. Truth is something you have to look for. Buddhists do not explicitly believe in God, but if we look at Zen’s Taoist roots (the Tao Te Ching often prophetically describes Jesus, and quite aptly describes God’s relationship to creation both as Father and spirit), there is most certainly a latent “Higher Power.” To me, Zazen is actually an active process of “sitting-in-faith,” of yielding yourself to that higher power, who is, above all, good and loving. You cannot change yourself, but God can.
For the shakuhachi player, this same attitude of “sitting in faith” is essential. This is also a faith in your own true identity. It is not a faith in the old self, a seared-conscience declaration that no matter what I do “I’m really a good person.” This is not true. My identity is “loved by God.” I am a son of God, and that’s what makes me a good person. I renounce my self-effort to become good, and I believe that God is re-creating me in this moment as who I truly am. We play, then, knowing that our faults of character are more important than our faults in sound. We renounce our character faults, but accept our sound-blunders as our new self, our true self who is utterly loved, struggling to put forth blossoms, growing out of a seed and struggling to reach the light in a soil that has heretofore been arid and cracked.
We are safe. We are alive. We can relax, and stop trying to assert our old, dying selves, whose effort we now know comes to nothing. All those secrets we kept, all those things we weren’t willing to acknowledge about ourselves, we can now let come to light.
Shakuhachi is above all a true sound. That’s what “Hon-on” means. An ancient Hebrew poet wrote, “You [God] love truth in the innermost being - that’s how you teach me wisdom in the depths of my heart.” Wisdom comes from honesty. Shakuhachi helps keep us honest. Your playing will show you things that go on in your heart that you may not have been aware of. This is where improvising, whether alone or with friends, can also be helpful. It helps us let down our defenses, and let things flow. That sorrow, or maybe that joy, that we’ve been avoiding for fear of pain, can now come out.
This includes admitting when we’re wrong. It’s always tempting to assert ourselves over others, to try to make ourselves out to be somehow better or more correct. There is no room for this way of thinking in the way of love, however. Fuke Zenji’s poem tells us that one who is truly and fully human will accept all people equally, and will respond to them in the way that suits them, without any personal ends to serve on our side. Playing with others, and accepting their differences can be an antidote to this egotism. Personal connection and relationship are much more pleasant than the loneliness of fighting to be the best.
One example of this is when Kiku Day came to visit me. We played Kyorei together, but had slightly different versions, so she decided to adapt her playing to mine. In truth, she is very much my superior, and I ought to have adapted to her; still that experience of giving up your own way in deference to that of another is invaluable. It also made me feel very much accepted, and is a memory that I still hold close.
We’ve already covered some of this above, but this is where human relationships come in. If you are fortunate enough to have a shakuhachi friend or teacher who can handle this kind of honesty, you are blessed. Confession can be a messy thing, and it takes wisdom. Sometimes we can just do more damage by carelessly confessing our wrongs just to clear our guilty conscience. Having a friend who is not directly involved but is willing to listen and share alike is a wonderful thing. I suspect that some of the shakuhachi teachers of old might have been this way, though even then it must have been a rare treasure.
These two steps continue the growth process. Our shakuhachi practice, and our lives in general, help us to gain, first of all, awareness of our character defects. Unless we can see them, we can’t begin to heal. As your heart loses its fear and numbness, you begin to be aware of deeper and deeper things, behaviors behind the behaviors that we want to remove. Addictions are often rooted in things that we never saw as “wrong” in the first place, or even counted as virtues: working too hard to please others while ignoring your own needs, for example.
The path of self-renunciation continues. We began by seeing that we are powerless, and we continue in that powerlessness. This is, paradoxically, where our incredible strength comes from. Now our power is rooted not in the false, dying, incapable self, but in the very root of the Cosmos, that which exists even when existence ceases. When we have a place or person where we can bring our faults to light, the light shines on them, and they stop being so dark. They become conscious, and they stop controlling us. By asking our Higher Power to remove them, we release control; with our hands off the reigns, the Creator is free to work to create us.
Our sound is always a metaphor and manifestation of our life. It is something that we have to give up to our Higher Power at all times. No matter how practiced we become, there is always a deeper place being opened to us. There is always a greater letting-go, and a deeper and more powerful life to be gained. We practice this in our shakuhachi meditation, and bring it into our lives.
This is something that happens outside of our shakuhachi playing, but it is an essential part of a true practice. Humility. Humility means simply being yourself as you are. It does not mean degrading yourself, or bowing low while maintaining a high sense of pride. It just means being yourself.
Saying “I’m sorry” should be part of our daily practice. Some people take this too far, saying “I’m sorry” compulsively, for things that they have no responsibility or blame for. In that case, your practice is to use those words more meaningfully, and discover when they truly need to be used.
This is a cycle of steps 4-9. It just means being mindful, constantly opening ourselves to become aware of our faults, and, while seeking to have them removed, renouncing our self-effort to get rid of them. Shakuhachi can be a good way to practice this. I always take Hon te Cho-shi and Shirabe (whose titles mean “to search out” or to probe) to be this line from another ancient Hebrew poem: “Search me and know me, and show me if there is any evil way in me, and lead me in the eternal Way.”
This is the core of our shakuhachi practice: to become one with the Way, not striving to achieve through our old, dead selves, but to let the Spiritual self come to life simply by resting from our efforts and directing our attention to something (Someone) better, something eternal.
This is what the last two verses of Fuke’s poem refer to: “Come from all sides, and I’m a whirlwind. Come from emptiness, and I’m a flail.” He walks through the town streets like a whirlwind, speaking to all who may be there regardless of whether they are of high or low estate. When someone comes to him empty, willing to hear the truth, he shares it, “hitting” like a flail that will awaken them to it.
Shakuhachi is, after all, about enlightenment, as is any spiritual path. For a Christian, enlightenment is at once seeing the self (as fallen, dying) and seeing God (giving death to the old self and birth to a new self, spirit-filled and loved). We see the self as-is only by seeing God at the same time. In Zen, it is certainly about seeing the self as-is, but perhaps, implicitly, God’s light comes into the equation as well.
Once we come into contact with the eternal, or even once we are on a path to doing so (not everyone has one specific experience in which everything changes at once), we maintain that path by sharing it with others: not as some exulted “spiritual teacher,” but as a fragile human who knows his or her faults very well, and also knows how deep is the love that he or she has received. One who has been loved this way, in spite of themselves, is able to love deeply. Doing so should keep us humble, and remind us of our weakness, of where we came from, so that our path is not poisoned and ruined by pride, which only serves to quench the true self and force the old, dead self back into the driver’s seat.
This is, of course, not something that we can limit to shakuhachi alone, nor are any of the other steps. Having friends to share with, however, is essential to keeping our practice vital. Some of us may teach, but as soon as we sit down across from each other, even if one of us receives payment on account of our amassed experience, there is no “above” and “below.” We sit across from one another as “Taketomo,” as bamboo friends. The “learner” is giving to the “teacher” just as much as she is receiving.