About Me

I had never seen or heard a shakuhachi, but somehow I was interested. An internet search for the Japanese flute led me to plans for a PVC shakuhachi, which I made and played. I later found my first teacher, Patricia, who is friends with my mother. Patricia helped me discover all the best things about the shakuhachi. I had dropped out of Bible college at the time, and had been exploring Zen and ancient Chinese philosophy. I wasn't sure if the God I was learning about was real, and I wasn't sure if there was a divine someone out there who loved me. Shakuhachi, and Patricia, taught me to pray. When playing alone or while improvising together with Patricia, I found expression for the feelings inside that I couldn't put words to. Again, Patricia was kind of a counselor to me. She created a safe place where I could express myself without criticism (which, to me now, is the essence of learning shakuhachi). She listened to my doubts about the faith that I had left, and my desire to know the living God, not to mention conflicting feelings about dischord in my family and dating relationships. As I begin to meet my true self, I also met God. I found that there is a living God, not a god of peoples' imagination or creation, but a God who is love, who loves us more than we can possibly imagine. Zen taught me that anxious thinking and striving won't lead to the truth. Zen taught me to listen. I heard the voice of Jesus, and decided to follow him. Jesus is not merely a collection of historical propositions; as the old hymn says, "You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart."

So, in a sense, Zen and shakuhachi (not to belittle the primary importance of true friends) were my path to God. I always wanted to enter a monastery, but I also knew that that wasn't really the path for me. I wanted to bring a "monastic" life of prayer into ordinary life. That's just what I've been striving to do - and by "striving," I mean what the writer of Hebrews meant, i.e. that we should "strive" to enter God's rest. Isn't that what Zen meditation is? You sit, and strive to stop striving. You strive to cut off your own strife, and let your mind rest. It's "striving" because when you live in the world, you have to fight for what's true. The world brings out everything in your heart that says "I have to work more / harder" "I don't have enough time/things/health/etc." "I have to stay busy." The Zen message points me to what David prayed to God in Psalm 127:

In vain do you eat the bread of anxious toil,
because God provides for his children even as they sleep.

My first years in Japan showed me the truth of this. God gives everyone natural talents, and wants them to use them. Somehow, though, I had the stupid idea that work was supposed to be something that must involve excessive striving, and that doing things that I naturally loved would be either unrealistic or selfish. Jesus' disciple Peter said, "serve in the strength that God gives you," but I still thought I had to force my strenght into areas where it simply didn't flow.

I taught English at a Christian kindergarten for a while. It was actually wonderful work - I loved the kids, and I loved being part of the process of their development. However, I wasn't built for it. I have coeliac disease (yet undiscovered at the time), which left me with little energy to begin with (at present, with a careful diet and lifestyle, I'm able to enjoy life much more fully). Additionally, I'm rather introverted. I get energy from being alone and contemplating - hence my love for and interest in different ways of praying, verbally or silently or through sounds. Teaching wreaked havoc on my health. I literally burnt out after two years. Again, I found that forcing myself to use a sort of energy that I didn't have was not good for my self-control either. I was talking about this very thing with my 4-year-old May the other day. She was very sleepy, and had to cut her visit to Mommy and her baby sister at the hospital a little short on account of not being able to control her sense of adventure. Self-control suffers when we're tired. You have to strive to rest - let yourself take a nap when you're tired. Quit your job if it drains you, and find something that you're naturally gifted with.

I met Mutsumi at a church just outside of Hakodate while I was visiting there during Summer vacation. We got married just a year and a half later. Marriage, by the way - we both had so much to learn. To us, marriage is an unchangable promise. This creates a safe place for us to grow as individuals. We get to show one another all of our unacceptable aspects. Marriage is a place to learn to love everything that is unlovable about yourself and your spouse. I learned that she never makes me angry; I make myself angry. Where I have learned to acknowledge my faults, and have overcome them as much as I'm able to, those same things in another person will never make me angry. When I have not learned self-compassion, or have not come to a firm enough resolve to be who I'm capable of being, however, others' faults get inside of me. Marriage is a very special thing, but you have to approach it knowing that no one apart from yourself has the power to make you happy or unhappy.

Mutsumi encouraged me to try on work that I like, and to study. I started translating, and went to Hirosaki University to do a Master's in Classical Chinese Philosophy / T'ang dynasty Zen. I met my Kinpu-ryu teacher Dr. Yamada there, too. I've found that in order to do what you want, you have to start by just doing it, and things will fall into place. Sometimes you need to be patient, of course, but if you prioritize things like financial stability (maybe once xyz are in place and we have a house, I can do it...), maybe it will never happen. Mutsumi wanted kids, and I wanted to study. I was worried that if we had kids, I wouldn't get to go back to school. Mutsumi was worried that time would run out. We prayed together and looked for advice from people we trust. I was impressed by the above Psalm, which continues to say that "Children are a blessing." In our society, children are often a financial burden and an inconveniece that may get in the way of your dreams, but that'd not the truth. The truth is that they are a blessing. I took that on faith. We decided to do both. Mutsumi got pregnant, and we moved to Hirosaki so I could do my master's, and everything worked out. Money literally fell into our bank account. Because of having a child to support, Japan gave me an exemption on tuition (which I'm still so very grateful for). I don't think you need to be a Christian to experience God's blessings. When you something close to what you were made for, the life in you attracts life. People see God's light in you. You become more loving, more alive.

Please don't let this make you think I'm some kind of optimist. We've had our share of suffering. Some of it was perhaps unecessary, like the suffering I imposed upon myself by believing the lie that I ought not to do the things I love. Some of it was just unexplainable, like the death of our baby son, Noah.

San-ya is an ancient honkyoku piece for the shakuhachi, once that expresses three valleys in life's journey. Its title is also a pun for samadhi, for absorption into the infinite, for contemplation. To me, it expresses a part of the 23rd Psalm: "Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me." God is with me in the darkness. There is not much if any value in explaining the "whys" that we can't explain. To me, God is Emmanuel, "God with us." God suffers with us when we suffer. God is good, and that's enough.

The Japanese poet Issa Kobayashi had a similar experience. When his daughter died, a monk explained to him that "The world is dew." Issa wrote, "This world / is a dewdrop world, fading / but still.." The explanation did nothing to comfort him for his loss. That poem itself, however, that prayer of his - I wonder if his expression of grief itself didn't put him in touch, even a little, with the eternal one.

Anyway, in the meanwhile I continued studying shakuhachi in the more simple, more monastic Myoan tradition, and also began studying both ancient and modern methods of making shakuhachi from various teachers here in Japan. I soon found that I liked the oldest kind the best: Komuso, or Edo-era style shakuhachi. The bamboo is left as natural as possible, i.e. without ji or excessive internal shaping and carving. The minimal bore work lets the air stay inside the shakuhachi and express the bamboo's unique qualities. The mouthpiece is cut shallow, so that less breath is required to make a sound. The sound is much more quiet than modern shakuhachi, and though it can be powerful, it is more relaxed. You don't tense up your lips or worry about your embouchure, and the music is unburdened with excessive techniques and embellishments. Myoan honkyoku are for contemplation, not for performance. The only thing that matters is letting your mind rest, learning to love your sound, and letting your outbreath be slow, deep, and relaxed. It's a pleasure to feel your hara (lower abdomen) expanding like a bellows, deflating gradually. The music is different every time, just like the Psalms. You learn to express your own feelings through them. That's why a Christian like me can play Zen music and still have it be completely my own. Mine is a prayer directed to God.

Myoan honkyoku works somewhat like Gregorian chant, which I also use at prayer. Unlike modern music, it is set to a natural, speech-like cadence, timed to your breath instead of a set meter. Each breath helps you let go of busy thoughts. Each breath makes you a little more present, makes you a little more aware of God's presence. Praying in your own words, and improvising with the shakuhachi, are also very important, but praying the Psalms, and playing honkyoku, can take you to a deeper place, and give you new vocabulary (whether in words or sound) to express things that you previously couldn't. It takes time, commitment, and discipline. The results aren't immediate, but it is very worthwhile.

I've found that the best way for me to practice shakuhachi as prayer is to let each piece express a verse of scripture or a scriptural sentiment - not the words of it so much as the cry of the soul expressed therein. Takeochi, or "Waterfall," is from Psalm 42: "Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls." It is the sound of your own tears, the cry of the depths of your soul to God's. Sanya, as I mention above, is God's presence in the darkness. Choshi (roughtly meaning "searching") is from Psalm 39: "Search my heart and know me, God, and show me if there is any harmful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way." Reibo, "Longing for the bell" or "Longing for the spirit," is just that - a longing for the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Koku, "Empty Sky," is the sound of a bell ringing through the clear sky. For Christians, church bells have equally been a reminder, a sound that breaks in to every day life to remind us of what's true. Priest Fuke rung a bell to say that you must empty yourself - the things you are attached to are empty, are vanity, and they keep you from accepting people as they are and being truly present to them (that's my interpretation, anyway). Church bells say that it's all empty, so remember God, who fills everything. Koku, to me, is the sound of a bell that says "God is with us! Stop looking for love in empty things - why settle for created things that rot and break when you can have the author of all creation, whose love is eternal?" And the list goes on.

Hon-on shakuhachi is just me doing what I love. It's all the better when you can share it with others. I make shakuhachi that are best suited to meditation / contemplation. When you buy one of my flutes, you are being God's provision to me and to my family. Each shakuhachi is a prayer, that it will bless whoever plays it.

This is an order of 220 PVC shakuhachi that I made for a class on Kinpu-ryu shakuhachi at Hirosaki University.