Zen Roots of Kinpu-ryu: Priest Fuke

Aside from Tozan, most schools of shakuhachi in Japan can to some extent trace their roots back to the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism. Monks in the sect played shakuhachi in place of chanting sutras, and wandered from place to place as komuso, or “priests of nothingness.” They would play a particular piece from their temple’s repertoire on various occasions, such as when walking through a town, entering a temple, begging for alms, etc. For example, the hachi gaeshi (“returning the alms bowl”) pieces were played after receiving alms.

Technically speaking, Kinpu-ryu is a completely secular school of shakuhachi. A player from Hirosaki with the shakuhachi name Kodo was sent by the feudal lord to the Fuke temple Ichigatsu-ji in modern-day Chiba to formally learn shakuhachi. There, he studied the Nezaza-ha pieces that formed the basis for Kinpu-ryu. However, "once Yoshizaki Kodo brought Kinpu-ryu back with him to Hirosaki, its connection to the Fuke sect was severed, becoming a pastime for Samurai in the same way as Noh singing. It lost its pious tone (similar to sutras), and saw a magnificent way of playing develop (Chiga 168). While it is true that at this point Kinpu-ryu had no formal connection with the Fuke sect, it would be a mistake to say that there was no relation whatsoever. Aomori musicologist Dr. Sasamori writes, "however, the form brought to Tsugaru (Hirosaki) had a strong religious consciousness in the form of Fuke Zen" (Sasamori 6). In a sense, we might say that while those who played Kinpu-ryu shakuhachi did so with a somewhat religious spirit, the school was not formally institutionalized as such. Kinko shakuhachi is similar in that after the Fuke sect was abolished, it took on a more secular tone, though its adherents to this day enjoy the connection with the Fuke sect. The difference in the case of Kinpu-ryu, though, is that unlike the Kinko school, there was no strict stipulation of techniques, methods, notation and the like. In this sense, Kinpu-ryu retained more of the freedom that was generally inherent in Fuke shakuhachi. Here, we're going to take a look at the texts that form the basis for the Fuke sect, and hopefully get a feel for the religious, or spiritual side (institutionalized or not) of shakuhachi.

The Fuke sect is a branch of the Rinzai Zen in Japan. The Rinzai sect takes a Zen master by the name of Rinzai (Chinese Linji), who lived during the 800’s C.E. in Tang dynasty China, as its patriarch. In the Record of Linji, a rather eccentric character named Fuke (C. Puhua) makes several appearances. The founders of the Fuke sect liked him, and took him as their “patron saint,” so to speak.

The Kyotaku Denki (“Transmission of the Empty Bell”), a record of the Fuke sect’s lineage, also tells of a person by the name of Chohaku (C. Zhangbo):

一日河南府張伯者、聞此語大纂禅師碩徳、請従遊之禅師不許、張伯嘗嗜管、及聞禅師鐸音而頓製管而摸之、恒弄其音而不敢吹他曲、以管為鐸音、故号為虚鐸也、以伝其家、十六世。

One day, a man from Henan by the name of Chohaku, hearing these words [Priest Fuke’s song, detailed below], was filled with a sense of longing for the Priest Fuke’s great virtue.  He wanted to follow him, but Fuke wouldn’t have it. Chohaku liked flutes, and upon hearing the sound of Fuke’s bell, he made a flute and began to imitate it. He was always playing around with that sound; he never dared to play [blow] any other song, using his flute [only] to make the sound of the bell, and so used the name Kyotaku [Empty Bell]. Thus, his house [sect] has been transmitted over 16 generations.

And so we have the rationale for the Rinzai Zen Fuke sect. For the moment, though, we’ll return to Priest Fuke.

Fuke is a mysterious figure. Even the Zen master Rinzai, at times, seems to abide by social mores, but Fuke seems to completely free from such ideas, popping on the scene and one-upping Rinzai from time to time. I want to take a look here at the passages in which he appears, but before we dive in, just a few preliminary comments.

When I asked one of my shakuhachi teachers about one of Fuke’s sayings, he said, “there’s no need to think about it; it doesn’t particularly mean anything.” This is probably the best answer. Still, I was curious, and decided to look into it a bit further. Zen has a reputation for being somewhat incomprehensible, and attempts at rational understanding tend to be discouraged. This does not, however, mean that nothing can be understood, or that understanding things is bad. We just don’t want to make an idol of understanding. So, these are my thoughts on Priest Fuke; I enjoyed thinking about him and discussing him with my professor and others. I hope you enjoy it, too. The Chinese text, as well as some of the commentary (where cited) are from Yoshitaka Iriya’s Rinzai Roku (Iwanami Bunko, 1995). The translations are my own, though they often lean on Dr. Iriya’s Kanbun and modern Japanese renderings.

This passage is perhaps the most well-known. Fuke’s poem that appears within has some degree of importance in the Fuke shakuhachi tradition; even today, many Myoan-ryu shakuhachi groups recite it together whenever they assemble:

明頭来, 明頭打　　 Myo-to-rai-ya Myo-to-ta
暗頭来, 暗頭打　　 An-to-rai-ya An-to-ta
四方八面来, 旋風打 Shi-hou-hachi-men-rai-ya Sen-pu-ta
虚空来, 連架打 Koku-rai-ya Ren-ka-da

And so we have it. First, though, let’s look at the whole passage:

因普化常於街市搖鈴云、明頭來明頭打、暗頭來暗頭打、四方八面來旋風打、虚空來連架打、師令侍者去、纔見如是道、便把住云、總不與麼來時如何。普化托開云、來日大悲院裏有齋。侍者囘擧似師。師云、我從來疑著這漢。

Fuke was always in the streets ringing his bell, saying,

Come bright, and I’m bright;
Come dark, and I’m dark;
Come from all sides, and I’m a whirlwind;
Come like the empty sky, and I’m a flail.

Rinzai sent his assistant, telling him to catch hold of Fuke as soon as he heard him saying these lines, and ask, “What about when [it] doesn’t come in any of those ways?” Fuke broke free of his grasp and said, “There’s a meal at [the temple] Dai-hi-in tomorrow.” The monk returned and reported what he heard to Rinzai. Rinzai responded, “I always thought that guy was a special case.”

• In 明頭來明頭打 (Come bright, and I’m bright), the character 頭, or “head”, is used, but here it does not mean “head.” Rather, it functions as a particle or modifier, and has no directly translatable meaning.

• Again, in the above phrase the character 打, or “hit,” is used. Here, it carries a meaning closer to “do” or “respond” (Iriya 158). The same character appears in Soto Zen's 只管打坐 (shikantaza, or "just sit." Here it means something like "just (do) sitting."

• 明 and 暗, “bright” and “dark”, if we think Taoistically, can be taken to symbolize the continuum of all existence, the relationships between all things that are. The terms also appear elsewhere in the Rinzai Roku: “When the sword of wisdom comes, there is not a thing; while brightness is not yet revealed, darkness becomes bright.” Iriya comments that “The former [brightness] indicates the world in which the each individual thing’s true state of being is seen clearly; the latter [darkness] indicates the primitive original state in which things are indistinguishable from one another (81).

• “Flail.” The word rendered “flail” (連架) refers to a tool used to thresh grain, beans, etc. (158). Iriya translates this last line as (to give a wooden rendering of his Japanese) “Come from the empty sky, and I take care of it by hitting in rapid succession.” The expression refers to the work of threshing, when pounding wheat, rice, soy, etc. to remove the outer husks. It looks like this:

• “Special case” - 疑著 indicates someone who is “more than the average bear” (or human, in this case), without any specific connotations concerning good or evil (Martin Luther King, Jr. and Adolf Hitler would both fit into this category).

Come bright, and I’m bright;
Come dark, and I’m dark;

First, let’s talk about Fuke’s poem. It’s composed (excepting the first part of the third line) in the popular 3 - 3, 3 - 3 folk song format of his time (Iriya 158). “Come bright, and I’m bright. Come dark, and I’m dark.” In Chinese thought, namely in Taoism, whose spirit transformed Indian Buddhism into the Zen (Ch’an) of China, light and dark symbolize the entire continuum of existence (and more, perhaps, but let me leave it at that for now). Day and night, male and female, waking and sleep, planting and harvest, action and rest, etc. I think that in these first two lines we wouldn’t be mistaken to take away a sense of being empty, or selfless, in the sense of meeting people just as they are, and responding naturally, without trying to change them in any way, as Paul says in the Bible:

Though I am free and belong to no one,
I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.
To those under the law I became like one under the law
(though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
To those not having the law I became like one not having the law
(though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law),
so as to win those not having the law.
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.
I have become all things to all people
so that by all possible means I might save some. (1 Cor. 9:19-23)

Fuke, like Paul, may have been somewhat of an “evangelist.” He walked the streets, ringing his bell, chanting his verses, to try to awaken people to their true natures. Perhaps, though, it would be more accurate to say that he was just being himself, and as he was awake, people were awakened by him; he wasn’t consciously “trying” to do anything. When he met people, he pointed to that nature in them with his actions. Paul also traveled far and wide, emptying himself of any personal motives, so that people would not see a Paul who was trying to sell them something, or who was trying to change them into something that they were not; Paul was dead to himself, so that others would only see Christ in him, who was inviting them, like Paul, to “follow me.”

Although I said above that Fuke’s use of 打 (“hit”) is not to be taken literally, there are some interpretations that do take it to mean ‘hit’ in a metaphorical sense. In Yamamoto Morihide’s Kyotaku Denki Kokujikai (虚鈴伝記国文解 - Transmission of the Empty Bell Explained in Modern Language), it is taken to mean ‘hit’ in the sense that Fuke ‘hits’ those he encounters with a ‘staff’ whose purpose is to awaken them. Yamamoto also sees the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ as showing that all beings are treated equally, be they male or female, rich or poor, wise or foolish. Again, the reference to Paul is quite apt; Fuke’s message was indeed evangelistic.

Come from all sides, and I’m a whirlwind;

“Come from all sides, and I’m a whirlwind” -- let’s remember that a whirlwind is a natural phenomenon. A draft of wind meets with an opposing draft, and they mingle and spin about for a few moments, maybe scatter some fallen leaves, and then move on. Even when things are hectic, if you are free, you can respond appropriately without thinking, and without getting flustered. When winds come from all directions, you just let yourself be spun about; the wind dies down undisturbed, and you come out of the deal still standing.

In Yamamoto’s book cited above, the whirlwind is seen to correspond to the [busyness of] the cities and towns through which Fuke would walk.

Come like the empty sky, and I’m a flail.

“Come like the empty sky, and I’m a flail.” This is a tough one. The image is that of the repeated pounding of grains or soy beans to remove the outer husks. I think the same principle applies to this part as to the rest, though - namely, to respond appropriately, without any self-centered effort, to whatever situation arises. If we take the “empty sky” to refer to a situation or person in which there are no selfish motives, then maybe it means that when faced with such circumstances Fuke’s nature is free to express itself just as it is, without interruption.

As far as Kinpu-ryu shakuhachi is concerned, this repetitive hitting action brings to mind the komibuki breathing technique, wherein notes are extended by a steady (or decrescendo) pulsing of the breath that comes from the hara, i.e. from the diaphragm. This technique likely emerged from the Samurai of the Tsugaru region who played Kinpu-ryu shakuhachi; it serves to promote physical and spiritual readiness - a full-bodied awareness of, and engagement with,  one’s surroundings. I wonder if Fuke here wasn’t just expressing his ongoing engagement with the present moment.

The term “engage” is quite appropriate here. To engage is to be neither utterly active nor utterly passive; to be engaged is to “be here now.” As an illustration of what I mean, my one-year-old daughter was given a fan by my landlord the other day with a traditional Japanese painting on it. It’s a rather fierce illustration of a warrior and a young girl:

My daughter, May, upon receiving the fan, held it in her hands and kept looking at the illustration. “Huhh!” she kept saying. She was participating in the illustration, fully engaged; “Huhh!” was her own unique expression within the exchange that was going on. There was no “oh, what should I do in this sort of situation?” She just looked at the illustration and responded honestly, not even knowing that she was responding honestly.

Sometimes this frame of mind is called mu-shin (無心), or no-mind. It’s similar to Lao-Tzu’s concept of Non-ado (無為), and perhaps not far from what Christians mean by love. Because May is safe, loved, and doesn’t need to fear criticism, she can express herself just as she is. As we mature, and find difficulties in life and relationships, we tend to become more and more critical of ourselves and others, and have more and more of a difficult time expressing ourselves as we are. Shakuhachi is a practice in return to that original ability that we all possess for true, immediate, and direct engagement with the people and places around us.

To take the metaphor a little further, let’s look at the subject of hermeneutics, or how a text is to be understood.  When I went to Bible college, I was often taught to look at the Bible as an object, to analyze it grammatically, place it within its historical context, and thus arrive at the “correct” interpretation of a given text. I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with this method, but it does lack something if it never goes beyond that. Of course on the other hand, if you utterly ignore all context and reason, you end up reading words however you please, and disregarding / disrespecting the fact that the text does have an author and a context. If you’re going to share this world with others, it’s important to learn to use words in such a way that others can gain some insight as to what you’re trying to communicate, and vice versa. The middle way, I believe, is to be engaged with the text in question. Get to know it. Take it in your hands. Feel it. Find your own self in it, and let it draw out a new expression that wouldn’t have existed had you not encountered it. “Huhh!”

According to one explanation, Kinpu-ryu’s komibuki is derived from practitioners’ seeing the bamboo grass (sasa 笹, from Nezasa-ha 根笹派) swaying gently in the wind -- sa… sa… sa… In playing, they forgot themselves; they were directly engaged with the rhythm of the leaves, which expressed itself in their sound, not unlike the way in which Chohaku imitated the sound of Priest Fuke’s bell.

Works Referenced (translations from Japanese by Nick Bellando):

Chiga, Jundo. Dento Koten Shakuhachi Oboesho. Shuppan Geijutsu-sha, 1998. p. 168.

Sasamori, Takefusa and Shimoda, Yuji. Kinpu-ryu Shakuhachi. Aomori Folk Culture Preservation Society, 2011. p. 8.