Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hi. Your post interested me especially because I have a background with the Quakers as well as in Buddhism. I also own a Yamaha fife.

And I tried flute meditation again today with the Shakuhachi Yuu. I've done it before a little with a couple of other flutes.

You'll probably find more specific and detailed meditation advice on here, and I've certainly not done much of it yet, but the way that's working for me is simply to sit until I feel the motivation to play. I then watch the feelings to observe whether I'm in a different state of mind and ready to play meditatively, or whether the desire is just mental fidgeting. Playing notes is a further extension of mindfulness. The sounds tell me something of what's happening - what meditative level (if any) I'm playing from.

The way I'm finding this to work is maybe closer to a Quaker way than to many Buddhist forms of meditation, actually, though there's a strong element of Theravada mindfulness practice and I also sit in front of a Tibetan thangka of White Tara. Like a Quaker sitting, I wait and centre down, and play music from that deeper level. just single notes maybe, or maybe something more complex, depending on what feels right. Just following intuition is the key for me. If I start leading instead of following, it's time to stop, and just sit.

Just for a moment, actually, I wondered if you might be someone I was trying to trace recently. (I'm pretty sure you're not, after reading the rest of your post.)  I'm thinking of someone who studied classical flute and made a couple of albums of `New Age' stuff using flute and shakuhachi before setting music aside and studying environmental science. I'm just mentioning that because the path you've taken isn't necessarily an unusual or problematic one. The lady I was thinking of had environmental concerns in the theme of the second album she made, and the move to the scientific work seems to have been a different approach with continuity between it and her earlier musical approach to things. Often what we do is all of a piece, despite apparent differences.

My own return to music happened after several years of Buddhist practice and was simply a continuing stage of development. Everything we do enriches everything else if we allow it to.

Last edited by Sweep (2008-08-11 21:04:51)

anotheralice wrote:

In otherwords - what can I do with this thing that might parallel the spiritual aspects of Shakuhachi practice without involving the technical aspects?

I honestly don't see what the problem is with finding a cheap shakuhachi to practice with. Most here would probably suggest a plastic kind called a Yuu for around $100, but since your goal is simple tone production rather than traditional music there are even more affordable alternatives on Ebay. Fife just seems a bit too high pitched, one octave above the standard 1.8 shakuhachi. I personally don't use shakuhachi deliberately as a meditative tool, but one reason I like it so much is the way the shakuhachi mouthpiece feels when blown, and I wouldn't be surprised if that feedback is one of the reasons it's supposed to be good for meditation. Since you already play classical flute you probably won't have a lot of problems with the shakuhachi embouchure, it's different and more difficult, but not so much that you won't be able to produce a tone without a teacher, Whatever you decide to do, welcome to the forum!