Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Blowing Zen: Finding an Authentic Life, Ray Brooks.  HJ Kramer Inc. Tiburon California.  2000.

I am a librarian in a public library.  Typically this translates to mean a lover of fiction, bestsellers, whatever is popular on the horizon that feeds the public’s entertainment bug.  Not the case with me.  I read almost solely non-fiction, philosophy, anthropology, religion, and music, are some of the topics that I invest my reading time in- that very limited time I have outside of musicking, of which shakuhachi plays a significant part.

When I decided to take the shakuhachi seriously I decided that I would like to read a bit about it.  One of the books I purchased was Blowing Zen by Ray Brooks.  I ordered it from an online retailer and didn’t see too much about it on the site or elsewhere.  When it came I was intrigued, but also afraid that it would be a waste of my time (read: non-educational).

Brook’s book is a superb document bearing witness to a journey of musicianship in Japan by a Westerner.  Blowing Zen is both entertaining and educational.  In it Ray Brooks describes both his personal experience learning the shakuhahchi, as well as his voyage through the inner shakuhachi circles of Japan.  The depictions of Brook’s experiences within Japan culture are especially insightful for those of us who have not yet made the jump to the shakuhachi’s cradle.  Further, Brook’s reflection on learning the shakuhachi, including his writing on his teacher’s (including Katsuya Yokoyama, among others), and his experience in the iemoto system are priceless.

I have been reluctant to think of my experience with the shakuhachi as a “journey”, mainly for anti-new-age reasons, though one finds it difficult not mapping one’s own progress along with Brooks in the reading, looking ahead, or behind.  I have discovered that we shakuhachi players might have a lot more in common than what I previously wanted to admit in our journey with this instrument.  Brook’s book was a delight to read, insightful for my own experiences with the shakuhahchi, and in learning from his experiences.  By the end of the book I was grateful to Brooks for writing it, and would recommend it to others- particularly those who do not have access to Japan, and those who do not have access to a teacher (though no instructional pointers are given in the book).

-Michael Andrew Doherty. October 20, 2008