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Suizen
''Suizen'' (吹禅) (“blowing Zen”) is a Zen practice consisting of playing the traditional Japanese shakuhachi bamboo flute as a means of attaining self-realization.''The Annals of the International Shakuhachi Society'', Volume 1. Ed. Dan E Mayers .d., c. 1996? Christopher Blasdel, “The Shakuhachi: Aesthetics of a single tone,” p. 13. Suizen was traditionally practiced by the Komusō (“monks of emptiness”), the Zen Buddhist monks of the Fuke sect of Japan who flourished during the Edo period (1600 to 1868). Instrumental music is rare in all Buddhist practice where instruments usually accompany ritual chants if they are used at all. With ''suizen'', the playing of the shakuhachi as a spiritual exercise is at the core of the religious practice, making it unique in the world of Buddhism. The practice of ''suizen'' may be understood in the context of both ancient Buddhist and Chinese classics which exerted a profound influence on Japanese music, which used awareness of ...
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Komusō
The (also romanized or ) were a group of Japanese mendicant monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism who flourished during the Edo period (1603–1867). were characterized by a straw basket (a sedge or reed hood known as a ) worn on the head, manifesting the absence of specific ego but also useful for traveling incognito. They were also known for playing solo pieces on the (a type of bamboo flute). These pieces, called ("fundamental pieces"), were played during a meditative practice called , in return for alms, as a method of attaining enlightenment, and as a healing modality. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), the Japanese government formally abolished the Fuke sect. Documentation of the musical repertoire of the performers survived, and it has been revived in the 21st century. History According to a legend dating from 1795, a Japanese priest returned from China in the middle of the 13th century and purportedly brought the with him, though this is considered t ...
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Fuke-shū
or Fuke Zen was, according to the legend, a distinct and ephemeral derivative school of Zen Buddhism that originated as an offshoot of the Rinzai school during the nation's feudal era, lasting from the 13th century until the late 19th century. There are however no historical records to support this. Fuke-shū traced its philosophical roots to the eccentric Zen master Puhua (J. ''Fuke''), as well as similarities and correspondences with the early Linji school, one of the Five Houses of Chan, and previous Chan Buddhism traditions, particularly Huineng's "Sudden Enlightenment", in Tang China. The connection to the Zen master Puhua has not been established in historical records, except for a text that was published in 1795 but is most likely a made-up story in order to institutionalize the monks of the Fuke sect. Fuke monastics or ''komusō'' were noted for playing the shakuhachi as a form of meditation known as suizen ("blowing meditation"), an innovation from the earlier zaz ...
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Zazen
''Zazen'' (literally " seated meditation"; ja, 座禅; , pronounced ) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. However, the term is a general one not unique to Zen, and thus technically any Buddhist tradition's seated meditation is "zazen". The term ''zuòchán'' can be found in early Chinese Buddhist sources, such as the Dhyāna sutras. For example, the famous translator Kumārajīva (344-413) translated a work termed ''Zuòchán sān mēi jīng'' (''A'' ''Manual on the Samādhi of Sitting Meditation'') and the Chinese Tiantai master Zhiyi (538–597 CE) wrote some very influential works on sitting meditation.Swanson, Paul L. (2002). ''Ch'an and Chih-kuan: T'ien-t’ai Chih-i's View of "Zen" and the Practice of the Lotus Sutra''. Presented at the International Lotus Sutra Conference on the theme "The Lotus Sutra and Zen", 11–16 July 2002. Source: (accessed: 6 August 2008). p.4 The earliest manual on sitting meditati ...
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Shakuhachi
A is a Japanese and ancient Chinese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the .Kotobank, Fuke shakuhachi.
The Asahi Shimbun
Kotobank, Shakuhachi.
The Asahi Shimbun
A bamboo flute known as the , which is quite different from the current style of , was introduced to Japan from China in the 7th century and died out in the 10th century.
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Bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, but it probably comes from the Dutch or Portuguese language, which originally borrowed it from Malay or Kannada. In bamboo, as in other grasses, the internodal regions of the stem are usually hollow and the vascular bundles in the cross-section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent. The absence of secondary growth wood causes the stems of monocots, including the palms and large bamboos, to be columnar rather than tapering. Bamboos include some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Certain species of bamboo can grow within a 24-hour period, at a rate of almost an hour (equivalent to 1 mm every 90 seco ...
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Flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel–Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist or flutist. Flutes are the earliest known identifiable musical instruments, as paleolithic examples with hand-bored holes have been found. A number of flutes dating to about 53,000 to 45,000 years ago have been found in the Swabian Jura region of present-day Germany. These flutes demonstrate that a developed musical tradition existed from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe.. Citation on p. 248. * While the oldest flutes currently known were found in Europe, Asia, too, has ...
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Edo Period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, a stable population, perpetual peace, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture. The period derives its name from Edo (now Tokyo), where on March 24, 1603, the shogunate was officially established by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The period came to an end with the Meiji Restoration and the Boshin War, which restored imperial rule to Japan. Consolidation of the shogunate The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's regional '' daimyo''. A revolution took place from the time of the Kamakura shogunate, which existed with the Tennō's court, to the Tok ...
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Honkyoku
''Honkyoku'' (本曲, "original pieces") are the pieces of shakuhachi music collected in the 18th century by a Komuso of the Japanese Fuke sect Kinko Kurosawa. It was believed that these pieces were played by the members of the Fuke Sect. The Fuke sect was a Japanese sect of masterless samurai (Ronins) self called komusō "Lay Monks of the Non-Dual & None-ness". According to Japanologist Torsten Olafsson ''"Having become masterless samurai in a time of peace and having had to join the growing groups of flute-playing beggars to survive, like the komosō:, those rōnin did no longer enjoyed the privileges and relative security of belonging to any ordinary families, or households, that could be inspected, approved, and registered every year under the new "Danka System", as a result in 1640 they organized themselves as sincere members of some kind of a "new" native Buddhist movement that played the shakuhachi' It is believed that after the crushing of the revolt of ronins around Sh ...
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Zen Art And Culture
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and later developed into various sub-schools and branches. From China, Chán spread south to Vietnam and became Vietnamese Thiền, northeast to Korea to become Seon Buddhism, and east to Japan, becoming Japanese Zen. The term Zen is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Middle Chinese word 禪 (''chán''), an abbreviation of 禪那 (''chánnà''), which is a Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit word ध्यान ''dhyāna'' ("meditation"). Zen emphasizes rigorous self-restraint, meditation-practice and the subsequent insight into nature of mind (見性, Ch. ''jiànxìng,'' Jp. '' kensho,'' "perceiving the true nature") and nature of things (without arrogance or egotism), and the personal expression of this insight in d ...
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Buddhist Music
Buddhist music is music created for or inspired by Buddhism and part of Buddhist art. Honkyoku Honkyoku (本曲) are the pieces of shakuhachi or hocchiku music played by wandering Japanese Zen monks called Komuso. Komuso temples were abolished in 1871, but their music, honkyoku, is one of the most popular contemporary music styles in Japan. Komuso played honkyoku for enlightenment and alms as early as the 13th century. In the 18th century, a Komuso named Kinko Kurosawa of the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism was commissioned to travel throughout Japan and collect these musical pieces. The results of several years of travel and compilation were thirty-six pieces known as the Kinko-Ryu Honkyoku. Chanting The chanting of mantras used in or inspired by Buddhism, including many genres in many cultures: *Repetition of Pāli chanting of "Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Samma Sambuddhassa" *Repetition of Pāli chanting of Tisarana *Repetition of the name of Amitabha in Pure Land Buddhism. * ...
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