Song for my Father

Play it loud Dad said, it's very soothing that way...

the window view from the hospital room

smile, laugh and reflect

Their Day in the Sun

Autumn Blue Moon Today

The far side of the full moon.

A Blue Moon can be the second full moon in a calendar month. Or it can be the third of four full moons in a single season. The November 21, 2010 Blue Moon is the third of four full moons between the September 2010 equinox and December 2010 solstice.  This celestial event occurs only 7 times within a 19 year cycle...Happy Blue Moon!

Earthshine on dark side of moon.

joyful mind and big mind and kind mind

As the rays of the sun struck the bamboo on the hill, the air heated quickly and the stalks expanded, emitting sharp, pinging noises of different pitches, a strange little song of farewell in the still morning.

We get no letters from the world of emptiness, but when you see the plant flower, when you hear the sound of bamboo hit by the small stone, that is a letter from the world of emptiness.

1950 News Release Photo

Chiku Za (Kodama Hiroyuki

2.0 Kodama (left), 2.4 Mujitsu (right)

Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments

Shakuhachi Section

escalator to nirvana

Wind Bell

My whole being is like the mouth of a bell suspended in empty space:

It does not ask whether the wind blows east or west, north or south.

Impartial to all, it sounds the Wisdom for the sake of others:

“Bong bong bong,” says the wind bell, “bong bong bong.”

 

One time, upon hearing a temple bell that was hanging in a hall being rung by the wind, he asked Kayashata, “Is it the wind we hear or is it the bell we hear?”

Kayashata replied, “It is beyond the sounding of the wind and beyond the sounding of the bell: it is the sounding of my own Mind.”

The Venerable Sōgyanandai asked, “And, say, just what is your own Mind?”

Kayashata replied, “It is equivalent to saying that everything is altogether tranquil in its stillness.”

Shakuhachi Haiku

Shakuhachi ya

the sound of autumn

in my valley.

One note of the shakuhachi

resounds endlessly

piercing the winter clouds.

                            --Soen Nakagawa (1907-1984)





Song of spring -

the flute of Daruma

in my valley.



Fifth Month rain--

in the town how long

this flute ban?
                          --Issa


Lightning showers~

lonely beggar plays

the bamboo flute.


Fluttering down

a cadence --

the softness of flutes.



A chevron of mountains peek through mist

-- bamboo flute.
                              --Chibi


Bamboo flute -

the blind monk plays

with the autumn winds.



Suma Temple -

hearing a silent flute

under dark trees.
                          -- Matsuo Basho



Suma Temple . . .

I hear the unblown flute

in the shade of a tree.



in Fudo Myo-O's sanctum,

blowing bamboo as an offering




summer's day- a duet of frog and shakuhachi!




floating on the summer wind, the sound of shakuhachi.




Spring passes and one remembers

one's innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers

one's exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers

one's reverence.

Winter passes and one remembers

one's perseverance.

                               --Yoko Ono

Honkyoku Is Something Evermore About To Be

Photoshop Dai Shihan

I photoshopped this image several years ago and found it recently on another website.  Nice to see again, so I copied it and put it here.

This well-written brief summary was found, too:

Michael Chikuzen Gould is a Grandmaster of shakuhachi, an ancient Japanese bamboo flute initially utilized as a breath awareness and meditation tool by the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism. The classical repertoire draws from chant, nature and breath and has evolved fluidly over the past 1000 years in multiple directions. Chikuzen sensei is a transmitter of the Dokyoku lineage, an extremely expressive and virtuosic style developed by Watazumido in the 20th century and carried on by shakuhachi masters such as Katsuya Yokoyama and Yoshinobu Taniguchi with whom Chikuzen trained in Japan for 15 years.

Old Shakuhachi Photo and Woodblocks

Passing Autumn...

to hear the bell again...