[At a powerful New Story retreat recently, I was really touched Frank's flute performance, which I experienced viscerally with Shamanic overtones, as well as Cornelius's multiple performances. In a passing conversation with Cornelius, I told him about my friend, Andy Couturier, who had written a remarkable book titled 'Abundance of Less' in which he profiled a legendary flutist named Kogan Murata. And he just casually responds, "Oh Kogan? Yeah, I've played with him." Honestly, I was stunned. To give you a flavor, below is an excerpt on Kogan Murata.]

"It was a complete coincidence," he tells me when I ask him now about coining to the path of playing the bamboo flute. "I had been totally inside the 'do-re-mi’ world of Western music all through my twenties. But in that house you first visited me in, one day by chance I heard the real sound of the shakuhachi on a classical music program on the radio. I thought, That is truly a Japanese person’s sound.”

It was this moment, after all the journeys through Europe, the Middle East. and India, after hundreds of miles of walking the Himalayas in Nepal, and of touring by motorbike all through the mountains of Japan, that Kogan Murata felt he had finally found his path in life, the path of "blowing Zen," of the Buddhist bamboo flute.

"And then at some point I decided it was necessary to have a guru,” he says. I smile: he uses here the Indian term instead of the Japanese sensei. He's using it in its proper context.The root word in Sanskrit is from the verb gur, "to lift someone up."

"I went to a very famous player. He had played with the London Philharmonic. But," Murata says, shaking his head, "he wasn't my type. I knew when I saw his house. It was spotless, sparkling, and Westernized.... It wasn't my image at all. Also, he played the short one,” referring to the standard shakuhachi, a term that refers, I find out, to the length of the bamboo.

Today's shakuhachi is a modernized version of the bamboo flute played in ancient China, made more similar to Western-style flutes with the coming of the Europeans. It is more symmetrical inside and can be disassembled, which changes the way the flute sounds. Murata finds it is too high-pitched and annoying.

"Then I heard of Koku-sensei: a friend had lent me his cassette. I went down south right away and met him. And his house was fantastic. Wonderful."

"How?"

"It was all run-down and tatty! Made of wood, earth, and paper. So I decided right away. I asked to be his disciple. And he accepted me."

That was June. and by November he and Sayaka had moved far away, to the southern island of Kyushu, to be near his new teacher.

I've seen Koku Nishimura's photograph, on the cover of the only recording Murata has of him, made in 1964. Just his visage is enough to make you stop and look closer. With a very long flowing white beard, heavy white eyebrows, and kindly eyes, he is the very image of a Japanese master.Though Nishimura lived in our own times. as I find out more about his life, it's easy to imagine such a person living a century ago.

He made his living as a wood-carver and was an accomplished painter as well. He received his kyotaku flute training from a Zen monk of the Rinzai order whose name, Tani Kyochiku, literally translated, means "insane bamboo." For ten years, Nishimura walked over Japan as an alms-begging monk, and he made over two thousand kyotaku flutes by hand. He also held a black belt in Okinawan karate. and a black belt in kendo, Japanese fencing. Murata tells me that he was "a true genius," and knowing Murata's zero tolerance for anything fake, I imagine that Nishimura was one of those rare humans you meet only a few times in your life.

On their first meeting, Nishimura, who was then in his late seventies, said to him, "Go find this exact kind of bamboo, and don't show your face here until you find it." He specified the age of the bamboo, the species, the length between the joints, and the thickness of the walls of the piece Murata was to get. Then he sent him on his way. That was it.

But, says Murata, he never found the kind of bamboo his teacher had asked for. Knowing how ubiquitous bamboo is in Japan, I ask. "Surely it can't be that hard to find?"

Murata's eyes widen in mock indignation, a kind of "How dare you?" to his expression. "I looked every day, riding My bicycle around for two months, and I could not find a single one."

"Well, did you find the groves he told you about?" "Yes!" he almost shouts, leaving the implied "you idiot" to his tone of voice. "That's not the issue. Bamboo is everywhere! The dimensions must be exact. I didn't really understand what a kyotaku was: that's why I couldn't find one."

"Could you find such a bamboo now?" Suddenly smiling. Murata says. "Right away, of course!” snapping his fingers. "Before, I had no eye. That's the point. I was almost blind.”

Eventually Murata went back to his teacher, admitting that he couldn't find it. "There was nothing I could do."

It turns out that Nishimura was fully aware that he wouldn't be able to find such a piece of bamboo. "It's a sort of test." says Murata, seriously. "You know about Zen, right, when you want to enter a temple for training?"

In fact I have seen such a test illustrated in a book of beautiful black-and-white photographs published in the mid-I960s: the would-be novice monk waits sitting on the cold steps outside the temple for more than a week. "They just tell you, 'Get out! Go home. Don't come here: As I said, it's a test."

I let on to Murata, though not stating it quite this strongly. that I have always thought treating potential students in such a way is autocratic and absurd—humiliating the person who wants to learn to meditate.

“No,” says Murata, "it's very important. You have to establish that you really want to do it. Otherwise it’s a waste of the teacher's time. And your time. Anyway, you have to be crazy to play this kind of flute. If you're not crazy, forget it.”

"So are you saying,' I ask, knitting my eyebrows, "that just by playing, you became able to find that specific kind of bamboo?"

His voice quiets, and with a softness that you might even call affection, he murmurs, "Yes, yes, that's true." Then he says. looking up at me. "You probably don't understand do you?"

I admit that I don't.

"It's how much you love it.”

In my experience. the word "love" is not often heard from Japanese people, the preference being for terms such as "like," leaving the meaning implied. "But," I say, "to play the flute and to find the correct kind of bamboo am different. right?"

"No! No difference at all. To play is to love. It's not just 'playing the flute.’ You have to play with every part of you, with everything in your heart. Just to mess around is pointless. You have to blow a hell of a lot, and then you begin to understand the bamboo."

As I absorb what he has said, he adds. "Anyway, I passed the test. and my sensei said, 'Here, I will lend you this one until you can find the right kind of bamboo yourself.’ I was completely surprised. 'Really, Sensei? Thank you so much!' It wasn't until years later that I found out that usually people have to buy the teacher's handmade flutes for five hundred thousand or even a million yen [S5,000—$10,000].”

“So," I ask, "what was your first lesson?"

"He didn't 'teach' me anything. He didn't say, as I had expected, hold your fingers here or shape your mouth like this. He simply told me to go home and play only this one note for the next half year. It was the lowest and most difficult one. He said, 'Don't waste your time coming back and forth."

"Only one note?" I ask.

"Yes. It was like he saw my entire character in one glance, like he was holding me in the palm of his hand, turning his head this way and that. He saw what I needed. And every time I came for a lesson, he watched me approach, carefully. Often he just said, 'Go home: don't come here!' My attitude wasn't right."

Murata tried every day just to make a sound for two months. For the first year he couldn't even reach all the holes with his fingers, they were so far apart.

"But why didn't your teacher show you how to hold it, what to do?"

"That's the Zen way, they don't teach. You are supposed to simply do it. It's like a koan. It was only once in three years that he spoke about how to hold my fingers or how to play.”

“So when you went over there, what happened?"

"We just drank tea, and talked."

I try to imagine this. He had moved hundreds of miles. packing up everything -- Sayaka agreeing to come along as well -- and he and his teacher would just meet occasionally to drink tea.

"But what did you talk about?"

"We'd talk sometimes about Zen. or he'd tell me about his teacher, or about the history of the kyotaku, or sometimes 'just nothing' talk. But there was still some teaching there. He might just once slip in some important thing. with me barely noticing. I had to think hard to figure out what the message was behind one of his stories.”

Eventually, Murata says, he learned the songs by listening to the recording he had. "I must have played that recording one thousand, or even two thousand times."

"And do you make up your own songs, you know, or just jam sometimes?"

"I have no interest in that. Old tunes have centuries of refinement. I play those. If I'm in a bad mood, I can play those tunes as a person in a bad mood would. Another day, I play them as a person in a good mood would. There's plenty to discover in that. It's impossible to play them perfectly, of course, but to get close to perfect ... there's a whole world in that.

"Some people write one new song after another. For me—I really don't know about other people—that would be shallow. There are perhaps forty classic tunes. I've chosen about seven. I can play them over and over. I can spend the whole day doing that.”

I shake my head, amazed: the humility in playing only seven songs. When I think of how attached I am to the idea of improvisation, I realize how profoundly hypnotized by twentieth-century American culture I have been, how I had thought any other way would be unbearable.

=====

Legend has it that in eighth-century China there lived a Ch'an monk whose bell would ring a sound so pure that those heating it would be led on the path to enlightenment. One of his disciples decided that he would try to make a flute that would imitate the sound of this bell. Soon after the teacher would ring the bell, the monk would blow one note on the flute. as if echoing the sounding of the bell. This story, Murata says, is the origin of the name of this kind of flute, the kyotaku, whose characters, somewhat poetically interpreted, mean, "bell that makes the mind empty."

Buddhist meditation and the bamboo flute stayed linked as the culture crossed over from China to Japan. And in this so-called "blowing Zen." two of the most important aspects of Buddhist practice—the chanting of sutras and awareness of breathing—were brought together in the tradition of flute-playing as a form of meditation. This form of self-training was then joined to two even older spiritual traditions, the walking pilgrimage and the practice of alms begging, both of which had been fundamentals of Eastern spiritual disciplines for centuries before the birth of the Buddha. All of these -- breathing, chanting, walking, and begging -- came together in the tradition of the flute-playing komuso, or itinerant begging monk.

Murata's teacher spent ten years as a komuso, and his teacher before him lived his entire life as one. In turn, Murata too decided he would don the reed hat and begging box and play these plaintive songs on the streets of modern Japan. When Murata goes out as a komuso, he cuts a striking figure. The kimono is gray, silken-looking, and spotless. I smile at the transformation from the plaid work shirts and jeans he often wears. He takes the wooden donation box, painted with the characters for "Without Existence, Without Extinction," and places it around his neck. Lastly he puts on the large rattan hat, obscuring his face entirely. Murata explains that in the period when some komuso acted as spies for the shogun. this head covering was a way to maintain secrecy—to see and not be seen.

Murata then goes to a local town and, standing in front of a house or store, plays just one sutra. He stops, then pulls out a pure white paper fan, his movements as precise as a Noh dancer, simultaneously graceful and stark. If you choose to place a coin or bill on the fan, this is the time to do that. Then he places the fan inside of the box, bows, and moves on, leaving the incense of the flute's haunting sound still curling around you.

Though the figure of flute-playing monk has almost completely disappeared from the Japanese landscape, there are still those among the wry aged who remember when they were a common sight. When I ask Murata if he explains to younger people what a komuso, is, he says, "I don't explain. When I'm playing, I don't talk to people at all. I only play. That’s the only thing that matters then. If I receive money, if I don't receive money, if they slam the door on me, if they yell at me, shoo me on, none of that is important. The reason to play the flute is to advance your ability to better perceive emptiness. You are playing for yourself, not to entertain another person, or to have them pity you. You certainly don't do it with the object of making money. That's why it doesn't matter at all how people react. As my teacher says, ‘To play is good. That's all.’”

The cultural practice of alms-begging, I've learned over the years, is a way to connect those who are full-time meditators to the larger community. And for me, the presence of a monk embarked on a lifelong devotion to meditation reminds me of my own practice, and I imagine that might be one of the purposes of having monks out in public to remind us of the importance of our inner life. As Murata explains, alms-begging reduces the desire and clinging of the person giving, and also works to humble the begging monk. The walking pilgrimage is also a form of self-training, breaking the habit of laziness and self-indulgence.

Is it theater? Is it religious practice? Is it working for money? Our categories, I think, are not up to the task.

I ask Murata now, here in his current home in central Japan, a little bit more about his actual komuso practice. He tells me that the summer is usually best, even though it is hot. "People usually have their windows open in their house."

Sayaka, overhearing, laughs. "It's completely different than practicing at home on the tatami mat."

"How's that?" I ask.

"Well, it's a lot of stress, isn't it?" she says. "You're in that kimono out in the sun, and you think, It’s too hot! But you have to keep going; people are watching you.” She laughs as she sketches for me of Murata's suffering out on the pavement.

I ask Murata how he knows when he can stop his rounds for a day.

"I can feel when I've got enough money," he laughs, "by lifting the box. Then I go back to the car and head home, or pick up a beer."

“A beer?!" I almost gasp.

"Yeah. It's hot, I'm thirsty?' He smiles.

"But,” I sputter, "isn't that sort of at odds with Buddhist discipline and training and all that?"

He laughs at me, and says, in English. "Andy! You are just too square!"

I blush. Square! Then Murata says, serious again, "Actually, this is the Zen way. It's not like you think, with the reins pulled tight all of the time. Some periods, of course, are very strict, but others ... are looser. If things are too strict, you can't continue your practice.” I remember then what Murata has said dozens of times: continuing is everything.

Murata spent six wars studying with Nishimura. Near the end of this period he received a license from his teacher as well as a formal letter to show to the police in case he is questioned. Its elegant calligraphy, with the teacher's red seal on it, admonishes him in beautiful language to comport himself properly in public, and to observe his manners with strict adherence. He carries these with him when he goes out playing. He also received a folding hand-bound book of "sheet music”, which is more like a vertically written list of syllables, a mix of musical notation and sutras to be "sung.”

Murata was given a new first name, Kogan, which means "to inspect deeply,” and "to comprehend illusion and emptiness.” “The practice of granting new names is a practice in several traditional Japanese disciplines. It functions, I believe, as a talisman and a reminder, and a connection between teacher and disciple.

"My teacher was always observing me,” Murata says, "from the moment I walked into the room all the way until the moment I left. That is the role of the guru: to watch your behavior, your attitude, seeing what you are thinking inside of your head, to see if you understand ... or not."

"Wasn't that unpleasant?" I ask, imagining that kind of scrutiny.

"Hah! No such thing.”

"But it didn't give you stress?"

“It did, absolutely. Stress! But he needed to see what way I was going to behave in the future.That was the problem he was looking at. That's why the teacher is checking you, to see if you really have that intention to practice...." and Murata looks at me and raises his eyebrows playfully, as if he were a teacher and I was a student, him tempting me to say. "Nah, not really. I'd really just like to stretch back and relax."

"And that's why the teacher asks you the same question again and again. Sometimes the answer changes, as you get closer and closer. That kind of question-and-answer was very interesting. Thrilling. He taught me so many things.”

"Huh? I thought you said he didn't teach you anything."

"I was talking about the bamboo flute! He taught me very important things. Blowing into the flute isn't the problem. It's the essence that he taught me.” Then Murata shouts, "This!" and holds up his fingers in the shape he uses to cover the holes, "... this is just technique, just making some sound. He told me, 'If you think about technique, it won't be the real thing: He told me to just forget about technique. Throw all that away. It's only playing. and continuing to play that has meaning. That's it.” And then Murata adds, "When I asked him, 'How should I play this part?' He just said. 'Blow until you understand.’ He almost shouted at me. 'Until you get it, play until then!'That was his answer. And even today I still don't understand. That's why I keep playing.”

He looks over at me and says. "It's very Zen, isn't it?" With a laugh in his voice. "But interesting. Very interesting.”