Tanaka Sensei (b. 1922)<\/h2>\n
My Kinko-ryu teacher\/sensei, Tanaka Motonobu<\/span><\/a>, \u7530\u4e2d\u57fa\u5c55, was a major force of that experience. He has been given the honorific title<\/span><\/a> of Y\u016bd\u014d <\/i>\u00a0\u53f3\u7ae5by the head iemoto \u00a0\u5bb6\u5143 of his association and school lineage, the D\u014dmon-kai – \u571f\u9580\u4f1a of the Kinko Ry\u016b \u7434\u53e4\u6d41. My other sensei, Toyoaki Kojima Issui<\/i>, \u5150\u5cf6\u8c4a\u660e\u00a0 \u4e00\u5439, now head of the Meian-ji shakuhachi society, also played a large part which I will explore in a future blog.<\/p>\n Our once-a-week lessons were in two parts. In the afternoon, I would sit in the tiny replica of a traditional tea room (chashitsu \u8336\u5ba4) on the campus of Kwansei Gakuin Daigaku University<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u95a2\u897f\u5b66\u9662\u5927\u5b66 located on the hills overlooking Nishinomiya \u897f\u5bae\u5e02 (near Kobe). Tanaka-san worked on the campus as the manager of the student union building. There I received traditional lessons (okeikogoto<\/span><\/span><\/a> \u304a\u7a3d\u53e4\u3054\u3068) along with about ten other young men, all Japanese, all students, all bemused and puzzled by my interest in something so old-fashioned. The lessons were conducted in a traditional manner with virtually no words spoken, only quietly spoken demands to copy exactly what the teacher was doing (kata \u578b) as he played a traditional piece (honkyoku\u672c\u66f2) one phrase at a time.<\/p>\n Then we zoomed off to dinner in a working class restaurant where he regaled me with exotic (to me) food and even more copious bits and pieces about Buddhism. He was on fire as he excitedly lectured to me about all the aspects of Zen Buddhism that filled his world of sacred shakuhachi. As the thoughts rushed out of his head, he scribbled notes and terminology on paper napkins which were sometimes then used later for their intended purpose. I scooped up these dozen or so food-stained pieces of paper tissue filled with ballpoint pen notes, and stuffed them in my pocket for study the next day. Sometimes we would return to his campus office to replay the day\u2019s lesson later that night, but this time with explanations and answers to my ingenuous questions. And more sak\u00e9\u00a0 (nihonshu \u65e5\u672c\u9152).<\/p>\n Sunday, head pounding from the hang-over, I carefully laid out the napkins on my miniature desk in my miniscule student room (thanks to the Kyoto division of the International Student Society Kokusai Gakuyu-kai\u56fd\u969b\u5b66\u53cb\u4f1a) and poured over the scribbled Chinese characters. Oftentimes they were written in such a cursive style<\/span> <\/span><\/a>that I couldn\u2019t make head nor tail of them. I would then go downstairs to the reception desk and ask the person on duty to clarify their written form. Almost always he or she was barely able to identify the characters because they were from the older bungo<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u6587\u8a9e style of Japanese language; many were virtually meaningless to them.<\/p>\n All of his valuable thoughts made their way into my thesis and my life. Even today they colour my various music activities and university lectures. He was not a Living National Treasure (\u4eba\u9593\u56fd\u5b9d Ningen Kokuh\u014d) or a recording star; just an inspired person cloaked in the everyday body of a \u201csarariman<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u201d (salaryman). I still look back on those days as a rare encounter with a brilliant human, a\u00a0meijin\u660e\u4eba.<\/p>\n Lately, I have been wondering where he got his ideas about Buddhism. Given that Buddhism is one of Japan\u2019s two major religions, the Japanese people, including Tanaka-san, have a very long history of exposure to the many schools of Buddhism and its vast body of literature and commentary. And of course, Zen Buddhism would have featured in his knowledge, given the shakuhachi\u2019s long history of association with Zen at the hands of the original Zen Buddhist monk players, komus\u014d \u865a\u7121\u50e7. On the other hand, Japan has had a love-hate relationship with Buddhism (haibutsu kishaku<\/span> <\/a>\u5ec3\u4ecf\u6bc0) ever since it adopted Western ways in 1868. The result has been a benign neglect by some of the population, and a fundamentalist fervour among others who subscribe to the old and new Buddhist Faith schools (Amida and Nichiren).<\/p>\n So my question about Tanaka\u2019s sacred knowledge became, \u201cDid he research any Buddhist writings as background to his impromptu lectures without bothering to tell me about their source?\u201d Did he introduce me to ideas that he had adopted as his own, that he had applied them to his life, and that he had shared with me, without any kind of footnote or academic disclosure?<\/p>\n My first clue was Tanaka sensei\u2019s term k\u014diteki chokkan\u00a0 \u884c\u70ba\u7684\u76f4\u89b3 \u2013 \u201caction intuition\u201d which he applied to learning how to play the shakuhachi and its sacred solo music. The word combination describes a kind of understanding that comes from action rather than words.<\/p>\n A couple of weeks ago, in a moment of inspired randomness, I entered the words in Google, and lo and behold, up pops the words in the context of Nishida Kitar\u014d<\/span> <\/span><\/a>(\u897f\u7530 \u5e7e\u591a\u90ce, 1870-1945), one of Japan\u2019s great philosophers. The phrase does not appear in any of my standard and internet Buddhist dictionaries. As near as I can tell, the term was invented by Professor Nishida, although it is a loud echo of the famous chain of four-character idioms (Yojijukugo<\/span><\/a><\/span> (\u56db\u5b57\u719f, Chengyu<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u6210\u8bed)<\/span>\u00a0traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma<\/span><\/span> <\/a>(5th<\/sup>\/6th<\/sup> CE): \u201cA special transmission outside the scriptures; (\u6559\u5916\u5225\u50b3) No dependence upon words and letters\u00a0(\u4e0d\u7acb\u6587\u5b57) Direct pointing to the human mind; (\u76f4\u6307\u4eba\u5fc3) Seeing into one’s own nature and attaining Buddhahood (\u898b\u6027\u6210\u4f5b)\u201d.<\/p>\n Nishida was a member of the Kyoto School of Philosophy that set out to reconcile Zen Buddhism with Western philosophy. Nishida was particularly concerned with finding common ground between Western philosophy and the essential Buddhist concept of Nothingness. He discovered parallel concepts in the writings of William James<\/span> <\/a>(1842-1910) and Henri Bergson<\/span> <\/span><\/a>(1859-1941). Nishida\u2019s Buddhist-inspired writings also foreshadowed existentialism right up to the postmodernism of modern times, but with one important, uniquely Buddhist twist. Whereas existentialism struggled to reconcile the emptiness of existence with the purposefulness of ethics and morality, Buddhism has always made a convincing case for linking ethics with emptiness by invoking the principal of \u015b\u012bla<\/span> <\/span><\/a>(right conduct, morality, virtue; kai \u6212) grounded in prat\u012btyasamutp\u0101da<\/span> <\/span><\/a>(dependent origination; jp. engi \u7de3\u8d77 )<\/p>\n Nishida also struggled with the dense Western philosophy of the time, in the form of the German Idealists<\/a> . An example can be seen in Nishida\u2019s special take on Hegel\u2019s theory of Dialectics<\/span><\/span> <\/a>(Bensh\u014dh\u014d). But, rather than envisioning a final synthesis after thesis and antithesis, Nishida instead proposed a constant state of thesis and antithesis dynamism (soku-hi <\/span><\/span><\/a>\u5373\u975e) existing simultaneously, without resolution.<\/p>\n Nishida had a profound influence on the intellectual understanding of Zen Buddhism in Japan, to the point where his interpretation has been called neo-Buddhism. Nishida\u2019s explanation of Zen Buddhism was to Japan, what Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki\u2019s<\/span><\/a> (1870-1966) was to the West. And even more remarkable, Nishida and Suzuki were life-long friends of exactly the same age who exchanged ideas and quoted each other throughout their careers. Also, both have been criticized in the last decade; Nishida for his misreading of Hegel (Suares) and Suzuki for his \u201creverse orientalism\u201d (Borup). Both are accused of bending Zen Buddhism to conform to Western tastes and philosophies. The jury is still out on that controversy.<\/p>\n Tanaka sensei also had much to say about nothingness \u2013 mu\u7121. He often quoted Nishida who famously said, \u201cu soku mu, mu soku u \u6709\u5373\u7121\u3001\u7121\u5373\u6709 \u2013 everything is nothing, nothing is everything\u201d. But he could just as easily have sourced the idea from traditional Buddhism which makes nothingness central to the experience of human existence. The Heart Sutra<\/span><\/a> (aka Prajnaparamita Sutra), perhaps the most ubiquitous Buddhist text in East Asia, says quite plainly, \u201cform is the same as emptiness (\u8272\u4e0d\u7570\u7a7a shiki fu i ku), emptiness is the same as form (\u7a7a\u4e0d\u7570\u8272 ku fu i shiki \u8272\u5373\u662f\u7a7a) form is nothingness (\u8272\u5373\u662f\u7a7a shiki soku ze ku), nothingness is form (\u7a7a\u5373\u662f\u8272 ku soku ze shiki)\u201d.<\/p>\n Tanaka described a paradox where enlightenment (kensh\u014d \u898b\u6027) is experienced in an instant, and therefore timeless, state, but within the context of the linear thread of time. Tanaka suggested that enlightenment is comprised of moments of great enlightenment (daigo \u5927\u609f) and little enlightenments (shogo \u5c0f \u609f) acting like glimpses into the former. The latter are comprised of revelations that become stepping-off points to more discoveries. He compared the process to traditional music lessons. But rather than seeing the musical development of shogo as a simple linear progression, Tanaka described it from two simultaneous points of view \u2013 as a spiral seen from the side, illustrating its historical progression, and as a circle, seen from the top, illustrating its eternally now cycle. I have never seen this line of argument in the writings of Nishida (although I\u2019m ready to be proved wrong).<\/p>\n There is probably so much more to learn about Tanaka sensei\u2019s research and experiences but we lost contact after I moved on to new vistas of ethnomusicology. Regardless, the bits and pieces he bestowed on me were the \u201cstepping stones\u201d (shogo) to my own growing understanding of music and life. I also have to admit that I am reluctant to go much further down the road of classical philosophical debate because I find the dense logic of its quandaries, especially among the Idealists<\/span><\/a><\/span>,\u00a0 and even more so among the philosophers of the Buddhist schools (e.g., Nagarjuna<\/a>), to be mind-numbing.<\/p>\n When I lived and studied in Kyoto, I often walked down a magnificent tree-lined, rural path that ran alongside a small, irrigation canal in an older outskirt of that great city. The walks never failed to inspire me. I learned later that the path is called the Philosopher\u2019s Walk<\/span><\/a>, in acknowledgement of Kitaro Nishida\u2019s many strolls along its banks on his way to and from Kyoto U, pondering his own shogo, as I did.<\/p>\n [youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LagO1Q8qOxI[\/youtube]<\/p>\n I wonder how many students delve into their teacher\u2019s inspirations, as I have done? How many teachers have been asked about the core sources that made them who they are today? A new spin on the familiar world of ethnography, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\nTanaka\u2019s Buddhist Frame<\/h2>\n
Nishida Kitaro<\/h2>\n
![\"File:Kitaro](\"\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/e\/e9\/Kitaro_Nishidain_in_Feb._1943.jpg\/426px-Kitaro_Nishidain_in_Feb._1943.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMore to learn?<\/h2>\n
Postscript<\/h2>\n
Select Bibliography<\/h2>\n