Text / Buddha-hood in a single note: a somatic exploration of breath, mind-body and instrumental performance.

“The ignorant eschew phenomena but not thought; the wise eschew thought but not phenomena.”
Huang Po.
 
This paper will explore specific relationships between sound, physicality, breath, and meditative or ‘flow’ 1. states of consciousness. Meditative states during performance were originally experienced by the author on saxophone and subsequently developed through research into traditional Japanese shakuhachi (Zen bamboo flute) performance within an experiential framework bringing together the physicality of instrumental performance, flow studies and Zen meditation techniques.

The shakuhachi is a bamboo flute historically played by Buddhist monks known as komusō (priests of nothingness) who practiced the instrument as suizen or ‘blowing Zen’, using the phrase ichion jôbutsu (in a single sound, Buddha-hood) to describe the goal of their practice. In both historical and contemporary shakuhachi practice and scholarship however, any specific psychophysical mechanism connecting instrumental performance with a religious or meditative consciousness is often vague, ill-defined or totally absent.

Within a standard ‘flow’ paradigm, the challenge level of an activity is balanced against the skill level of an agent. When these two factors balance each other in terms of high skill required at high challenge levels, an immersive state of mind is achieved in which an agent becomes completely involved in the activity for its own sake. As applicable as this framework is to the understanding of instrumental performance in the context of meditation, very little work has been conducted using this as a model through which to understand mind-body systems such as those aimed for within traditional shakuhachi performance.

Similarly, although there are examples within Buddhist literature relating to the creation of specific somatic systems using breath in order to achieve a no-mind state, very little direct connection is made in shakuhachi practice between musical aims, the physical demands of performance, and their resultant effects on a performer’s psychological state.

This paper will present a somatic framework through which the mechanism allowing shakuhachi performance to act as a catalyst for a meditative or no-mind consciousness can be understood and reproduced. This will then be extended beyond an instrumental musical context to discuss how it informs the author’s current work, which is transitioning from music and sonic arts into physical performance.