How he came to the shakuhachi, and what the lineage asks

Riley Lee

Shakuhachi grand master, granted the rank of dai shihan in 1980 and carrying two lineages back to the komusō, the wandering Fuke Zen monks for whom playing the honkyoku was not performance but suizen, blowing zen: the breath itself as meditation. Born in Texas, living in Australia, and the author of a doctorate on how that Zen repertoire is handed on.