No-Self

Komusō (虚無僧) — monks of emptiness. People who had erased themselves. They were not monks in the traditional sense, for instead of reciting sutras, they recited their breath. They were not beggars, though they lived on alms. They wandered alone, their heads hidden beneath straw baskets called tengai, resembling specters more than human beings. In the streets of Edo, Kyōto, or Hakata, they were rarely seen, but when they appeared — no one could look away. People whispered that beneath the basket hid a rōnin, a samurai who had lost his lord; or perhaps a malicious yōkai, or a demonic oni disguised as a man. No one knew who they truly were — and that was precisely the point. Their name — 虚 (kyo, “empty”), 無 (mu, “nothingness”), 僧 (sō, “monk”) — said everything: a human who is no longer human, but the empty space left behind. The Komusō were not meant to teach emptiness — they were meant to be it.

Their lives were a radical exercise in muga (無我), “non-self.” For them, what we call the “self” was merely an accidental cluster of memories, emotions, and fears — a deceptive mirage. In a world just beginning to rise from the bloody Sengoku era — an age when the egos of feudal lords had drowned Japan in oceans of blood and fire — muga was a spiritual counterattack against history itself. Yet they did not fight violence; they fought the “I” that produced violence. The Komusō had no home, no family, no name, and no goal. Their solitude was absolute, and their path — endless. They lived in emptiness not as a philosophical concept, but as daily practice.

The modern world loves to name, describe, and absorb everything — even emptiness. Thus, it is easy today to see the Komusō as exotic mystics, aesthetic monks who find peace in the silence of the shakuhachi flute. But the truth is harsher, and less naïve. The Komusō did not exist to inspire — they existed to disappear. They did not preach sermons, nor seek to convince. They did not speak at all. Their purpose was not to be — so as to have no purpose. In Edo Japan, it was said that the Komusō prayed in the space between notes. But that was a misunderstanding. For the Komusō, prayer did not exist — for who could pray, if there is no “I”? Their lives were like air exhaled through a bamboo flute: belonging to no one, fleeting, nameless. “An act without an author is pure as the wind”… When one contemplates that sentence slowly, a chill passes through the heart.

Today, we shall meet the Komusō — and look into a depth where nothing is familiar, nothing is clear, nothing ordinary. In the emptiness from which sound is born — man vanishes.

SCENE I

Komusō at Shin-Ōhashi

From the mist rising above the Sumida River emerged the shapes of the Shin-Ōhashi Bridge — heavy wooden beams to which boats of merchants, seaweed sellers, and fishermen returning from Edo Bay were moored. On the bank, amid the whisper of a cool breeze, a solitary figure appeared — tall, wrapped in a simple robe of coarse hemp cloth, his head concealed beneath a strange basket.

It was a Komusō — a “monk of emptiness” (虚無僧). His face was completely hidden beneath a straw helmet called tengai (天蓋), woven from reeds and bamboo, resembling a rice storage basket. From the outside it looked grotesque: a faceless man who spoke not a word, carrying only a bamboo flute — the shakuhachi (尺八), a pilgrim’s staff, and a small alms box, gebako (外箱), hanging from his belt. Yet in that world — in Edo-period Japan — such a sight surprised no one.

The monk paused for a moment, as if listening to the rhythm of his own breath. In his hands gleamed the smooth surface of bamboo — a shakuhachi exactly one shaku and eight sun long (about fifty-four centimeters), from which its name derived. He slowly raised it to his lips. Before playing, he drew in a deep, controlled breath — long and silent. Breath was everything for the Komusō — not merely a physiological act, but a path to satori, awakening.

The sound that spread over the river was more like the earth breathing than music. A quiet, rough tone pierced the morning mist and rose above the bridge as if to disperse it. It was honkyoku — “original pieces,” not played for listeners. The Komusō played for no one but emptiness itself — for the “self” did not exist. He played Kyorei (虚鈴) — “Empty Bell.” Legend told that the first master Fuke, the Chinese eccentric Puhua, wandered the land with a bell whose sound awakened people from spiritual sleep. The Komusō believed that the shakuhachi was such a bell — only made of bamboo, not bronze.

Passersby looked upon him with mixed feelings. A young fisherman bowed his head, dropping a few copper coins into the alms box — takuhatsu (托鉢), the ritual of mendicancy, was not a means of survival for the monk, but an exercise in humility. For merchants from Nihonbashi, the Komusō were oddities; for women — omens from another world. Sometimes people whispered that beneath the straw basket might hide a rōnin, a former samurai who, after losing his lord, donned the robes of a monk to escape hunger and shame. Or perhaps — a mischievous yōkai. Or a sinister oni. Or, who knows — a kami.

No one could see his eyes. That was part of the teaching of muga (無我) — “non-self.” In a world where the face signified identity, status, emotion, and duty, the Komusō erased himself completely. The basket on his head was like an inverted world — instead of caring how others saw him, he renounced seeing altogether. In return, he was meant to hear.

In the silence between the notes of the shakuhachi, one could hear the dripping of water from the bridge, the creaking of boats, the faint clack of fishing rods striking the gunwales. For the Komusō, all of it was one breath of the world — the inhalation of wind from the river, the exhalation of sound from bamboo.

When he finished playing, he bowed his head, without saying a word. The monks of the Fuke sect did not recite sutras or deliver sermons. They preached no truths, persuaded no one, addressed no one. In fact, they barely spoke at all. Their sermon was breath; their sutra — sound. In Edo Japan, people said that the Komusō prayed not with words, but with the space between notes. But they were mistaken. For the Komusō, prayer did not exist. This was muga — “non-self.” So who, then, would pray?

The monk moved on, toward the crowded street leading to the Nihonbashi Bridge. The human current of Edo flowed in the opposite direction: rice vendors, messengers with baskets, women in blue yukata, children running with lanterns. No one knew his name, and he did not wish to know theirs. He did not even wish to know his own. He wandered, as his school taught — not for a goal, but for the path itself. In the language of the Komusō, they said:

“There is no one to play, no one to listen.”

On the horizon, in the warm light of morning, he slowly vanished into the clamor of the city — and with each of his notes, Edo seemed to grow a little quieter.

Who Were the Komusō?

In Edo-period Japan, there existed a caste of people who defied all categorization. They were not samurai, though they often carried a short sword. They were not monks in the traditional sense, for instead of reciting sutras, they “recited” their breath. They were not beggars, though they lived on alms. In the streets of Edo, Kyōto, or Hakata, they were rarely seen, but when they appeared — no one could take their eyes off them. Komusō (虚無僧) — “monks of emptiness.” People who had erased themselves.

Their very name was itself a teaching about who they were. Three characters: 虚 (kyo / ko) – “empty, illusory,” 無 (mu) – “nothing, absence, nothingness,” and 僧 (sō) – “monk.” Together, they formed the image of a person who is neither whole nor even real — an echo, a shadow, an empty space where a human once was. For the Japanese of the Edo period, this was not merely a metaphor but a concrete spiritual practice: erasing one’s own “self” in the name of understanding that which has no boundaries. The Komusō were not meant to teach emptiness — they were meant to become it.

Their most distinctive feature — the tengai (天蓋), a straw basket reaching down to the shoulders — was not only a head covering but a philosophical manifesto. Ten (天) means “heaven,” and gai (蓋) — “cover.” Together: “cover of the heavens,” something that both separates man from the world and symbolically liberates him from it. For the Komusō, the tengai was a tool for erasing the ego. By putting it on, they ceased to exist as individuals: they had no face, no name, no place in the social order of Edo. Their anonymity was a form of enlightenment.

Under the woven straw of the tengai, the world did not vanish entirely — it merely lost its sharpness. The Komusō saw only as much as was necessary to take the next step: the outline of a path, the shadow of a passerby, the glimmer of water on stones. The dense weave of bamboo and reed left a narrow strip through which light could pass, but it did not allow them to see faces, colors, or shapes. This was not blindness, but a deliberate restriction of sight — an act of renouncing knowledge based on the senses. For the Komusō, true vision was achieved not through the eyes but through the breath. The world was to be “heard,” not “seen”; existence was to be experienced like the sound of the shakuhachi — fleeting, momentary, vanishing with the exhale.

But what distinguished them most was the shakuhachi (尺八) — a bamboo flute whose name literally means “one shaku and eight sun” (about 54.5 cm). For the Komusō, the shakuhachi was not a musical instrument but a tool of meditation. They played honkyoku (本曲) — “original pieces,” not composed for audiences or aesthetics but for the purification of breath. Each note was to be an exhalation of consciousness, and each pause — a place where mu (無), nothingness, revealed itself.

Their practice was called suizen (吹禪) — literally “blowing Zen” or “Zen through breath.” While other monks attained enlightenment through sitting (zazen), the Komusō sought it through breathing. The shakuhachi was for them what prayer was for others: a bridge between the world of form and the world of emptiness. Playing the flute was thus not a performance but a spiritual act. The monk breathed; the sound was born and vanished, and with it — the very sense of “I.”

The Komusō belonged to the Fuke-shū (普化宗) — the “School of Universal Transformation,” loosely associated with the Rinzai Zen (臨済禅) tradition. Their mythical patron was the Chinese master Puhua (普化), an eccentric who, according to legend, did not preach but instead shook a bell to awaken people from their spiritual slumber. In Japan, this tradition was transformed: the bell became a flute, and the cry of awakening became the sound of breath.

The word Fuke (普化) has its roots in China’s Tang dynasty. It denotes both the legendary monk Puhua and the Japanese Buddhist school Fuke-shū (普化宗), which in the Edo period adopted him as its spiritual patron. Both characters are deeply evocative. 普 (fu) means “universal,” “all-encompassing” — symbolizing that which pervades all things, without boundary or center. 化 (ke) means “transformation,” “change,” or also “the process of passing” — a sign of motion, of shifting form, of one shape dissolving into another. Together, 普化 thus means “universal transformation,” “all-pervading change,” or “the diffusion of forms into formlessness.”

It is a perfect description of the teaching that the Komusō made their own. Their life and practice of suizen were exactly such a “universal transformation” — the dissolution of the boundary between breath and sound, between man and world, between “self” and emptiness.

Over time, the term Fuke came to signify not just the person of the master but the entire idea of spiritual transformation through breath and sound — a transformation that occurs not through words, but through experience. For the Komusō, this was the ideal: not to teach — but to transform; not to speak — but to breathe; not to strive — but to cease to exist.

The main center of the Komusō was the temple Myōan-ji (明暗寺) in Kyōto — literally “Temple of Light and Shadow.” Its very name sounded like a metaphor for their existence: they lived between light and darkness, between sound and silence, between man and emptiness. From there, they set out on pilgrimages across the country, playing their honkyoku in city alleys, at bridges, and in villages — like a wandering echo of Buddhist void.

The Komusō were no ordinary monks. They were people who sought enlightenment through breath and sound, through the disappearance of the self. Their lives were like a note of the shakuhachi — arising, vibrating, and vanishing into silence. Edo loved order, hierarchy, and family names. They chose nothingness as their name and silence as their voice.

History: From Boroboro and Komosō to the “Monks of Emptiness”

Before Japan came to know the Komusō — with their mysterious head baskets and the deep, contemplative resonance of the shakuhachi — there existed another, more chaotic and less spiritual tradition of wandering musicians and beggars. They were the boroboro or komosō (薦僧) — literally “mat monks,” because their garments and head coverings were woven from straw and rushes (kome or kumo). They were not yet “monks of emptiness,” but rather people of the margins — wanderers, former soldiers, ascetics, and traveling musicians who, since the 14th century, roamed Japan with simple flutes, playing and singing ballads in exchange for alms.

During the Muromachi period (1336–1573), Japan was torn by war and famine (for more on the Sengoku period, see: The Real Sengoku – What Was Life Like for the Swordless in the Shadow of Samurai Wars?). The country swarmed with wandering ascetics (hijiri), street beggars (hōkan), jesters (sarugaku), pilgrims (gyōja), and musicians. Out of this melting pot arose the boroboro tradition — people who blended elements of Buddhism, Shintō, and folk mysticism. At times they invoked the idea of a spiritual pilgrimage in the spirit of Zen, but in practice, their lives were far from any monastic ideal. They were often social outcasts, homeless after the fall of their lords during the Ōnin Wars (1467–1477). Some were former monks of the Amidist sects who had lost their temples (for more on Nobunaga’s conflict with the monks, see: Ikkō-ikki: Buddhist Monks Build Fortresses and Lead Peasants to War Against the Warlords of Sengoku Japan); others were vagabonds in robes, searching for remnants of rice and sake.

Their instrument, the predecessor of the shakuhachi, was called the hitoyogiri (一節切) — a simple bamboo flute with a single node (hence the name “one cut”). It was shorter, with a sharper sound, often used for simple folk melodies and vocal accompaniment. It was played in a poetic-mystical style or while begging before temples. From this humble, non-clerical tradition would later emerge the shakuhachi — a more refined, longer, spiritual instrument that would become the emblem of the Komusō.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, the komosō had nothing to do with Zen. The practice of suizen (吹禅), meditation through breath and sound, was not yet known. They played not for enlightenment, but for survival. Their songs and music were of a folk-religious nature, often inspired by nembutsu (念仏) — the recitation of Amida Buddha’s name. Some scholars speculate that the komosō may have been related to the nembutsu-odori movements — ecstatic religious dances that spread through the villages. Yet their reputation was poor. Documents from the Muromachi period describe them as “impure” people, living outside the law, even suspected of espionage and banditry (for more on the eta “impure class,” see: Songs from the Eta-mura – The Lives of the “Non-Humans” Erased from the Maps of Shogunate Japan).

Only in the Azuchi–Momoyama period (1573–1603), when Japan began to pass from chaos into order and Zen was becoming the dominant intellectual current among the samurai, did the former komosō begin to transform. Some of them adopted elements of Zen practice and began to call themselves komusō — monks of emptiness. It was a slow but telling process: out of wanderers and beggars emerged a group that clothed its solitude in metaphysics.

At this time, the instrument also evolved. The hitoyogiri fell into oblivion, and in its place appeared a new flute — the shakuhachi, longer, with a deeper, more resonant sound. It was a more contemplative instrument, capable of drawing from bamboo tones reminiscent of breath, whisper, wind. Thus was born the idea that the flute could be a tool of spiritual practice — that sound, produced by controlled breathing, is simultaneously meditation.

Early sources do not yet indicate the existence of a Fuke temple system or of a monastic structure as we know it from the later Edo period. The komosō were loosely connected groups of itinerant players. Their transformation into an organized order of komusō occurred only after 1600, when the new Tokugawa authorities began to bring society into order, creating a hierarchy and assigning everyone a place — even the people of emptiness.

This metamorphosis — from drifting beggars to “monks of nothingness” — is one of the more remarkable spiritual phenomena of Japan. It is an example of how, in Japanese culture (or perhaps more precisely: in the Zen worldview), what is low can become sacred, and what is marginal — a path to enlightenment. The komusō were the spiritual heirs of poverty, exclusion, and solitude, which in the Edo period were transformed into a philosophy of emptiness, sound, and breath.

Rōnin, Temples, and Privileges: Komosō in Tokugawa Japan

With the advent of Tokugawa peace in the 17th century, Japan entered an age of control — every stratum of society received its place, its attire (more here: Sumptuary Laws in the Time of the Shogunate, or How Prohibitions Stirred the Defiant Creative Genius of the Japanese), its rights and obligations. In this new order there was no place for wanderers or nameless monks. And yet it was precisely then that the former komosō, musical beggars and spiritual vagabonds, underwent an extraordinary change: they became an order recognized by the state. Thus arose the institutional community of the komusō (虚無僧) — “monks of emptiness,” officially subordinated to temples and incorporated into the administrative system of the bakufu.

After the devastating wars of the Sengoku period (1467–1615), thousands of samurai lost their lords and their status. They became rōnin (浪人) — literally “wave people,” drifting aimlessly through a society that revered hierarchy. Many of them, to avoid hunger, shame, or punishment, donned the straw baskets tengai and joined komusō fraternities. Their military past gave these communities new discipline and hierarchy. Soon the komusō came to be regarded as an order composed exclusively of former samurai — hence the requirement that only a man of samurai lineage could become one of them. What had begun as a community of the excluded was thus transformed into an elite, semi-monastic organization.

The Tokugawa, distrustful of wanderers yet fascinated by their ascetic image, decided to regulate them. A network of temple-quarters was created to supervise komusō activity. The most important center was Myōan-ji (明暗寺) in Kyōto — a former Rinzai sub-temple, named for the words myō (“brightness”) and an (“darkness”), which symbolized the harmony of opposites. From there the monks of emptiness spread throughout the country, and their branches arose in Edo (e.g., Ichigetsu-ji and Reihō-ji) and in provincial regions, including Hakata (Icchōken). In 1677 the bakufu issued a regulation that formally defined the structure and duties of the komusō: they were to operate in designated temples, not admit people from the lower classes, observe celibacy, and avoid political contacts.

In exchange for obedience, the government granted them certain privileges — at least in theory. The komusō allegedly had the right to travel freely throughout the country, while ordinary people in the Edo period had to possess special permits. They were also allowed to wear swords, a privilege reserved for samurai. It is often mentioned as well that they were exempt from local jurisdiction — they were subject directly to religious and central authorities. Some accounts even state that they could cross the borders of feudal domains without checks and fees, and even enter places forbidden to others.

These privileges, however, derive from a mysterious document known as the “Keichō no Okitegaki” (慶長之掟書) — “Decree of the Keichō Era (1614).” According to tradition, it was an edict by Tokugawa Ieyasu himself, granting the komusō special rights in recognition of their spiritual merit. The problem is that the original has never been found, and the oldest copies date only from the late 18th century. Many scholars today consider this document a forgery created by the komusō themselves to strengthen their position vis-à-vis the authorities. Even contemporary scholars, such as Arai Hakuseki, pointed out that the language of the “edict” does not correspond to 17th-century official form.

There is also another, more disquieting theory — that the komusō, taking advantage of their exceptional freedom of movement and the veil of anonymity, were used by the bakufu as a network of informants and spies. Their journeys between domains, their silence, and lack of identity made them ideal observers. In Edo culture there was even a saying: “When you see a komusō, be silent — he is already listening.”

Whatever the truth, one thing is certain: in Tokugawa-ruled Japan, nothing could exist outside the system. The komusō — former wanderers and solitary players — were absorbed into a tightly controlled world of bureaucracy, classes, and permits. Their tengai basket ceased to be merely a symbol of emptiness — it became a sign of subordination as well.

The Music of Emptiness

At the heart of komusō life lay neither word nor prayer, but sound — not sound performed for others, but breath itself. Their instrument, the bamboo flute shakuhachi, was not only a musical tool but a path of spiritual practice. Unlike Western instruments, the shakuhachi was never subordinated to harmony or meter. Here, sound was not so much a “note” as a manifestation of the moment — a breath that appears and vanishes.

Made from the lower part of madake bamboo, with the roots preserved, the shakuhachi had five finger holes (four in front, one in back). But what made the shakuhachi unique was the way the sound was produced. The mouthpiece had no reed — only an obliquely cut edge called utaguchi. The monk placed his lips to the bamboo at an angle of about 45°, directing the air onto the edge — as if “cutting” space with his breath.

This seemingly simple gesture required masterful control of breath and bodily tension. Sound arose not through “playing,” but through letting the breath go, through conscious “non-action.” In Fuke philosophy it was said that “each sound may be a man’s last breath before enlightenment.” The komusō called this practice suizen (吹禅) — “blown Zen,” analogous to the seated meditation zazen, with the difference that here meditation took place through sound and breath.

The basic repertoire of their practice was honkyoku (本曲) — literally “original pieces.” These were not compositions in the Western sense, but streams of breath inscribed in sound. Each piece was solo, improvised, often transmitted only orally from master to disciple. These melodies were characterized by free rhythm (jiyū-bu 自由譜) and the absence of a clear tempo — music that breathes with the performer. The sounds contained microtonal inflections (meri and kari) — achieved by slight changes in the angle of blowing and finger position, creating an effect somewhat akin to the human voice. The shakuhachi could weep, whisper, sing, and fall silent.

The most famous honkyoku include:

• “Kyorei” (虚鈴) — “Empty Bell,” a symbolic piece about spiritual awakening;
• “Kokū” (虚空) — “Empty Space,” played to experience the complete dissolution of the ego;
• “Mukaiji” (霧海慈) — “Compassion over the Sea of Mists,” full of melancholy and quiet calm;
• “Shika no Tōne” (鹿の遠音) — “Distant Call of Deer,” a dialog piece for two shakuhachi, a symbol of longing for a lost unity.

In the 18th century, Master Kurosawa Kinko I (黒沢琴古, 1710–1771) gathered and arranged over thirty such pieces, transmitted from various regions of Japan. From them he created the canon now known as Kinko-ryū (琴古流) — the “Kinko school,” which to this day forms the foundation of the classical shakuhachi repertoire. Kinko traveled the country, visiting Fuke temples and writing down variants of melodies that had until then existed only in the monks’ memories. He also introduced the ro-tsu-re-chi-ri notation system, reminiscent of a mantra — a symbolic record of breath and gesture rather than sound in the musical sense.

What the kōan is in Zen — a paradoxical question intended to shatter logical thinking — in the world of the komusō was honkyoku — a sonic kōan that shattered the linear perception of time. When a komusō played, there was neither “now” nor “later” — only one continuous stream of breath that was everything.

The sound of the shakuhachi strikes modern ears as strikingly “empty” — not pure, not melodic, often rough and unstable. But within this instability lies a philosophy: sound is not the goal, but the proof of emptiness. Each tone has a beginning, a development, and a fading — like inhalation, life, and death.

With the end of the 18th century, the shakuhachi began to permeate the secular world. In the cities of Edo, Kyōto, and Osaki, schools of playing arose for townspeople who saw in this instrument not so much a tool of enlightenment as a symbol of refinement. Suizen became for them a form of aesthetic meditation, detached from its religious context. In this process the shakuhachi underwent secularization — its sound moved from monasteries to kabuki theaters, geisha houses, and merchants’ salons.

How to “erase the face”?

In Edo-period Japan, a person’s face betrayed their social belonging — it spoke of samurai lineage, of a merchant’s status — the komusō were radical: they renounced the face. Their straw helmet tengai, woven from reeds and bamboo, was more than a head covering. The name literally means “heavenly canopy,” but in reality it was a basket-void, an inverted world in which seeing and being seen lost their meaning.

Behind this form lay a profound paradox: a Zen monk striving for enlightenment did not show his countenance — not to protect it, but to annihilate it. In Zen teachings one speaks of muga (無我), the “absence of self.” In a world of everyday masks, the komusō chose the absolute mask — one that represents nothing. It is an anti-face, in which the ego disappears, and with it the entire theater of social roles. The moment the tengai dropped onto the shoulders, the person ceased to exist as an individual. Only a breath remained — the breath of emptiness.

But aside from its philosophical meaning, the tengai could also be practical. It protected against recognition, granting anonymity in a world where travel was restricted and status inexorably hereditary. For the Edo authorities, every person was entered in the registers; the komusō were the exception. Wandering between domains, they could observe and listen — hence the suspicions of their “spy” role. In this sense, the tengai was both a tool of spiritual self-annihilation and of social survival.

Beneath the tengai the monk wore an okesa — a Buddhist robe, coarse and usually soiled, made of simple hemp cloth called oku-wara. On his feet — waraji, straw sandals, light and worn out within a few days, which themselves taught impermanence. At his belt hung a gebako — a small box for alms and documents, sometimes adorned with the seal of the Myōan-ji temple. Some also carried a second, short “flute,” in reality a concealed tantō — a short sword, a remnant of their samurai origins.

The most important ritual of daily life was takuhatsu — begging. But the word “begging” can mislead. For the komusō it was not about obtaining rice, but about offering sound. When a monk stood at a street corner or by a bridge, he did not stretch out his hand; he raised the shakuhachi to his lips and played honkyoku. Each tone was like offering incense — a sound rising toward emptiness. People dropped coins, but in the spiritual economy of Fuke it was he who gave: sound was the alms, silence — its reply.

Wandering the country, the komusō recognized each other not by faces — which they did not have — but by sounds. There were secret musical codes, short motifs or variations of melodies that allowed them to identify one another — as if through the shakuhachi it was not the body that spoke, but the spirit. Sometimes a brief fragment of Kyorei played with a characteristic “breath” inflection was enough for a wanderer to understand that he had met a brother of the same order.

Within this silent communication, in the world of sounds and breath, lay the philosophy of emptiness of this strain of Zen: there is no face, no words, no boundary between one and the other. When a komusō put on the tengai, he did not hide from the world — it was the world that became empty, formless, centerless. In the silence between the notes of the shakuhachi, Edo reflected like water: distorted, fleeting, almost unreal.

SCENE II

Descent to the Village

The morning was misty and heavy with the scent of damp wood. In the hills of Chikuzen province, far from crowded Edo, the path led through a bamboo grove where every breath of wind seemed like the earth’s own breathing. The narrow road led to the small temple Icchōken — one of the last places where the wandering monks of emptiness, the komusō, could stop for the night, cleanse the mind, and practice breath in the mountain’s shadow.

In the garden before the temple stood an old monk. He wore a worn robe of raw cloth and waraji sandals that had long ceased to protect against stones. Upon his head rested the tengai, a basket woven from reeds, on which the morning light spread in soft streaks. He stood motionless, as if he were part of the landscape — a tree that had learned to breathe. In his hands he held a shakuhachi, cool with dew, its surface full of microscopic cracks and veins that betrayed its age.

Around them sounded the noises of the waking village: in the distance someone chopped wood, someone else cleaned a well, children called to one another by the gate. But when the komusō raised the flute to his lips and released the first breath, all these sounds seemed to vanish, as if the world had ceased to exist for a moment. The sound of the shakuhachi was uneven, trembling, not pure, but deep. Each tone lasted long, right to the edge of silence. It was not music — rather a conversation with space, an attempt to find within it the very breath of all things.

After a moment a younger monk emerged from the temple, carrying a bucket of water. He knelt beside the elder and listened to his playing in silence. He knew that the master would not teach him a melody. Honkyoku could not be memorized — it could only be lived. Each breath was unique, like a fingerprint, like the momentary reflection of the moon in a stream.

When the sound fell silent, both monks remained motionless. The elder set down the flute, took up the bucket, and slowly began to wash a stone statue of the bodhisattva Jizō, guardian of wanderers. Water flowed over his hands as a continuation of the sound from a moment before. In Zen it is said that “when sound ends, action begins, and there is no difference or boundary between them” — and that action, too, is meditation.

After a brief meal of beans and pickled radish, the komusō set out on his way. On his back hung a small gebako with coins and a letter of recommendation from the jūshoku (prior) of Myōan-ji in Kyōto. The road led through rice fields — the farmers, seeing the monk with a basket on his head, paused in their work, bowed, and sometimes tossed him a few grains of rice in homage. Some whispered to their children: “Don’t look there. That’s the evil spirit of a samurai who lost his lord.” From within the village came the sounds:

— “Oi, ano sukapontan ga kuru zo!”
(“Hey, look, the empty-head is coming!”)
— “Shii! Onna, damare. Rōnin dabe. Fuitara dareka shinu zo.”
(“Hush! Woman, be quiet. He’s likely a rōnin. If he plays, someone will die.”)

Toward evening he reached a bridge over a small river. The water reflected the red sky, and from a nearby inn came the sounds of laughter and the clatter of bowls. The komusō stopped, leaned his staff against the railing, and once more raised the flute to his lips. He played Mukaiji (霧海慈) — “Compassion over the Sea of Mists.” The sound flowed slowly, as if it wished to cover the world with a veil of strange fog.

The people in the inn fell silent. For a moment no one moved. No one saw his face, but everyone felt that the one who played was not playing for himself. He played for the world, for those who suffer, and for those who do not know that they suffer. When the sound ceased, the komusō bowed slightly toward the village, as if bidding farewell to someone invisible. Then he turned and walked into the dusk.

In the silence after him there were only crickets and the murmur of water. Someone said in a half-whisper:

— “It’s not known who he was.”
And someone else replied:
— “All the better. Best not to know such a name.”
Then the wind stirred the bamboo leaves, as if in answer.

The Life of the Komusō from Within

The life of the komusō was a journey in the purest sense of the word — not only across the roads and bridges of Edo, but through breath, silence, and nothingness. Their days unfolded in a rhythm that was simple, ascetic, yet marked by a severe order. The komusō rose before dawn, when mist still wrapped the village roofs. Before anyone could open a shop or kindle a fire beneath a pot, they were already sitting in seiza, eyes closed, counting breaths. For the shakuhachi — their only “instrument” and at the same time their “teacher” — was above all a tool of breathing. The inhalation was to be deep but unforced; the exhalation — quiet, controlled, as in Zen. “Play with the breath, not with the mouth,” they repeated in the dōjō, the temple training hall.

Every sound of the shakuhachi was born from silence. The komusō learned to play in dōjō adjoining the temples of Fuke-shū, such as Myōan-ji in Kyōto. The exercises did not resemble music lessons — rather, meditation in motion. A student would repeat a single tone for hours, learning to feel the vibration of the air, until body and instrument became one. Some masters ordered playing in enclosed rooms, where the echo seemed to return with a delay, so that the adept would understand that it is not he who “produces” the sound, but that the sound “happens” through him.

When he finished his training, the komusō set out on the road — alone, with a pilgrim’s staff, a satchel, and a bamboo flute. Their wanderings had no goal in the usual sense. They went from village to village, from bridge to bridge, begging in silence. The mendicant ritual takuhatsu was a form of spiritual exercise: to receive alms without gratitude, to give music without expectations. The komusō did not ask with words, but with sound. When they played honkyoku before a house — a simple, rough piece, such as “Kokū” (“Empty Sky”) — it was not so that anyone might hear them; in Zen nothing is that simple in the logic of the discursive mind. It was so that no one would listen — not even they themselves.

In the temples, strict discipline prevailed. The monks slept on thin mats, lived on rice, dried vegetables, and water with tea. Silence ruled the dōjō: no talking, no laughter, no questions. The komusō were masters of hiding their “self” (though the word “hiding” does not quite fit here — it is more a matter of the destruction of the “self”) — they wore the tengai basket not only during visits to villages, but also while traveling between monasteries, so as not to distract the mind with the sight of the world. Chronicles record that some did not remove the basket for weeks, even during sleep, believing that daylight is an illusion and that true seeing comes in darkness.

At the same time, their social status was ambiguous. For some — holy ascetics; for others — suspicious vagabonds with a sword. After the fall of many houses in the Edo period, thousands of lordless samurai (rōnin) donned the garb of the komusō to obtain the right to travel and avoid persecution. The Tokugawa government granted them official permits, but over time rumors began to circulate: that the komusō spied for the bakufu, that they used music as a code, that behind the sounds of honkyoku lay secret signals for other monks or agents. Some historians believe these were not merely rumors.

All the more so because the komusō lived on the border of worlds — between the cloister and the street, between art and violence. Their garments — brown or gray-green okesa (法衣) of coarse hemp cloth — resembled the clothing of hermits more than that of clergy. It happened that beneath their habits they concealed short wakizashi. They had their own signs of recognition, and some shakuhachi melodies served as codes allowing one to recognize a “brother of the road.”

When dusk fell, a komusō would sit by the roadside, unfasten the flute from his belt, and blow softly until the wind mingled with the sound. He sought neither beauty nor emotion — only emptiness, mu (無). In that sound was everything he had: breath, the world, fate. And in this simplicity — something no passerby, no samurai, no official understood. Only he and his bamboo knew that by playing emptiness, one can hear the whole.

The Philosophy of “Emptiness”

The komusō were the embodiment of one of the most radical ideas of Japanese Zen — muga (無我), “non-self.” In their life and practice, the aim was not morality, doctrine, or emotional catharsis, but the erasure of the subject. In a world where the face signified social place and the name — belonging, the komusō renounced both. Their tengai was thus not merely a symbol of modesty but a metaphysical tool: it abolished the boundary between the one who plays and that which is played. When sound emerged from the shakuhachi, it was not “a musician playing a melody” — it was sound playing through the human being. Muga did not mean “to forget oneself,” but “to allow that nothing be remembered.”

From this experience was born the doctrine expressed by the words ichion jōbutsu (一音成仏) — “one note toward enlightenment.” It was meant to signify that a single breath of the shakuhachi, played in absolute unity of body, mind, and emptiness, could lead to awakening (satori). In theory, it was an expression of Zen simplicity: instead of intricate sutras and years of practice — a single moment of total presence. But even in the Edo period, many masters criticized this idea as too literal, easy to abuse. The monk Myōan Taizan, a 17th-century commentator on the Fuke tradition, warned that “one note may lead to enlightenment — or plunge one into illusion,” for if sound is born of the ego, it is nothing but noise.

For the komusō, the sound of the shakuhachi was a kōan of the body — a question without words. It did not try to express anything, but laid bare the fact that there is no one to express. As Dōgen wrote in the “Shōbōgenzō,” “the sound of the wind, the sound of the flute — this is the voice of the Buddha.” But the Buddha, in this sense, is not someone external — it is consciousness that hears itself. The komusō, playing honkyoku, did not meditate about sound, but within sound.

In the existential sense, this was the practice of emptiness not as a concept, but as a lived condition of being nowhere. The komusō had no home, no family, no name, and no goal. Their solitude was total, and their path — without end. They lived in a world that had just emerged from an age of war (Sengoku), among samurai without lords, people shattered by chaos. In this world, “non-self” was an answer to the trauma of history: if the ego leads to violence, it must be dissolved. Their coolness, detachment, lack of emotion — this was not apathy, but a desert of spirit in which nothing gives birth to hatred.

The Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō wrote that in Zen, “action without a subject” (mushin no kōi) is the highest form of freedom — an act without an author is pure as the wind. The komusō lived precisely in this logic: their playing was an act without an author. They wandered through Edo like shadows, sometimes pausing, sometimes disappearing into the crowd. They were in the world, but not of this world.

How to Understand the Komusō Today

The modern world likes to name, describe, and absorb everything — even emptiness. That is why it is so easy to fall into the temptation of seeing the komusō as exotic mystics, musical monks floating above reality. But the truth is far harsher. The komusō did not exist to inspire; they existed to disappear. Their practice was not meant to be beautiful — it was meant to be true. Their shakuhachi was not relaxation music, but an existential test: can you produce a sound knowing that no one will ever hear it?

Yet from their legacy, a few quiet lessons can be drawn — lessons that require neither a straw basket nor a bamboo flute. The first is breath. Everything begins and ends with it. The simple komusō protocol — inhale, long exhale, pause in silence — is enough to slow the world down. It is not a “breathing technique,” but a reminder that every moment can be a honkyoku: a primordial composition for which we ourselves are the only instrument.

The second lesson is the minimal ritual. In an age of sensory excess, the komusō teach the poverty of perception. Their pilgrimages through Edo can be read today as micro-pilgrimages of daily life — short, slow passages in which the body and breath merge with space. One does not need to wander with a shakuhachi across the Shin-Ōhashi Bridge; it is enough to walk down one’s own street, seeking no destination. “Without purpose.”

The third is the ethics of anonymity. The komusō acted “without a face” — literally and symbolically. In a world that demands constant self-presentation, their stance reminds us that one can exist without a name and without an echo. To act without a signature, to create without the desire to be noticed. Not because it is noble, but because it is liberating. Though perhaps my very words “one can exist without a name” are themselves a misunderstanding. The komusō did not seek existence. They did not even seek nonexistence — as Zen would say: “there was no seeker.”

But let us return to our own, more logical and comprehensible everyday world. What else can we learn from the komusō? To avoid — above all — naïve mysticism. Much of the spiritual narrative about the komusō — the “one note to enlightenment,” the “Zen shakuhachi” — was formalized only in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the true wandering monks had already vanished from Japan’s roads. Inevitably, however, if we try to return to their original way of seeing the world, we will have to leave behind the world of logos — the world of word and reason. That is what kōans mean, and that is what the sound of the shakuhachi means. The world beyond logic and the forms created by the mind cannot be described — by words (which are themselves forms).

Emperor Wu of Liang asked Bodhidharma:
— Since ascending the throne, I have built many temples, copied sutras, and ordained monks. What merit have I gained?
Bodhidharma replied:
— None.
The emperor asked:
— Then what is the highest sacred truth?
Bodhidharma said:
— Boundless emptiness, nothing sacred.
The emperor asked:
— And who are you, standing before me?
Bodhidharma answered:
— I don’t know.

"Strong Japanese Women"

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    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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