Tag Archives: Robuki

Meditation, Spirituality

Online Meditations 2022

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Did you know that my weekly online meditations, which I started in May 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic with the purpose of staying connected and blowing together for better health in the world, are still going on?

Every week on Wednesday, we blow shakuhachi and meditate together for 20 to 30 minutes on Zoom (10 to 15 minutes Chakra Meditation and 10 minutes RO-buki.).

During the sessions, the focus goes inwards. You connect to your body, to your inner peace through your breathing and blow with full awareness what your heart tells you (solidarity with the world’s sufferings, healing, compassion, love, emptiness, silence,…), uniting your sounds and efforts with those of the other participants. 

“A group of people coming together in a state of presence generate a collective energy field of great intensity.” (Eckhart Tolle)

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Shakuhachi practice

5 Steps for A Meaningful Shakuhachi Practice

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The first meditation lesson I listened to this year was by Charles Freligh about “10 Principles for Daily Living”. It resonated deeply with my shakuhachi practice, especially when he came to talk about Authenticity.

Authenticity is a combination of vulnerability and courage to show who we really are.

The answer to his question “when do you feel most authentic?” was immediate: “when I play shakuhachi“.
At the end of his lesson, I realised that when I practice shakuhachi, I cover all the 10 themes he talked about.

I found it so interesting that I translated his lesson into a “5-steps meaningful (daily) shakuhachi practice”.

I support Shakuhachi !

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Daily life, Shakuhachi inspiration

Dark and Light in 2020

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What a year!!

More than any year I have been struggling this year with the question of the usefulness of being an artist. The pandemic situation revived in me the urge to do something for others. What could I do as a shakuhachi player?

Insecurity

Insecurity is already part of an artistic life, whether you like it or not. So maybe, as an artist, I was better prepared to deal with the feeling of insecurity caused by the pandemic. This shows us how fragile – and strong- we are. Playing shakuhachi helps me to accept my vulnerability. At the same time, the deep breathing with long breaths quiets my mind and gives me strength. “A long and healthy breath to all” has become my daily prayer. Just blowing one note, RO, is enough to connect to the deep peace inside me. When I play ROBUKI online together with my meditation group, I feel my sense of groundedness increasing, I feel the energy flowing through my body and the negative emotions being chased away.

Connect

Connecting to people became suddenly challenging. Coping with the lockdowns and the constant changes of situation throughout the year, months after months, has been really difficult. I am grateful that some of my students followed me online and that I could continue teaching and interacting with them. I am grateful that I got to know new students from different countries. The closing of physical borders opened a digital world of Zoom lessons ; travel issues turned into Internet connection stability and digital sound quality problems ; but still we remain connected and this feels good.

As a teacher, my best reward is when I hear students connect deeply to the shakuhachi. It can be during a few notes or an entire piece and it has nothing to do with technical level. During these magical moments, it doesn’t matter that the sound travels through the microphone and speakers of the computer: it just goes directly from heart to heart.

2020 = SHARE

So what could I do? Nothing else but keeping on doing my work, as good as I can. Teach, compose, inspire, send good vibes and share shakuhachi music.
SHARE has been my main goal for 2020, the one I set at the beginning of the year in January, it has been my mantra, my good resolution. I am grateful I had one because it truly helped me through the year. Although it turned out differently from my intention in January, things happened that not had happened without the current situation.

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Meditation, Spirituality

ROBUKI & Loving-Kindness

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WORLD SHAKUHACHI DAY on October 8 – Let’s blow 108 RO!

Blow away Covid-19 !

This week there will be the first World Shakuhachi Day. We will blow 108 R0 to “express condolence with victims of Covid-19, sympathy and encouragement to infected and hospitalized patients, and to dedicate a heartfelt thanks to the medical staff and hope for a solution to fight back the disease. Let’s blow 108 Ro with the spirit of bowing away this global pandemic.”

As my ROBUKI practice lasts normally around 10 minutes, I trained counting until 108 RO and it took me 27 minutes (4 RO / minute). I didn’t have difficulty to count, putting a mental mark every 12 RO up to 9 times. Keeping a regular breathing rhythm and relaxing in the sound help me to stay focused.

If you have difficulties to count until 108, here are some tips about how to keep track of 108 RO.

For my following sessions of 108 RO, I put on the timer on 27 minutes, with a bell ring every 3 minutes (=12 ROx9). This helps me to hold on to my rhythm of 4 RO / minute and enables me to notice immediately if my breath becomes a little more shallow or my lips tense up.

On Thursday October 8, I will be celebrating the World Shakuhachi Day online at 8:30 PM (UTC+2) with a ROBUKI of 27 minutes (108 RO). If you would like to join, just contact me. All you need is a shakuhachi and a computer or a tablet with a webcam.
Let’s blow 108 RO together!

Next to this event, ROBUKI is is part of my regular shakuhachi meditation. I like to put on the timer instead of counting how many RO I blow because it allows me to concentrate fully on my favourites meditation practices, which are the Loving-Kindness and the Tonglen Meditations.

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Shakuhachi inspiration

Blog Shakuhachi COMMUNITY (English & Français)

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Online Komuso

You might have noticed that, since the third anniversary of my blog, I added a “support” button on my home page and at the end of each post. A few people have started to donate and I am very grateful to them.
The decision of adding a “Support” or “Donation” button was not an easy one . When I started this blog, I had no idea whether I would stop after 3 posts nor how it would be received. And here we are, more than 3 years later, and I am very proud to say that my blog is being read every single day somewhere in the world (in more than 100 different countries) almost since the beginning!! This is the greatest support I could ever have dreamed of and this is way beyond my expectations.
However, to reach this state and to be able to continue to develop the blog, I upgraded the free version to a paid one, as well as for my Soundcloud account, on which I uploaded dozens of recordings in order to help my students to study the repertoire and also to share our Hijiri-Kai music on this website. Upgrades cost money, and the writing of the posts plus the recording and editing of the music, cost time and energy. Time and energy that I am more than happy to spend! But as a professional full-time freelance musician, I also need to earn my living.

The alternative to offering the possibility a voluntary donation would be adding ads. It is not what I want for this blog and I will keep it “ads free” as long as possible. The donation fits better to my shakuhachi philosophy: I feel connected to the Komuso (begging monks) tradition through this online version!

I support shakuhachi music

When you subscribe to my blog, it is actually called a Membership. As I like this idea a lot, I have been thinking about it for a while – especially since the global lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In these particular and difficult times of social distancing, I feel even more how we all are connected, and how important it is to keep blowing together and stay in touch.
So I have come up with a few ideas to make possible that a donation through my blog becomes a real Membership. After the amazing experience of the Robuki wave across the planet, I would like to use this opportunity to set up an English and a French community group!!

As it is difficult to make long term plans at the moment, I’d like to start with a trial period of 2 months (May-June 2020) and see how it goes.

STARTING on Wednesday, MAY 6!

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Daily life, Meditation

Shakuhachi at home

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I hope this post finds you well. The situation in the world at the moment is so chaotic, how are you coping with it? I am grateful to be healthy. Where I live, I feel reasonably safe. Of course, there is always a little risk, but we stay at home most of the time, are very careful when going shopping and hardly see anyone from outside. We are not locked down in the Netherlands, and as my husband and I live very close to a nature preserve, we can enjoy the beautiful spring in the early morning and late evening, when it is very quiet. (photo: Wim Scheenen)

As I am used to working a lot at home, I thought that it wouldn’t change too much for me, but actually it does. I think that the main difficulty is the uncertainty. How long will the current situation last? I fully realise now how much time I normally spend planning and organising things on a long term basis, and now, it is week after week… The second difficulty is the social distancing. Luckily we have computers, phones and media. I must say that the daily online Robuki has become a great meeting point to blow together and stay connected. In all these circumstances, the shakuhachi and its wisdom helps me go through these difficult times. What does it bring to me?

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Daily life, Spirituality

Robuki in the Time of Covid-19

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When most of us on the planet are more or less locked down at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, when lots of stressful information are endless released all around the world, I was wondering “what can I do, as a shakuhachi player?” And then I got this message from Kiku Day:

“We are a group of shakuhachi players who did a little brain storm and we came up with the idea of a ROBUKI WAVE. We suggest to make a ROBUKI WAVE across our planet as a gesture of solidarity, contemplation and healing of the situation with Covid-19 we are in at present! Join us playing ROBUKI at 12 noon your own time for as long or short as you want. We start tomorrow Monday 23rd March 2020! We will at least continue for a week and see if we continue further. Imagine as the Earth rotate there will be people playing robuki at 12 noon across the whole planet. […Facebook event details…] We will try to make a video with ROBUKIi across the whole planet afterwards.”

I immediately loved the idea of blowing RO together to connect and join our efforts and thoughts for the planet. I passed on the message to my students and friends in the Netherlands & Belgium and some of them reacted with a strong enthusiasm. This made me think that it would be nice to meet up online to blow together. I had never used ZOOM before, so it was a good opportunity to learn quickly how to use it and set up a daily Robuki-meeting!

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