Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Great photos of the 'mystery' gaijin and the komuso.  Thanks, Gishin.

James Nyoraku Schlefer wrote:

Thanks Gishin. Just checking. And undoubtecly in the 1930s the Westerner would be the student, so it is interesting to note that nowadays, 60-70 years later, the roles are often reversed.

Yes strangely this sort of things tends to happen more and more.

I guess this is mostly due to the rigidity and also price that comes with starting any traditional arts in Japan and that it seems to be hard to just practice because you like it. Most teachers are under some form of organization to which you have to belong pay dues etc. So this would be why it is getting harder to find a true teacher in anything in Japan nowadays. Even in Buddhism I ran into some troubles when trying to talk or ask questions in public to some monk who did not have a clue of what I was talking about and did not even seem to know the proper kanji for what I was talking about so just because me asking this made him loose face etc… you can see where that goes. Anyway since most temples now are handed down from father to son and that most sons are not motivated to do this type of work and never really studied to get the license they just got it politically trough their father’s pushing this is bound to happen. This is why many Japanese are loosing faith in the knowledge of most monks and the same goes with many traditional arts since they see many of the masters as either just inheritor by default of the school without having real competence or just pretentious traditionalists.