Blowing Zen: Finding an Authentic Life

The author shares his remarkable journey from a barfly with nothing to offer to a master of the Zen flute, revealing his long journey to live an authentic life. Original.

How does an electrical engineer from London find himself playing the flute on a hillside in Japan? Ray Brooks had had a piece of the good life, after all--high salary, late-night parties, fast cars. But in his late 20s, he did some soul searching, only to find that, spiritually speaking, the lights were on but no one was home. Some radical changes took him to Japan and a chance encounter with a master player of the shakuhachi, the Japanese vertical flute. He took it up and simultaneously absorbed the single-minded Zen discipline that seemed to imbue all facets of Japanese life. Brooks tells the story of his life in Japan, of his journey up the hill of gambatte (perseverance), and of his experiences in Japanese culture, such as his chat with a marathon monk and his not-quite-voluntary performance for members of the Japanese mafia. The title Blowing Zen refers to Zen monks who used flute playing as their meditative practice. One wishes more could have been made of this in Brook's memoir, of his own relationship to Zen and how exactly his life has become authentic. But perhaps this is too much to ask when the ineffability of music is coupled with the ineffability of Zen. --Brian Bruya