Fukui  Tsuyoki

Japan

Music Forest 森のひびき was invited to perform at the Sound of Samadhi Concert held on 27 Sep 2015

Performers: Tsuyoki Fukui 福井幹 and Yumi Ogawa 小川由美子

Happy to You

Sound of Samadhi is a biennial concert organised by Kwan Yin Chan Lin Zen Meditation Centre to allow city dwellers an evening experience of relaxation and peace, returning to the simplicity and purity of life. The concert showcased intricately choreographed pieces on the flute and harp by Tsuyoki Fukui and Yumiko Ogawa, and tunes depicting the scenery of the mountains performed together with guest musicians, Zen Master Ji Haeng (Thom Pastor), KMSPKS Zen Drum Ensemble and PMT The Music Tree.

fukui-tsuyoki.com

Made  Without  Hands

Jack  Jenkins

I walk this path

around the lake

not every day,

but over the years

I’ve walked it a lot.

I’ve come to think of it

as a day’s cycle,

one rotation of the earth.

It seems the same,

this graveled path

with lots of stones.

I think of these stones

as all the words I’ve spoken

in my seventy years.

What I said yesterday

lies before me,

what I say today

will show tomorrow.

Whether I admit to it or not

the stones all bear my name.

I have spoken a lot of words.

I picked one up today,

a fragment that once was whole

but with sharp edges now.

Maybe this is why we need shoes.

You know God walks this path.

He has to.

It’s the only path around the lake.

He knows the situation.

So if the words I speak

create this path,

I can’t complain.

Maybe one day

we may take off our shoes.

Maybe one day

we will stop casting stones.

the  storm

The  Man  Watching

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after

so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes,

that a storm is coming,

and I feel the far-off fields say things

I can’t bear without a friend,

I can’t love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on

across the woods and across time,

and the world looks as if it had no age:

the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,

is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights with us is so great!

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it’s with small things,

and the triumph itself makes us small.

What is extraordinary and eternal

does not  want  to be bent by us.

I mean the Angel, who appeared

to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:

when the wrestlers sinews

grew like long metal strings,

he felt them under his fingers

like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by his Angel,

(who often simply declined the fight),

went away proud and strengthened

and great from that harsh hand,

that kneaded him as if to change his shape.

This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively

By constantly greater beings.

Rainer Maria Rilke   translated by  Robert Bly