During my last holiday trip I spared a time seeing a recital of piano, cello, and shakuhachi.

The shakuhachi player played this solo shakuhachi piece. It was titled Koku (literally translates as "Empty Sky").

He talked about it a bit before he played the piece. He talked about the character "Ko" that made up the title "Koku" and what it meant. He talked about a Stephen Hawking episode about Big Bang and about the non-existence of universe before the big bang, and how difficult it is to grasp the concept of what predates the big bang; to understand the nihilism, the absence of time, the absence of being. He said that the character "Ko", though can be literally translated as "empty", has a meaning that to him is as difficult to grasp as the "pre-big bang" concept.

He said he was going to play the piece, that it would be ten minutes long, and he advised us to not pay attention to the piece and instead let our minds wander. He said to let the music fade into the background, that some music is meant to be enjoyed that way, and it was one of them.

Right before he blew the shakuhachi he told us, "Okay, I'll see you in ten minutes."


I don't know if I would've liked the piece as much as I did, had it not been preceded by such a talk. What I know is that the piece was one I enjoyed the most, and one that struck me the most, and the one that I was talking about when I wrote in my journal the moment I went home.