komusō

The Komusō (虚無僧) ("priest of nothingness" or "monk of emptiness") were wandering non-monastic lay Buddhists from the warrior-class (samurai and rōnin) who were noted for wearing straw basket hats called tengai and playing the shakuhachi bamboo flute, nowadays called suizen (吹禅, 'Zen of blowing (the flute)'). During the Edo period (1600–1868) they obtained various rights and privileges from the bakufu, the ruling elite. The 18th and 19th century saw a popularization of shakuhachi-playing among lay-people, accompanied by the interpretation and legitimation of this laicization in spiritual and esthetical terms derived from the Zen-tradition, to which the komusō nominally belonged. In the 19th century the komusō-tradition became known as the Fuke-shū (普化宗, Fuke sect) or Fuke Zen, after the pub...