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 and playing the shakuhachi bamboo flute. During the Edo period (1600–1868) they obtained various rights and privileges from the bakufu, the ruling elite. In the 19th century they became designated as the Fuke-shū (Japanese: 普化宗, Fuke sect) or Fuke Zen, after the publication of the Kyotaku denki (1795), which created a fictitious Rinzai Zen lineage of the eccentric Zen master Puhua (J. Fuke) of Tang China, to legitimize the existence and rights of the komusō.

Their rights were abolished in 1867, but interest in their music style stayed alive. The practice of playing the shakuhachi bamboo flute has retroactively been called suizen, 'the Zen of blowing (the flute)'. A number of the pieces they composed and performed, called honkyoku, are preserved, and since the 1970s interest in this style of music has grown, accompanied by a recreation of the Fuke-shū founding narrative.