From The Maui News, March 30, 1997
Zen Guitar Accompanies Song of Life
By Liz Janes
"Zen Guitar is nothing more than playing the song we're all born with inside--the song that makes us human."
Philip Toshio Sudo has written a simple little book called Zen Guitar. It's about how to approach your life whether you're a musician or not.
Now, Phil is a musician. "I really wrote it for myself," he said of the book. "This is the way I want to live my life. I put it on paper and put my name to it. It's a mission statement to myself."
An official musician for the New York Marathon, Phil saw the race as a metaphor for life. By way of explanation, the New York Marathon approves musicians to play along the route to encourage runners.
"I thought, 'This is what I want to do with my music.' It was like the parade of life going by. They would catch the music as they passed and be inspired to go on.
"We played nonstop from the first runner to the last, three and a half or four hours with no break. We didn't want a runner to go by without hearing the music. Some of them would stop in front of us and dance, they had so much energy," Phil said.
After moving to Maui, Phil spent several months working on the book. This year, the volume Phil wrote and designed himself, has been published by Simon & Schuster.
"I'm not a zen master," he said. "But everybody is a teacher and a student in their lives. I've lived a certain amount of time and learned a certain amount of things."
While the small volume may be of particular interest to musicians, "It's for anybody, not just guitar players. The guitar helps me illustrate lessons about zen, life lessons."
The book is laced with quotes from musicians ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Les Paul, folks who probably wouldn't say they were following the path of zen.
"Zen is just a name we give to a certain body of wisdom," he said. "It's just a name. The wisdom is there and might be called a different thing. These musicians might say things about a guitar that is the essence of zen."
Zen Guitar contains 58 "lessons" from a welcome to the Zen Guitar Dojo to a final poem, "The Way of Zen Guitar." And while the book definitely has a musical slant, the lessons can be applied to any endeavor and any instrument whether it be a guitar or a computer. Phil says he has received comments from people who tell him the book has helped them with everything from flying lessons to mastering a steno machine used in a courtroom.
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