Brooklyn-born Ronnie Selden is a certified grand master of the bamboo-carved shakuhachi flute. On these nine exquisite tracks, Selden connects with the timeless sense of serenity, longing, and mystery that is at the heart of Zen meditation. In this music, the space between notes, the breath, the bending of the reeds, is all part of the experience. The playing is itself a meditation. So this CD, on which Seldin plays mostly unaccompanied, makes for a very worthwhile non-linguistic guide to deep meditation. Tunes range from haunting monotonal exercises like "Daiwa-Gaku" to mournful meditations such as "Shizukesa." Most of these are traditional compositions, but Seldin offers some originals, such as "Five Minutes More," undoubtedly a Brooklynite's sly homage to Frank Sinatra, and/or an ironic comment on the fleeting nature of time. Slow, dreamlike, almost surreal, this music is as ancient as it gets, yet as urgent and in-the-moment as one's next breath. A little on the ascetic side, this is serious business: the non-symbolic definition of transcendental.