What are some good Zen poets like Basho?
>>7717798
>>7717804
Useless trolls like that bitch don't represent /lit/. Anyone with half a brain already realizes literature is a global culture.
I recommend Hakuin to complement Basho.
Masaoka Shiki, Santoka Taneda, Ikkyu, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, Hakuin, Ryokan, and be sure to read the Zen Koans and the Tao Te Ching.
>>7717790
Ikkyu is great, both his life and work.
>>7717838
>Zen Koans
Any recommended books on this?
>>7717845
Give me a minute and I'll compile some works for you and post them here. Hang on.
>>7717853
That would be great.
This is going to be pretty long, so expect multiple posts. Okay, here we go.
Santoka Taneda Poems:
These few ashes
Are all that remain
Of my diary?
If I sell my rags
And buy some sake
Will there still be loneliness
It’s likely to be able to pass away
In a calm frame of mind
In the fresh green grasses
The milky way
At midnight
A drunkard dances
Westerners like to conquer mountains;
Orientals like to contemplate them.
As for me, I like to taste the mountains
Slapping at the flies
Slapping at the mosquitoes
Slapping at myself
The beauty of the sunset
Shows no grief
For old age
There is nothing else I can do;
I walk on and on
Wet with morning dew
I go in the direction I want
*****
Masaoka Shiki Poems:
A stray cat
excreting
in the winter garden.
After killing
a spider, how lonely I feel
in the cold of night!
Consider me
As one who loved poetry
And persimmons.
For love and for hate
I swat a fly and offer it
to an ant.
for me going
for you staying here
two autumns
green in the field
was pounded into
rice cake
in the coolness
gods and Buddhas
dwell as neighbors
rice reaping—
no smoke rising from
the cremation ground today
how much longer
is my life?
a brief night…
I thought I felt
a dewdrop on me
as I lay in bed
I want to sleep
Swat the flies
Softly, please.
It is cold, but
we have sake
and the hot spring
May rain
falls as if falling
into a sleep
On how to sing
the frog school and the skylark school
are arguing.
One canary escaped:
the spring day
is at its end.
one spoonful
of ice cream brings me
back to life
relieved of a burden
in the everyday life
an afternoon nap
splitting wood
my sister alone -
wintering
The man
I used to meet in the mirror
is no more.
Now I see a wasted face.
It dribbles tears.
I do not know the day
my pain will end yet
in the little garden
I had them plant
seeds of autumn flowers
the nettle nuts are falling…
the little girls next door
don't visit me these days
The year begins
on New Year's day
our life is Now
Under the moonlight, cuckoo cried as if it coughed up blood.
The sad voice kept me waking up,
the cry reminded me of my old home town far away.
Weary of reading
I go out into a field
a hazy field
with advancing autumn
I am without gods
without Buddha
behind the stand
of winter trees
a red sunset
A spring day
A long line of footprints
On the sandy beach.
a snail
luring rain clouds
with feeler tips
Ikkyu, excerpts from Skeletons
Students, sit earnestly in zazen, and you will realize that everything born in this world is ultimately empty, including oneself and the original face of existence. All things indeed emerge out of emptiness. The original formlessness is the "Buddha," and all other similar terms -- Buddha-nature, Buddhahood, Buddha-mind, Awakened One, Patriarch, God -- are merely different express- ions for the same emptiness. Misunderstand this and you will end up in hell.
. . .
Toward dawn I dozed off, and in my dream I found myself surrounded by a group of skeletons . . . . One skeleton came over to me and said:
Memories
Flee and
Are no more.
All are empty dreams
Devoid of meaning.
Violate the reality of things
And babble about
"God" and "the Buddha"
And you will never find
the true Way.
. . .
I liked this skeleton . . . . He saw things clearly, just as they are. I lay there with the wind in the pines whispering in my ears and the autumn moonlight dancing across my face.
What is not a dream? Who will not end up as a skeleton? We appear as skeletons covered with skin -- male and female -- and lust after each other. When the breath expires, though, the skin ruptures, sex disappears, and there is no more high or low. Underneath the skin of the person we fondle and caress right now is nothing more than a set of bare bones. Think about it -- high and low, young and old, male and female, all are the same. Awaken to this one great matter and you will immediately comprehend the meaning of "unborn and undying."
Yosa Buson Poems:
Blown from the west,
fallen leaves gather
in the east.
Calligraphy of geese
against the sky--
the moon seals it.
Coolness--
the sound of the bell
as it leaves the bell.
Dawn--
fish the cormorants haven't caught
swimming in the shallows.
He's on the porch,
to escape the wife and kids--
how hot it is!
His Holiness the Abbot
is shitting
in the withered fields.
Lighting one candle
with another candle--
spring evening.
My arm for a pillow,
I really like myself
under the hazy moon.
Not quite dark yet
and the stars shining
above the withered fields.
Over-ripe sushi,
The Master
Is full of regret.
Sparrow singing--
its tiny mouth
open.
They end their flight
one by one---
crows at dusk.
tilling the field:
the man who asked the way
has disappeared
Kobayashi Issa Poems:
All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.
Asked how old he was,
the boy in the new kimono
stretched out all five fingers.
Look, don't kill that fly!
It is making a prayer to you
By rubbing its hands and feet.
Approaching my village:
Don't know about the people,
but all the scarecrows
are crooked.
Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.
Even with insects--
some can sing,
some can't.
I'm going out,
flies, so relax,
make love.
In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.
Napping at midday
I hear the song of rice planters
and feel ashamed of myself.
No doubt about it,
the mountain cuckoo
is a crybaby.
That wren--
looking here, looking there.
You lose something?
The toad! It looks like
it could belch
a cloud.
This moth saw brightness
in a woman's chamber--
burnt to a crisp
Under my house
an inchworm
measuring the joists.
Visiting the graves,
the old dog
leads the way.
At my daughter's grave, thirty days
after her death:
Windy fall--
these are the scarlet flowers
she liked to pick.
With my father
I would watch dawn
over green fields.
Writing shit about new snow
for the rich
is not art.
Santoka Taneda:
As muddy water flows
It becomes clear.
. . .
Days I don't enjoy:
Any day I don't walk.
Any day I don't drink sakè.
Any day I don't compose haiku.
. . .
Pierce the poverty of the poorest man,
Throw yourself into the most foolish foolishness.
Rather than imitate anyone else
Use the nature you were born with.
. . .
Sakè for the body, haiku for the heart;
Sakè is the haiku of the body,
Haiku is the sakè of the heart.
. . .
When I die:
Weeds, falling rain.
. . .
My Three Precepts:
Do not waste anything.
Do not get angry.
Do not complain.
My Three Vows:
Do not attempt the impossible.
Do not feel regret for the past.
Do not berate oneself.
My Three Joys:
Study.
Contemplation.
Haiku.
"The autumn breeze of a single night of love is better than a hundred thousand years of sterile sitting meditation." - Ikkyu Sojun
Ikkyu Sojun:
My self of long ago,
In nature non-existent;
Nowhere to go when dead,
Nothing at all.
. . .
All the sins committed
In the Three Worlds
Will fade and disappear
Together with myself.
. . .
If at the end of our journey
There be no final resting place,
How can there be
A way to lose ourselves in?’
. . .
The mind,—
What shall we call it?
It is the sound of the breeze
That blows through the pines
In the Indian-ink picture.
. . .
Rain, hail, snow and ice
Are divided from one another;
But after they fall,
They are the same water
Of the stream in the valley.
. . .
Of Heaven or Hell we have
No recollection, no knowledge;
We must become what we were
Before we were born.
. . .
Do not take it to heart;
The real way
Is one, itself as it is;
There are not two, or three.
Zen Koans:
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
. . .
Is That So?
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life.
A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.
In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.
After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbours and everything else he needed.
A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth - the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back.
Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"
. . .
A Parable
Buddha told a parable in sutra:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
Muddy Road
Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.
Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.
"Come on, girl" said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.
Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"
"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"
Ryokan Poems:
Stretched Out
Stretched out,
Tipsy,
Under the vast sky:
Splendid dreams
Beneath the cherry blossoms.
. . .
To Kindle A Fire
To kindle a fire,
the autumn winds have piled
a few dead leaves.
. . .
Yes, I’m Truly a Dunce
Yes, I’m truly a dunce
Living among trees and plants.
Please don’t question me about illusion and enlightenment --
This old fellow just likes to smile to himself.
I wade across streams with bony legs,
And carry a bag about in fine spring weather.
That’s my life,
And the world owes me nothing.
. . .
Reply To A Friend
In stubborn stupidity, I live on alone
befriended by trees and herbs.
Too lazy to learn right from wrong,
I laugh at myself, ignoring others.
Lifting my bony shanks, I cross the stream,
a sack in my hand, blessed by spring weather.
Living thus, I want for nothing,
at peace with all the world.
Your finger points to the moon,
but the finger is blind until the moon appears.
What connection has moon and finger?
Are they separate objects or bound?
This is a question for beginners
wrapped in seas of ignorance.
Yet one who looks beyond metaphor
knows there is no finger; there is no moon.
. . .
Rise Above
you must rise above
the gloomy clouds
covering the mountaintop
otherwise, how will you
ever see the brightness?
The Monkey Is Reaching
by Hakuin
The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.
Taneda Santoka Poems:
High noon--in the deep grass
The cry of a frog
Being swallowed by a snake.
. . .
The cockroaches also
Have no food;
Did they eat my books?
. . .
What a splendid inn!
Mountains in both directions
And a sakè shop in front.
. . .
I've rice,
Books,
And tobacco.
. . .
Without any destination
I walk between the tombstones.
. . .
The starving cat cries;
I have nothing to give him.
. . .
Hidden away in
A broken-down hut,
My broken-down life.
. . .
Red urine—
How long will I be able
To continue this journey?
One by one
letting the cool breeze through:
finger holes of the flute
- Masaoka Shiki
Unable yet to die
flowers on the other shore
in bloom
- Taneda Santoka
"More than the cherry blossoms,
Inviting a wind to blow them away,
I am wondering what to do,
With the remaining springtime."
- Asano Naganori
Why post all this?
Osamu Dazai Quotes:
“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”
“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.
Everything passes.
That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.
Everything passes.”
“Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.”
“I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.”
“Last year nothing happened
The year before nothing happened
And the year before that nothing
happened.”
“As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.”
“What did he mean by "society"? The plural of human beings?”
“All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know.”
. . .
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa Quotes:
“I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed."
“Isn't there someone kind enough to strangle me in my sleep?”
“It is unfortunate for the gods that, unlike us, they cannot commit suicide.”
“Yes -- or rather, it's not so much that I want to die as that I'm tired of living.”
"This is Kunikida Doppo, a poet who had a vivid recognition of the humour of the coolie who hurls himself in front of an unrushing train."
“He wanted to live life so intensely that he could die at any moment without regrets.”
“What is the life of a human being—a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.”
“Everyone is the same under the skin.”
“These works are handed down from teacher to pupil, from parent to child, almost without question, like DNA. They are memorized, recited, discussed in book reports, included in university entrance exams, and once the student is grown up, they become a source for quotation. They are made into movies again and again, they are parodied, and inevitably they become the object of ambitious young writers’ revolt and contempt.”
Li Bai Poems:
Amusing Myself
Facing my wine, I did not see the dusk,
Falling blossoms have filled the folds of my clothes.
Drunk, I rise and approach the moon in the stream,
Birds are far off, people too are few.
. . .
Staying the Night at a Mountain Temple
The high tower is a hundred feet tall,
From here one's hand could pluck the stars.
I do not dare to speak in a loud voice,
I fear to disturb the people in heaven.
Taigu Ryokan: Poems:
Too Lazy To Be Ambitious
Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
The Thief Left It Behind
The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window.
Begging
today's begging is finished; at the crossroads
i wander by the side of hachiman shrine
talking with some children.
last year, a foolish monk;
this year, no change!
>>7717943
So people who are interested can read it.
Ban this cunt
No Mind
With no mind, flowers lure the
butterfly;
With no mind, the butterfly visits
the blossoms.
Yet when flowers bloom, the butterfly
comes;
When the butterfly comes, the
flowers bloom.
For Children Killed In A Smallpox Epidemic
When spring arrives
From every tree tip
Flowers will bloom,
But those children
Who fell with last autumn’s leaves
Will never return.
I Watch People In The World
I watch people in the world
Throw away their lives lusting after things,
Never able to satisfy their desires,
Falling into deeper despair
And torturing themselves.
Even if they get what they want
How long will they be able to enjoy it?
For one heavenly pleasure
They suffer ten torments of hell,
Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone.
Such people are like monkeys
Frantically grasping for the moon in the water
And then falling into a whirlpool.
How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer.
Despite myself, I fret over them all night
And cannot staunch my flow of tears.
You Do Not Need Many Things
My house is buried in the deepest recess of the forest
Every year, ivy vines grow longer than the year before.
Undisturbed by the affairs of the world I live at ease,
Woodmen’s singing rarely reaching me through the trees.
While the sun stays in the sky, I mend my torn clothes
And facing the moon, I read holy texts aloud to myself.
Let me drop a word of advice for believers of my faith.
To enjoy life’s immensity, you do not need many things.
The Way Of The Holy Fool
At the crossroads this year, after
begging all day
I lingered at the village temple.
Children gather round me and
whisper,
'The crazy monk has come back
to play.'
Midsummer
Midsummer --
I walk about with my staff.
Old farmers spot me
And call me over for a drink.
We sit in the fields
using leaves for plates.
Pleasantly drunk and so happy
I drift off peacefully
Sprawled out on a paddy bank.
First Days Of Spring - The sky
First days of Spring-the sky
is bright blue, the sun huge and warm.
Everything's turning green.
Carrying my monk's bowl, I walk to the village
to beg for my daily meal.
The children spot me at the temple gate
and happily crowd around,
dragging to my arms till I stop.
I put my bowl on a white rock,
hang my bag on a branch.
First we braid grasses and play tug-of-war,
then we take turns singing and keeping a kick-ball in the air:
I kick the ball and they sing, they kick and I sing.
Time is forgotten, the hours fly.
People passing by point at me and laugh:
'Why are you acting like such a fool?'
I nod my head and don't answer.
I could say something, but why?
Do you want to know what's in my heart?
From the beginning of time: just this! just this!
>>7717951
Be like water young troll
Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.
The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one's aim is to die a dog's death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim.
If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he pains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.
The person without previous resolution to inevitable death makes certain that his death will be in bad form. But if one is resolved to death beforehand, in what way can he be despicable? One should be especially diligent in this concern.
Thus, the Way of the Samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death, considering whether it will be here or be there, imagining the most sightly way of dying, and putting one's mind firmly in death. Although this may be a most difficult thing, if one will do it, it can be done. There is nothing that one should suppose cannot be done.
It is said that becoming as a dead man in one's daily living is the following of the path of sincerity.
If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo, from Hagakure “The Book of the Samurai”
Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.
Miyamoto Musashi, from Gorin No Sho "Book of Five Rings”
One who is a samurai must before all things keep in mind, by day, and by night, the fact that he has to die. That is his chief business.
The Bushido Code
And that's the last of it.
>>7717940
^_^ You're very welcome. Enjoy (preferable with some sake).
I love Zen Koans and Parables, but mostly for the cheeky banter and one-upmanship like in Muddy Road
>>7717951
Fuck off. I like the poems he's posting and am grateful. Look at the other threads up. If anything, all the other OPs should be banned except this one. Now fuck off, faggot.
>>7717975
Muddy Road is our favorite, too. ^_^
Of course, one could argue that the very search for the ‘roots of modernism’ in any national tradition is a contradictory, futile exercise based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what modernism actually was. After all, as the distinguished art critic Herbert Read pointed out long ago, Western modernism represented, more than anything else, an ‘abrupt break with all tradition ... The aim of five centuries of European effort is openly abandoned’. In short, modernism was a development without ‘historical parallel’.44 And the writer C.S. Lewis also emphasized that modernist artists such as ‘the Cubists, the Dadaists, the Surrealists, and Picasso’ were ‘shatter- ingly and bewilderingly new’, and that modernist poetry too was ‘new in a new way, almost in a new dimen- sion’.45 In their classic study of literary modernism, Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane identify the anti-traditional impulse that is at the heart of the mod- ernist project: ‘the shock, the violation of expected con- tinuities, the element of de-creation and crisis is a crucial element of the [modernist] style’.46 This being the case, why then should we expect any form of modernism, Eastern or Western, to be ‘rooted in tradition’? The very idea seems oxymoronic. Ideologically if not quite in actual fact, modernism must remain rootless, or even ‘uprooted’. And certainly it seems almost perverse to claim that any form of modernism is ‘inauthentic’ on the grounds that it is ‘rootless’. On the contrary, one could argue that the more rootless any particular art-
>>7717976
That's not very zen
work was, the more authentically modernist it would be (although ‘absolute rootlessness’ is also probably a cultural-historical impossibility).
Thus, although Kawakita’s treatment of Japanese modernism seems more knowledgeable and discriminat- ing than Stanley-Baker’s or the two Keenes’, ultimately it bases itself on the same cultural-nationalist doctrine that art, to be ‘authentic’, must be ‘rooted’ in the national tradition. The credo that was at the heart of modernism – that a whole new art could be and needed to be created that was ‘liberated’ both from the nation and from tra- dition, an art that, in response to the conditions and demands of modernity, was both cosmopolitan and rad- ically new or ‘uprooted’ – this fundamental modernist credo was given no more credence by Kawakita than by his Western counterparts of the 1980s.
At any rate, the best argument for the ‘authenticity’ of Japanese modernism, if one were needed, derives not from its rootedness in Japanese tradition but from its ‘organic’ relation to the actual historical situation of early 20th-century Japan. Whether in its Eastern or Western varieties, modernism is best seen from such a historicist perspective because it was, indeed, in a very real sense, time-bound, with its emphasis on the always-new. We live in age of continual crisis and transition, what has been called a liminoid state, always on the threshold but never completely at home, and modernist artists are responding to this new reality of radical impermanence and instability (as Solzhenitsyn himself recognized). If they are ‘authentic’ artists, how can they do otherwise?
>>7717970
OP here i would also like to thank you.
Needless to say, Japan had been undergoing a ‘period of rapid and fundamental change’, to return to Solz- henitsyn’s phrase, since the mid-19th century – in addi- tion to the conditions of early modernity already established in the Edo period. And, as in the West, the progress of modernity in Japan was marked by a number of major traumatic events (like the First World War in Europe): most notably, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the increasing incidence of popular riots in the 1910s, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and the rise of militarism and of a fascist ‘police state’ in the 1930s and ’40s.
As a matter of fact, a similar argument has often been made about Japanese fascism as about Japanese mod- ernism: that it was not a true and ‘authentic’ fascism because of its differences from the ‘original’ European fascism, differences represented especially by its use of certain Japanese religio-political ‘traditions’, such as the emperor-system and national Shinto– . In his recent study of the issue, Walter Skya throws much light exactly on this vexed question of how the ‘traditional’ Shinto– religion was made to serve the purposes of a ‘mod- ern’ Japanese fascism. Through studies of a number of nationalist ideologues, he shows how radical ultra- nationalist Shinto– was used to ‘mobilize the masses’ for conquest and war – most especially, the ‘holy war’ against the West. At the heart of Skya’s analysis is his contention that ‘a fundamental transformation in the ideology of Shinto– ultranationalism took place in the Taisho– period’, and that this transformation was necess- ary because earlier nationalist ideologies (most notably as propounded by Hozumi Yatsuka) portrayed the masses as ‘passive political objects to be acted on’ and thus had
>>7717905
>Memories
>Flee and
>Are no more.
>All are empty dreams
>Devoid of meaning.
>Violate the reality of things
>And babble about
>"God" and "the Buddha"
>And you will never find
>the true Way.
I loved this
Skya writes: ‘Loyalty to the emperor was religious devotion.... Personal union with the emperor was the individual’s ultimate objective; it was this objective that was at the heart of radical Shinto– ultranationalist ideology. The individual was driven beyond the self to his essential being, to the emperor ...’48 Empha- sizing the religio-political tenor of these developments, Skya characterizes them as shaped largely by the rise of a ‘radical Shinto– ultranationalism’. But, as he also recog- nizes, these developments had much in common with
Gender issues had innocently reared their head, and this time Kyòan responded sympathetically. “I thought it too pitiful, so as consolation I quietly presented her with this poem: ‘Just for today, don’t think / about being a girl, and make / some poems that curse men too’ (Kyò ni shite / omina to kokoro / okazu shite / onoko nonoshiru / uta mo aranamu). Tekkan later embarrassed me terribly by making an amusing story out of it and telling several people” (pp. 50–51).12
Soon Gettei, whom they had been forced to leave behind in Osaka, arrived, “mopping his brow,” but Gangetsu, Baikei, Tetsunan, and “Miss Òtori, for whom Miss Yamakawa [wanting another woman to keep her company] was waiting impatiently” were yet to appear.13 Those present boarded the train for the short hop to Hamadera and the beach, and Kyòan proudly guided his friends through the pines to the Inn of Long Life, which he knew from Suimei’s going-away party, held there not long before. Once settled in a room on the inn’s second floor, the four removed their loose haori jackets, and with fans and ice provided by the inn, began to cool off in the sweltering heat.
Relaxed at last, they admired the pines and the sea and sipped tea while Kyòan and Gettei filled the time by writing poems on the topic “weary of wait- ing.” When at last the people who had caused the weariness arrived, “four and four faced off, cries of ‘So sorry!’ and ‘Don’t mention it!’ colliding in a match neither side could win. For a time it seemed there was a huge storm in the pines.” Everyone, at any rate, was now present: Yosano Tekkan, Nakayama Kyòan, Òtsuki Gettei, Yamakawa Tomiko; Taku Gangetsu, Kòno Tetsunan, Takasu Baikei, and Òtori Akiko. They lunched, bathed, put on the light cotton
kimono provided by the inn and, as a welcome breeze ruffled the blinds, “the grand party began.”
Tekkan initiated the proceedings with this poem:
You needn’t hide it in your purple collar—just smile as you remember it then I’ll be happy even if I die
Murasaki no / eri ni himezu mo / omoiidete / kimi hohoemaba / shinan to mo yoshi
The words murasaki, omoiidete, and shinan to mo yoshi (purple, remembrance, I could happily die) mark this as a love poem. A man and a woman must part, but he declares that he will die happy if she only smiles “as you remember.” What he hopes she will remember is of course him, but it is also what “you needn’t hide . . . in your purple collar.” Only a few months later, Tekkan was to write of “a secret poem on the lining of your purple collar,” so the memento that the speaker hopes will make his lover smile here is most likely also a poem.14 It is probably, in fact, the very poem we are reading, and which, we may imagine, the speaker is reciting to his beloved as an expression of his eter- nal love. In this way, Tekkan began the workshop with a fusion of what were by then his two great themes, love and poetry.
Tomiko followed, with her distinctive combination of poetic ambition and personal modesty:
In the clear sand of Takashi Beach
with its many pines, I’ll bury my scraps of poetry and then be off
Matsu òki / takashi no hama no / masagoji ni / waga uta hogo wo / uzumete inamu
Akiko, as usual, was more daring and less modest:
Pray let me call you “teacher” How can I call you “friend”
with these reddened lips of mine?
Shi to yobu wo / yurushi tamae na / Beni saseru / kuchi ni te ikade / tomo to iwarenan (TYAZ, 1:310)
This was an answer to Tekkan’s magnanimous command to abolish hierarchical relationships between master and disciple and call him “friend.” Unlike the let- ter writer of the September Myòjò, Akiko did not reject his injunction because of her personal “weakness,” but because of her gender, her “reddened lips.” There could be no friendship between man and woman, she implied, only love. Although not as heavy on honorifics and lengthy feminine forms as Tomiko’s
The other poem Akiko chose for Tangled Hair from that day was on the topic of “clothes.” It was also one of the nineteen poems that, fifteen years later, in her critical work The Making of Poems, she offered as examples of poems writ- ten after love became the center of her life. The gown, she explained in the same work, belongs to a woman whom the speaker imagines is beautiful.17 (Her point is that awakening to love made her more sensitive to beauty in all forms; she does not mean that the poem is about same-sex love.)
Who could its owner
be? Spilling over from the hammock
suspended in the silk-trees’ shade a gown—sky blue
Nushi ya tare / Nebu no kikage no / tsuridoko no / ami no me moruru / mizuiro no kinu (no. 337)
Perhaps this was chosen for Tangled Hair because of its musical alliteration and assonance, its exotic images of the silk-tree and the hammock, and the sense of mystery evoked by half-seen beauty. Akiko’s other poem on “clothes,” which was omitted, may not be as mellifluous, but its picture of the speaker hiding among hanging kimono to read a secret letter has a concrete reality that is almost as compelling. Its addressee was as undefined as the lady of the purple collar in Tekkan’s poem:
Don’t want
them to see your letter so read it in
the back room, leaning into the closet’s silken shadows
Kimi ga fumi / hitome wabishimi / naka no ma no / ikò no kinu no / kage ni yorite yomu (TYAZ, 1:310)
Too bad Tetsunan had already left, or the poem might have consoled him a lit- tle: its first appearance, with only minor differences, had been in a letter Akiko sent him dated July 27,18 less than two weeks before. Not that he had any claim on Akiko, or presumed to have one. Their only contact after that first meeting at the New Year had been by letter, and she had never called him any- thing more intimate than “older brother.” But he must have been a romantic person, as full of dreams as she was, though not as bold (he remained a Bud- dhist priest all his life, taking over his father’s temple), and Akiko’s warmth and charisma could hardly have left him unaffected.
Conversation flowed as easily as the poetry, the two sometimes spilling over into each other. When Tekkan teased Kyòan, saying his writing was as pretty as a woman’s, “the ironic Miss Òtori immediately sent an arrow Tekkan’s way,” implying that she wished the pseudocompliment had been paid to her:
So you’ve grown accustomed to a feminine-looking script that doesn’t even seem to be a man’s: Whose hand could it be? I’m filled with such envy!
Masurao no / fude to mo mienu / onna moji / nareshi wa ta ga te / Netaku mo aru kana (TYAZ, 1:311)
Kyòan, perhaps inspired by Akiko, found his tongue and explained:
>>7717987
Dōitashimashite! ^_^
Makku. Makku wa saikōdesu. Kō tassei-sha no tame ni, shikaku senkensha, shokuhatsu ashita - tamashī. Makku ga kunrin shimasu. Zenpō no hashi ni nenkan no mairu. Nōkontesutomasen. Karera wa tan'ni kinō to kinō o iji shimasu. Chōdo.. Kanpeki. Zettai-tekina masshirona kanpeki. Chōdo 1 o shutoku shi, keisan shimasu. Hāfu kinō gābejji disutoribyūshon, mudana appudēto no nan hyaku mo, minikui uirusu taisaku sofutō~ea, ninshishō raisā no kasutamaizu no hitsuyōna i... Chōdo Makku o shutoku shite inaishi, anata ga suru hitsuyō ga nani o subeki ka. Mu kachinonai kibarashi. Nani no gēmu ka? Komakaidesu. Gēmu o fakku. Watashi wa gēmu o purei ikemasen. Watashi wa kuso watashi no kokoro to kokorokara sakusei shi, watashi wa sore de jōdekidesu. Muimina fantajī no sekai de watashi no utsukushī Makkintosshu o ikidzumara shiyou to shimasen. Gomen'nasai. Gomi de anata no yasuppoi no jinsei o muda ni tanoshimi o motte, watashi wa watashi no kareina Makkintosshu no mashin de kokodeshou. Zenpō shisōka, hito no jōi kaisō no tame. Nani mo taizai shite inai, meinu, otokonoko. Tokumei 02/ 19/ 16 (kin) yoru 10-ji 52-bu 20-byō nanbā 53068343 watashi no kokoro no ringo o oya~tsu. Saikō no kaisha o WAT. Dakara sakini - no jikan to futatabi kareina gijutsu kakushin no jikan to jikan ga kokukokuto idō fowādo. Sō-ya no doru no ōku wa chōdo sorera o sugosu to makku no kansei-do o eru watto. Watashi dollers wa, n* GGA watashi jūsu ga 2 doko demo My makku o iku to, CREATE hanbāgā o teikyō suru 70 man-jikan kara kite didnt no. U ga no nothin. Watashi wa jiko jitsugen to tsuneni atarashī puratō ni tasshite imasu. Watashi no ninshishō no yūjin ga ōbā watashi o shōtai shi, kare to hoka no n* no GGA no yōna sugoi watashi wa korera no haisha no niggas' rīgu no outta-sōda ikutsu ka no gei no o shiri girudou~ōzu tawagoto to Imu no tame no ikutsu ka no gei no o shiri moji meikindesu. Yoi aibō o kanji, yoi kanji. N* wa hobo zen'in ga dai bakushō shiyou to shitaga, shitatameru to, ikutsu ka no taikutsuna tawagoto no tame no senmon gakkō ni iku tame ni sūnenmae ni akirameta kūruna tawagoto o doin no watashi no Farukan no wih chōdo zetsubō-teki ni kibarashi ni wana ggas ippō Imu MURKIN IT no n* GGA watashi no kokoro ni watashi no mac. Nin'i oyobi subete no nīzu no tame no puremia konpyūtingu tsūru o no makkubukku. Sore wa subete no konpyūta ga nani o suru ka de mottomo tokui seizei. Zenpō no hashi ni nenkan no mairu. Ninshishō no idiotface no mottomo akai - 40 ADHD no BVO bōkō gan BPA - BPS wa muchi dumbf o hatsujō shinagara zenshin shisōka no tame no michi o hiraku appurukonpyūtahareruya* ikutsu ka no gomi no derutawāgomi chōshihazure no garakuta ni 800 + doroppu suru karera no moyori no besuto bai ni jikkō CKS tōnen& mina no uwamuki no tame no saigai to natte mado no saigai ni awa sete hādou~ea o tsukuru kigyō wa, soreha magire mo nai# stoptryin no# maybenextlifeda issho ni no sh* t o motte iru no makku shitte imasu
RIP
>>7717929
>Buddha told a parable in sutra:
>A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
>Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
lel
>>7718029
There's no record of that tale in the Pali canon, it was almost certainly invented in Japan.
>>7717790
Wang Wei
>>7718029
I suppose the theme would be that we're all going to die. Once you realize this, you learn to appreciate life for what it has to offer. As Alan Watts once said (and I am paraphrasing): to contemplate death is not morbid, but, rather, like manure; it allows for life to grow.
It is common Zen practice to keep a skull on your desk at all times, alerting you of your own temporal existence. It's a reminder that (even though it is all meaningless banal) you should live and enjoy life while you're alive.
>>7718070
At the risk of sounding pretentious, the more I learn about China, the more I feel like I live inside Borges' Tlon, or am learning about another planet.
>>7718103
Okay, China doesn't exist. Probably. But I think I heard about some Russkies shooting fireworks really high into the sky, in some place called Cossack-stan or something, what about that?
Not a Zen writer, but the theme fits in with this thread.
Fatality
by Ruben Dario
The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient;
the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing:
there is no pain as great as being alive,
no burden heavier than that of conscious life.
To be, and to know nothing, and to lack a way,
and the dread of having been, and future terrors...
And the sure terror of being dead tomorrow,
and to suffer all through life and through the darkness,
and through what we do not know and hardly suspect...
And the flesh that temps us with bunches of cool grapes,
and the tomb that awaits us with its funeral sprays,
and not to know where we go,
nor whence we came! ...
>>7718139
And to mirror it,
“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.”
― Rumi Jalal ad'Din
Rumi:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
. . .
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
. . .
Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
. . .
silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.
. . .
Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
. . .
Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.
. . .
I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.
. . .
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
. . .
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames
. . .
We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.
. . .
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
. . .
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Anybody know a collection of great but lesser known Japanese poetry?
The Ogura anthology is great and all but those are all probably the biggest names right?
>>7718233
Have you already read the whole thread?
>>7718283
I have and it doesn't fit what I'm looking for. Perhaps I should've clarified that I'm looking for very old poetry like those from the Ogura anthology.
>>7717918
>Writing shit about new snow
>for the rich
>is not art.
>>7717945
>“I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.”
>“As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.”
>“All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know.”
