Reading the classics of haiku, out of old Japan, we cannot help but be made aware of a depth surrounding the mental mirage of everyday life that can sometimes make us shiver in our haiku walking boots. We are reminded that all around us is a mystery in process so vast and pressing that, when we gravitate back to our daily mundane tasks, it bugs us. Reading much that passes for haiku here in the humanist and scientific West, I cannot help but wonder where that, at least nodding, respect to the infinite has got lost along the haiku way. What, if anything, should we do about that - any ideas?
On a journey,
Resting beneath the cherry blossoms,
I feel myself to be in a Noh play.
— Basho
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Note: There are many technical terms that can help us understand the more mystical aspects of haiku and its practice. However, leaving these aside as a requirement, what are members own intuitive feelings about the implications enbedded in this topic's question. Just being alive qualifies you to respond. No worries about being clever, proving it using Google Search and presenting reams of curriculum vitae. Plain language and sincerity is fine. Whether you're a haiku tadpole or a haiku frog - share your views! ^_^
Great title.
I was relieved and reassured that stained glass isn't just for Christians.
I really appreciated your comment:Reading the classics of haiku, out of old Japan, we cannot help but be made aware of a depth surrounding the mental mirage of everyday life that can sometimes make us shiver in our haiku walking boots. We are reminded that all around us is a mystery in process so vast and pressing that, when we gravitate back to our daily mundane tasks, it bugs us. I like that you mention a mental mirage, as everything is illusion, but hard to believe that in the dentist's chair. But everything is mayah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_%28illusion%29
It's been a long time since I've seen maya for sure, in black and white, a bit of a Nemo realisation (not the fish, maybe the film with Keanu, maybe the film with Kirk Douglas).
But how to do it? I've seen overblown attempts, unfortunately most of them Christian. I'm reminded that God presumably doesn't follow religion, and I'd rather go somewhere beyond religion. Well, I have in the past, but concentrated on bhakti poetry I'm afraid. ;-)
You said:Reading much that passes for haiku here in the humanist and scientific West, I cannot help but wonder where that, at least nodding, respect to the infinite has got lost along the haiku way. What, if anything, should we do about that - any ideas?
Well, I don't want to go down the road yet again what individuals think what does and doesn't pass for haiku, so I won't.
What I do like in this comment is what can we do about the respect to whatever passes for the infinite. I think an awful lot of haiku writers do that anyway, and when I come across them, I'll try to post them, or weblink them.
It's certainly food for thought for an anthology, as long as it doesn't become elitist in who can be in it, but rather have a bigger picture about it.
re your note, I see everyone as equal on this board, no tadpoles and frogs, just fellow carbon units. ;-)
Alan
P.S.
I don't know if you are qualifying haiku with this topic but I'll post one that touches me, but also an allusion to a life changing moment to one mililtary gentleman as well.
Pharmakós the name you scratch inside me
Alan Summers (Monostich 2011)
Quote from: haikurambler on August 20, 2011, 06:05:59 PM
Reading the classics of haiku, out of old Japan, we cannot help but be made aware of a depth surrounding the mental mirage of everyday life that can sometimes make us shiver in our haiku walking boots. We are reminded that all around us is a mystery in process so vast and pressing that, when we gravitate back to our daily mundane tasks, it bugs us. Reading much that passes for haiku here in the humanist and scientific West, I cannot help but wonder where that, at least nodding, respect to the infinite has got lost along the haiku way. What, if anything, should we do about that - any ideas?
On a journey,
Resting beneath the cherry blossoms,
I feel myself to be in a Noh play.
— Basho
-
Note: There are many technical terms that can help us understand the more mystical aspects of haiku and its practice. However, leaving these aside as a requirement, what are members own intuitive feelings about the implications enbedded in this topic's question. Just being alive qualifies you to respond. No worries about being clever, proving it using Google Search and presenting reams of curriculum vitae. Plain language and sincerity is fine. Whether you're a haiku tadpole or a haiku frog - share your views! ^_^
Light is primal, part of our embodiment. The opacity of each of us helps us understand our fragile finitude. But the light suggests an otherness present, "with us." in my way of thinking, haiku acknowledges both body and light. Someone has given / a warm scarf / to the scarecrow --Alan Spence.
The body of the poet/reader is doubled by the scarecrow; our fiitude is not in question. Yet that very finitude is a gift. The fusion of images and dimensions in haiku does not obscure the eternal difference, but the reception of gift, the warm scarf, doubles the poem as gift. Haiku again through its elegant bipolar structure-- again not dialectical because the otherness of the scarf is primary -- haiku re-presents gift.
The medievalizing image of the question should't keep us from thinking it through.
Hi, Alan and Tomdevelyn - interesting responses, so far.
Stained glass windows What a wonderful metaphor of conscious awareness these beautiful things are. Better, in some ways, than the old movie projector analogy. You know; light source - film - screen. The idea being, of course, to illustrate how one becomes diverified (Tao's: '10,000 things'). The figure/ground concept of psychology comes to mind, also. Haiku can be related to all this quite well. The words of a haiku being the stained glass's articulation of light; whilst sunlight itself plays the part of the luminous infinite. (White Tara of Tibetan buddhist iconography.) No, it's not about Christianity, not as used in this topic's title. A useful abstract model, perhaps.
Hi haikurambler,
You note: "We are reminded that all around us is a mystery in process so vast and pressing that, when we gravitate back to our daily mundane tasks, it bugs us."
This reminds me of a short (four line) Robert Bly poem: "After Long Busyness"
I start out for a walk at last after weeks at the desk.
Moon gone, plowing underfoot, no stars; not a trace of light!
Suppose a horse were galloping toward me in this open field?
Every day I did not spend in solitude was wasted.
I've always loved this poem, and I think it underscores what you are pointing out.
However, I think a strength of haiku can be connecting the two: the mundane and the mysterious.
Best,
David
Hi David
Yes, bringing into conscious awareness the connectedness of all things and causes, especially the
extraordinary nature of that which we have had decreed as 'ordinary'. Practising haiku allows this to happen, by default. It could be a covert DNA intiative? ^_^
Quote from: DavidGrayson on August 26, 2011, 02:32:35 AM
Hi haikurambler,
You note: "We are reminded that all around us is a mystery in process so vast and pressing that, when we gravitate back to our daily mundane tasks, it bugs us."
This reminds me of a short (four line) Robert Bly poem: "After Long Busyness"
I start out for a walk at last after weeks at the desk.
Moon gone, plowing underfoot, no stars; not a trace of light!
Suppose a horse were galloping toward me in this open field?
Every day I did not spend in solitude was wasted.
I've always loved this poem, and I think it underscores what you are pointing out.
However, I think a strength of haiku can be connecting the two: the mundane and the mysterious.
Best,
David