Friday, 11 April 2025

Hope Returns

As spring approaches, a renewed feeling of optimisim comes with it.

春風や希望あふれる気配かな
harukaze ya kihou afureru kehai kana[1]

fresh spring wind
bring a new sense of
hope

Hiroshige - Distant View of Kinryūzan Temple and Azuma Bridge
Hiroshige – Distant View of Kinryūzan Temple and Azuma Bridge

Spring is here! I wrote this (and intended to post it) several weeks ago, at a time when by the traditional Japanese almanac we were in spring, but by the modern calendar we still had a few days to go. Now we are in spring by both systems and it is warming up everywhere, but I want to set the situation for when I wrote it. AT the time it was cold one day, warm the next. I suppose it still is now, at least here.

Spring always brings a sense of renewal. Nature practically shoves that in our faces with blooming flowers and trees, but it’s not just visual—the feeling is in the air too. It’s warm again. We can go outside without bundling up. We start feeling good instead of just cold all the time.

There’s an old saying: “Spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.” True—but more broadly, I think spring brings with it a kind of hopefulness, a refreshing optimism.

Some of the news we hear out of the West hasn’t been too positive lately. I’ll leave it at that—you can interpret that however you want. I’ve been carrying a growing sense of dread for a while now. But the other day was different: sunny, birds singing, warm—a beautiful day in every way. And it did wonders for my mood. It lifted my spirits and made it feel like everything might be okay after all.

It was in that mindset that this haiku came to me.

  1. See: Pronunciation of Japanese  ↩

Wednesday, 2 April 2025

The Coming Dawn, Spring and the Death of Buson

On the twenty-fourth night of the twelfth month, Buson lay dying. He dictated to his friend and student, Kitō:

白梅に明くる夜ばかりとなりにけり
shiraume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri[1]

among the plum blossoms
the darkness gives way
to dawn
—Buson[2]

Bush Warbler and Plum Tree
Bush Warbler and Plum Tree

This was Buson’s death poem—in fact, the last of three death poems. He knew he wasn’t going to live to see the plum blossoms, the heralds of spring, but he chose them as his final image. Beyond the surface image of winter giving way to spring, the transition from darkness into light echoes the teachings of Pure Land Buddhism, which Buson followed. In that tradition, death is not an end but a rebirth in the Western Paradise, a peaceful realm where one can pursue enlightenment without distraction. A Buddhist heaven, in other words.

This resonance deepens when you consider that alongside the plum blossoms, the other quintessential harbinger of spring in Japan is the bush warbler (鶯, uguisu), a lovely bird with a distinctive song that, to Japanese ears, sounds likeho—hokekyō.

hoー（high pitch）・ho-ke（middle pitch）・kyō（falling pitch)

Listen here

That call—ho—hokekyō—phonetically mirrors the opening line of the Lotus Sutra (法華経). Though the resemblance is coincidental, it’s close enough to stand out. As such, the bush warbler is not only a messenger of spring, but also a voice of Buddhist truth.

The Lotus Sutra held special importance for Buson’s sect, in part for its references to the Pure Land. With this in mind, the image in his haiku—the pale plum blossoms and the light of dawn—can also be seen as a vision of transition, of rebirth into the paradise that lies beyond this world.

Plum Blossoms (梅, ume) are a kigo (season word) for spring.

  1. See: Pronunciation of Japanese  ↩

  2. See: a note on translations  ↩

Sunday, 30 March 2025

Zazen and Silence, a Haiku

You learn so much by sitting.

sitting in zazen
the silence—
so loud

座禅して沈黙の音大きくて
zazenshite chinmoku no oto ookikute[1]

Sitting in Zazen - via ChatGPT
Sitting in Zazen – via ChatGPT

Zazen, often translated as Zen meditation, is a bit different from what most people probably think of when they hear the word meditation. Some don’t even like to use the word meditation, and will argue that zazen is not meditation. It may seem like arguing semantics, but actually the word Zen itself means “meditation”, the za meaning “seated”, so zazen literally means “seated meditation”, but the meaning of “meditation” in most people’s minds is a bit different than what Zen Buddhists mean by the word.

Zazen, or more specifically shikantaza, the object is not to distract the mind with chants or with listening to the breath like in other styles of meditation. In those styles, the idea is that you need to learn to ignore the mind in order to enjoy the peace of meditation, but since ignoring the mind is really really hard, better to distract the mind with something while we enjoy some moments of peace. Not unlike parents distracting their kids with the iPad so they can enjoy an hour of quiet and peace.

In Zazen, however, the idea is to watch the mind. Listen to whatever you hear in the room, but don’t focus on it, take it all in, and observe how the mind responds to them. If the mind starts a thought, don’t focus on it either, but watch the process of the thought coming and then going when we don’t interact with it. Instead of distracting the mind as in other styles, in zazen we let the mind do as it will, we let thoughts come and go. They are born, have life, and die away. In doing so, we train ourselves not to cling to thoughts and to recognize that those thoughts aren’t us in a manner of speaking.

As you might imagine, Shikantaza is a much more difficult style of meditation.

The above haiku came to mind after I had done my twenty minutes of zazen one night. The silence is indeed so loud, as you find when you start to listen to it.

  1. See: Pronunciation of Japanese  ↩

Friday, 14 March 2025

Old Poets and School Reading

I was reading something today and a very old and famous poem from Narihisa showed up. His old poem also brought this haiku about him to mind.

業平の歌よりはじむ夏期講座
narihira no uta yori hajimu kaki kōza[1]

summer classes
begin with a poem
by Narihira
—Ozawa Katsumi[2]

Narihira watching the birds on the Sumida River by Hiroshige
Narihira watching the birds on the Sumida River by Hiroshige

I think we all remember that feeling of dread in high school upon learning we’d be studying some old, archaic poem in English class. It’s likely that many students in Japan can relate to this feeling.

The name mentioned in the haiku is Arihara no Narihira (在原 業平), one of the most famous poets in Japanese history. Narihira is considered one of the Six Poetic Geniuses, is featured in the Hyakunin Isshu (百人一首), a very famous collection of poems, as well as having many poems featured in other imperial anthologies. All the kind of stuff that makes him required reading in school.

But it’s not all boring. Besides poetry, Narihira is renowned for his many love affairs. It is said he had an affair with the high priestess of Ise Grand Shrine, as well as famed poetess Ono no Komachi, and with the emperor’s consort, Fujiwara no Takaiko, an act that caused a big scandal and got him in so much trouble that he fled east for a time. The Tales of Ise, a collection of poems and stories which he inspired, suggests that he fathered Emperor Yōzai. To this day, he still appears in media as the model handsome, amorous nobleman.

He died in 880 at the age of 54/55, and his death poem reflects his shock at his sudden end.

つひにゆく道とはかねて聞きしかど昨日今日とは思はざりしを
tsui ni yuku michi to wa kanete kikishikado
kinō kyō to wa omouwazarishi wo

although I had
heard of the road
we all must travel in the end—
yet I never thought
it would come for me so soon

Looking for the ghost of Ono no Komachi by Yoshitoshi
Looking for the ghost of Ono no Komachi by Yoshitoshi

  1. See: Pronunciation of Japanese  ↩

  2. See: a note on translations  ↩

Wednesday, 5 March 2025

Split Attention in Parenthood

The things they don’t tell you about being a parent…

they call to me:
“papa, look here”
“no, papa, look here”

Playing with Ball by Kiyohara Hitoshi
Playing with Ball by Kiyohara Hitoshi

When you first become a parent one thing you quickly learn is that it can be exhausting playing with your child. Don’t get me wrong, playing with your kid is one of the most wonderful parts of parenthood—seeing the joy on their faces as they do simple things, hearing their laugh, feeling their excitement and energy—but it can also be exhausting, because they never stop and want to keep playing long after your energy is gone. Not to mention sometimes in today’s world we have to do remote work from home, and kids don’t really understand that boundary very well and will continue to request play no matter how much you might say you need to work.

That in mind, when a second child comes along, you may harbor a fantasy that the kids will play with each other and give you some free time to do your own thing once in a while or just relax. While it is true that they will play together sometimes, which is great, too often it is closer to each kid trying to get your attention and then becoming angry when you give your attention to the other one. In other words, it becomes not only exhausting but tricky.[1]

Now—don’t be fooled by my complaint. Having kids is amazing and I enjoy almost every minute of it. But, well, sometimes it can be frustrating. One of those frustrating times inspired the above haiku.

  1. At least this is my experience right now when they are still fairly young. I have some hope it might lesson when they get older.  ↩

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