Zen Culture Part 17

This is nature poetry at its finest, full of all the detached reverence and affection of Zen. It is also impa.s.sive and accepting: nature is there to be enjoyed and to teach the lessons of Zen. Basho's Haiku discover an instant of heightened awareness and pa.s.s it on unaltered and without comment. The poem is as uncolored with emotion as is the world it so dispa.s.sionately describes. It is up to the reader to know the proper response.

It hardly needs to be said that Basho's poems must be interpreted on several levels: not only do they describe a moment in the life of the world, they are also symbols or metaphors for deeper truths, which cannot be stated explicitly. Underneath a vivid image of a physical phenomenon is a Zen code pointing toward the nonphysical. Not only was Basho j.a.pan's finest lyric poet, he was also among the finest interpreters of Zen.

Basho left a large following. The Haiku was established as j.a.pan's foremost poetic form, and to touch upon every Haiku poet would require an encylopedia. However, three other Haiku masters were outstanding.

The first is Buson (1715-1783), also a well-known painter, whose blithe if somewhat mannered style reflected the gradual dissolution of severe Zen ideals in favor of the lighter touch preferred by the prosperous merchant cla.s.s.

Buson was also master of the cla.s.sical double entendre so beloved by the aristocratic poets of the cla.s.sical era. The first example given here is a subtle reference to the theme of transience, set in the context of an exchange of love poems, while the second is a somewhat ribald jest about the one-night stand.

_Hen-ka naki

_No poem you send

_ao-nyobo yo

_in answer--Oh, young lady!

_kure-no haru

_Springtime nears its end.10

_Mijika yo ya

_The short night is through:

_kemushi-no ue ni

_on the hairy caterpillar,

_tsuyu-no-tama

_little beads of dew.11

Buson could also be serious and moving when he tried, as with the following, one of his most admired works.

_Mi-ni-shimu ya

_The piercing chill I feel:

_bo-sai-no kushi

_my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom,

_neya ni fumu

_under my heel . . .12

Buson clearly had less Zen about him than Basho, but his verses suited the temper of his age, and he strongly influenced both students and contemporaries, although not the next great Haiku master, Issa (1762- 1826), who was a romantic provincial through and through, immune to the fancy phrasing of the sophisticated Buson school.

Issa is the sentimental favorite in the canons of j.a.panese Haiku. He used simple, even colloquial language, and he brought heartfelt love to all things he touched, great and small. Although he was not immersed in the heavier aspects of Zen, his lighthearted approach to life was well in accord with the latter clays of the Zen revival. His Haiku style seems the literary equivalent of the comic Zen drawings of Hakuin (1685--1768) or Sengai (1751-1837). There is also a Zen quality to his rejection of the literary conventions of the time. Yet Issa was not consciously a rebel; rather, he was a simple, sincere man who wrote sincerely of simple things. His approach to nature was as honest in its own way as Basho's, but Issa was happy to let his own personality and response shine through, while Basho deliberately circ.u.mvented his own emotions.

Orphaned at an early age and seeing to the grave all the children born during his lifetime (as well as two of his three wives), Issa seems to have known little but hardship. Much of his life was spent as an itinerant poet-priest, an occupation that allowed him to learn the life of the people while also keeping him close to the earth. A compendium of his life's experiences and a fine sampling of his Haiku were recorded in his famous book The Year of My Life, which seems to have been his answer to Basho's travel diaries. However, his humanity was far distant from Basho's lonely sabi. For condensed effect, compare the following with Wordsworth's "Solitary Reaper."

_Yabu-kage ya

_In the thicket's shade,

_tatta hitori-no

_and all alone, she's singing--

_ta-ue-uta

_the rice-planting maid.13

Perhaps his most touching poem, which shames into oblivion all the "transient dew" posturing of a thousand years of cla.s.sical j.a.panese verse, is the famous Haiku written on the death of one of his children.

_Tsuyu-no-yo wa

_The world of dew

_tsuyu-no-yo nagara

_Is the world of dew

_sari nagara