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"The haiku moment is a freight train of color
and image and you are standing on the tracks. The
entire train will pass through you and you will
be left standing on the trembling trestle of your
life holding a little scrap of paper in your hand
and on this paper will be the seismic equivalent
of what occurred as the train passed through you,
the moment you and the train were one. In that moment
of forgetfulness and understanding you will know
that the train is always passing through you, that
the freight car is also the loco/motive and the
caboose. That time is one."
Earl Keener, haiku poet
A third meditative aspect of haiku is the reading
of a haiku. Consider this classic haiku by Buson
(1716-84):
on the one ton temple bell
a moon-moth, folded into sleep,
sits still.
~Taniguchi Buson
A person new to haiku poetry might think: "Such
a short poem! A moth and a bell. What's there to
think about? What's so special?"
The answer is, don't think about it! Don't count
syllables or try to analyze what Buson may have
meant by his haiku. Instead allow an image come
to mind, the image he presents in the haiku. Move
onto the train track and let his train, his haiku
moment flow into you.
Here's my mediation on his haiku:
I walk through a japanese garden and enter a small
wooden gazebo. A wooden bench invites me to sit.
Suspended from the ceiling is a great blue-black
bell. A wooden clapper, a small log suspended from
two chains hangs, next to it. And, just there on
the bell is a moon moth, in substance as opposite
the massive bell as anything can be, small, fragile,
light, delicately colored. This moth will live but
a day, whereas the bell will perhaps exist forever.
The moth isn't stirring. I can see the moon shapes
on its wings, the lovely curl of its wings. It awaits
the ringing of the bell. The clapper, almost as
massive as the bell, is slowly drawn back, released,
strikes the bell. A resonating sound flows into
my chest, I become its instrument, I feel the singing
bell, it sings in me, it floods me with sensation.
Awakened, I fly off into the garden.
Of course, this is but my own unique mental processing
of the images offered in Buson's haiku. It happens
that such a bell exists in the Kurimoto Japanese
Garden near my home and that I have sat in the gazebo
and have swung the wooden clapper and rung the bell.
But, no, there was no moon moth on the bell when
I visited. Buson's haiku brought a new experience
of that bell to me, a mix of memory and haiku imagery.
In the meditation, I became the moth, experienced
the beauty of the moment, and then moved on.
Your meditation will undoubtedly be different.
You may not have seen such a bell, heard one ring,
visited a Japanese Garden, or seen a moon moth.
Regardless, your mind knows about these things Š
it will lead you into an experience with Buson's
bell and moth that is uniquely yours. It doesn't
matter whether your meditative experience is identical
to Buson's, after all, how could it have been? Nor
does it matter whether you have captured the true
meaning or essence of Buson's haiku.
America's Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, created
a poem in response to this same haiku. It demonstrates
the richness of the imagery that can flow from a
seemingly simple three line haiku.
Japan
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say
it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It's the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
--Billy Collins
Billy Collins poem © 1997 Big
Snap
If you are interested in composing or reading haiku,
there are many resources on the Internet. Use the
search terms "haiku" and "masters"
and you will find the works of Basho, Issa, Buson,
Shiki and many others. In addition, you will find
the poems of many modern English haijin. All of
them offer rich meditative images.
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