Friday, July 22, 2016

Basho: just a brief post on a haiku

The following are two translations of a haiku by Basho that caught my attention. The reversal is what made me stop and consider it.

No. 7

rabbit-ear iris
how much it looks like
its image in water

-- Basho --
from Basho: The Complete Haiku
Trans.  Jane Reichold






No. 6

blue flag irises
        looking just like their images
                in the water

-- Basho --
from Basho's Haiku: Selected Poems of Matsuo Basho
Trans. David Landis Barnhill



It is so common to read how closely the reflection in the water resembled the object that the reversal made me stop and think.  This is one of those moments when words fail, which makes it a rare haiku. 



20 comments:

  1. one of the, or THE most well known sayings about Haiku is "a finger pointing to the moon", meaning: indicating the way to enlightenment. mutual contradiction in some form or another is one way Haikuists attempt to convey this idea. hence, using the two images to reverberate with each other, not giving judgement as to which may be "real" is a way of understanding "wu" or "mu"(Japanese), which is a zen concept referring to the universality of nothingness, or the identity of everything in being... it should be made clear that zen is not a religion, but a way of experiencing the "real" world and cosmos... excellent Haiku, as are most of Basho's...

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    1. Mudpuddle,

      And to experience the "real" world, one must, as R.T observes, one must be in "calm, peaceful waters" and as the Taoists so often say, one's mind must be as a calm, peaceful pool.

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  2. The reflections are only possible in calm, peaceful waters; and the reflection might not exist except for patient human observation. There is a profound metaphor lurking in there somewhere, and I would be able to say more if I were less confused these days.

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    1. R.T.,

      I think there is at least a two-step process here. The first is where I'm at--the sudden recognition of a different way of seeing the commonplace, the ordinary. The second is to think about what lies beneath the poem or perhaps the sudden recognition.

      I'm still at the first step.

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    2. i don't know about "steps", but the ideal involves the realization that "wu" is everything: the outside world that is perceived through our senses, and whatever is inside our skulls; it's all the same thing...

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    3. Mudpuddle,

      Is that "realization" the result of a sudden insight or of thinking about it for some time?

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    4. both, really; i was walking to the barn, thinking, and it suddenly occurred to me that consciousness was an illusion. i'd been reading a lot of brain physiology together with my zen studies, and i still believe what i, at that point, realized... it seems to me a comprehensive explanation for how and why reality appears the way it does...

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    5. Mudpuddle,

      What is it that realizes that consciousness is an illusion? What is being affected by this illusion?

      Well, you may believe that you're not conscious, but what is it that believes this?

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    6. itself; it's self replicating multicircuit organism with instantaneous feedback the elements of which are recorded beginning at birth and reinforced over the years by sensory input from the outside world; the illusion of consciousness occurs when the various accumulated levels interact with each other... i know, you think i'm nuts and i sort of agree with you, but it's an interesting concept, anyway... it accounts for so many things: faulty memory, occasional lapses of attention, various concentration problems, the list goes on...

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  3. And one word keeps coming back to me: Plato.
    Okay . . . two words: Plato's Cave.

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  4. R.T.,

    What's casting the shadow? Who is being "fooled" by those shadows?

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  5. RT's distortion of Plato: We are all "copies" experiencing "copies" of "originals" -- yet the fire keeps burning, the shadows dance on the wall, and we are transfixed by the shadows, never bridging the divide between "copies" and "originals" because such a bridge is not possible.
    Postscript: When I was living in the 60s, this would have made more sense, but I would have been stoned.

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    1. R.T.,

      I misread your Postscript. I thought you had written: "When I was living in the 60s, this would have made more sense, but I would have been stoned." Stoned in what sense?

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    2. One translation: under the influence of biological agents.
      Alternate translation: punished for being a heretic or worse.
      Both possible for me in the 60s.

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    3. haha; need you ask?! it sounds like RT agrees with me; if so, he'd be the first one who ever did...

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  6. Alternate notion: we are thoughts, musings, imaginings of God (or whatever ineffable ultimate reality you wish to name); good (pleasant, worthwhile, mirroring) thoughts remain eternal (The Paradise), but bad (disappointing, uncomfortable, alien) thoughts are banished to oblivion (The Inferno).

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  7. interesting, but based, as i read it, on speculation... whereas the theory i promulgate is based on physical evidence: i:e: research into how the brain works; i know what you're going to say: the one isn't any more reliable than the other. and you may be right, but we all have to go with the scanty clues we see in the universe around us and in our own minds. everyone has a right to their own half-cocked theories... chortle(as Fred says...)

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  8. Mudpuddle and R.T.,

    I want to thank both of you because your comments and the Taoist adage that a mind to grasp Tao must be clear like water has led me to the following ideas. I think Basho's haiku succeeded admirably in shaking up long-held ideas, that needed some shaking up, even if those ideas survived.

    The reflection in the water is the human mind. The object being reflected is the "real world," whether that be the world of sensory objects, the material world, or the Platonic world of ideas, is up for debate.

    The human mind, the pond, can only reflect or apprehend reality (whichever flavor you choose) when it is still, as the Taoists tell us. If the the mind is not still, but a blooming buzzing confusion (which it is most of the time for most of us), then all we can perceive are distorted fragments and bits and pieces of the true reality.

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    1. yes; that is what i'd have said if i was a bit more focused... tx, fred...

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    2. Mudpuddle,

      One of the reasons why I like haiku: I can go so many places with them because their brevity doesn't place many restrictions on my wanderings.

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