PART FIVE: ECCENTRIC ZEN-HAIKU MASTER

PART FIVE, ECCENTRIC ZEN-HAIKU MASTER:

Gabriel Rosenstock’s versions in Irish and English of haiku by Santōka, with occasional commentary: also, Dutch versions by Geert Verbeke. Three liners, two liners and one liners – let them prod you into an awakening. If all else fails, maybe the Dutch or the Irish versions (if they are incomprehensible to you) can act like koans, riddles to blow away your mind.

Anyway, you’re back! Welcome! Santōka is still on his pilgrimage. Brr! There’s a nip in the air:

frost on the radish

just picked now  . . .

mind clear as ice

 

sioc ar an raidis

díreach pioctha anois –

aigne oighear-ghlé

 

rijp op de radijs

nu net geplukt…

het hoofd helder als ijs

 

falling leaves  . . .

some drop into my begging bowl

 

duilleoga ag titim  . . .

cuid acu isteach im’ bhabhla déirce

 

vallende blaadjes…

sommige vallen in mijn bedelnap

 

nothing at all in the mind but the chirp of crickets

 

faic san aigne ach giolc na gcriogar

 

helemaal niets in het hoofd dan het gesjirp van krekels

 

The empty mind! Why do we keep filling it? In this astonishing haiku, represented here as an unadorned monostich or one liner, we can empathise with his state of mind, one most devoutly to be wished for. ‘Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water.’ Who said that? Bruce Lee! It’s the key to a lot of things and it’s the key to haiku. In his diary, Santōka writes:

‘Begging should be like the flowing clouds and like  the flowing water. If I stay at a place for  even a moment I become tangled up. My mind, be like water! My mind, be like sky!’

Santōka’s wonderful teacher, Seisensui, says of another of his extraordinary pupils, Hōsai Ozaki (1885-1926):

’To cast away everything and feel like the big sky of blueness itself was his ideal; in the big sky there is nothing; there may be clouds, but  they will eventually disappear.’ (Right under the big sky, I don’t wear a hat, the haiku and prose of Hōsai Ozaki, Translated by Hiroaki Sato, Stone Bridge Press, 1992).

When the ‘clouds’ disappear, Buddhists believe we have an insight into the Self that we are, what Buddha himself calls ‘our bright, clear nature.’

The traditional Irish musician Joe Burke had just brought out an LP and an American fan asked,

‘Joe, is it difficult to bring out an LP?’

‘It is,’ said Joe.

‘What’s the most difficult part of it?’

‘The hole, to get that hole right in the middle!’ said Joe.

Another Burke – fiddler Kevin Burke – when interviewed by my son, Tristan, on a TV arts show, was asked was he ever nervous playing in front of a large audience? No. No? How come?

‘I hide behind the music. The music does all the work.’

Santōka would approve.

These little asides, by the way, are to keep you from reading too many haiku on the trot, the equivalent of drinking a bottle of potheen on an empty stomach. Or sake for that matter. Sip!

the spider

is weaving its web:

i am who i am

 

nead á fí

ag an damhán alla:

mise mé féin

 

de spin

weeft haar web:

ik ben wie ik ben

For Santōka, poetry was the only redeeming factor in his life and he felt duty bound to assert this, to allow haiku to flow naturally through him, through thick and thin:

sunny, she bleats
and cloudy, she bleats
a goat

 

grianmhar, meigeallach

is scamallach, meigeallach

gabhar

 

zoning, zij blaat

en bewolkt, zij blaat

een geit

 

shades of evening

nowhere to lay my head –

a shrike calls

 

scáileanna an tráthnóna

níl lóistín ar fáil –

glaonn scréachán

 

schaduwen van de avond

nergens kan ik mijn hoofd neerleggen –

een klapekster roept

 

The act of naming something – in this instance a shrike – there’s something sacred about it.  See how insects become divine in this interview with a modern haiku master:

http://gendaihaiku.com/hoshinaga/index.html

Never one to rest on his laurels, Santōka was severe in his criticism of his own haiku, ever anxious to take to the road lest weeds infest the mind:

clouds and their shadows

moving in the water –

restless world

néalta

is a gcuid scáileanna san uisce –

domhan corrach

 

wolken en hun schaduwen

bewegen in het water –

rusteloze wereld

 

air-raid alarm

madly screaming –

red persimmons

 

aláram aer-ruathair

ag scréachaíl os ard  –

dátphlumaí dearga

 

luchtalarm

waanzinnig geschreeuw-

rode kaki’s

 

drenched to the bone

once more I tramp

along a road unknown

 

i mo líbín báite

m’aghaidh arís ar bhóthar

aineoil

 

doorweekt tot op het bot

eens te meer stap ik

over een onbekende weg

 

picking coltsfoot

eating the yellow flowers

 

sponc á phiocadh agam

na bláthanna buí a n-ithe

 

klein hoefblad plukken

de gele bloemen eten

 

Maybe they did him some good. Or maybe not. Coltsfoot can be toxic. Others (Takashi Nonin and James Abrams) translate the flower in this haiku as butterburs whilst Hiroaki Sato translates it as bog rhubarb. Take your pick.

enough is enough

taking off my straw sandals

for the day

 

is leor sin anois

bainim díom

na cuaráin tuí

 

genoeg is genoeg

ik doe mijn strosandalen uit

voor vandaag

 

dozing off

a dream comes to me . . .

rustling reeds of home

 

míogarnach

tagann taibhreamh chugam . . .

cogarnach giolcaí sa bhaile

 

wegdoezelen

een droom komt tot mij . . .

ruisend riet van thuis

 

what can be done about it –

my old robe

in rags

 

cad is féidir a dhéanamh –

mo sheanróba

stróicthe stollta

 

wat kan er aan gedaan worden –

mijn oude rok

aan rafels

 

By the way, if you’ve never heard Irish spoken before, you can copy and paste an Irish version of one of Santōka’s haiku into a synthesiser and play it at different speeds. It gives you a chance to listen to the haiku spoken in the three main dialects of Irish. Do it now, you may not get another chance. Languages are dying at a rate of one per fortnight:

http://www.abair.tcd.ie/?lang=eng&page=synthesis&synth=gd&view=listen&speed=Gn%C3%A1thluas&pitch=1.0&xpos=&ypos=&colors=default

brightly shines

the deep clear blue water  . . .

my shadow’s sadness

 

lonraíonn an t-uisce

glé gorm domhain  . . .

uaigneas mo scáile

 

helder schijnt

het diep helder blauw water . . .

het verdriet van mijn schaduw

 

the straightnes

of the road –

lonesome

 

dírí

an bhóthair

a dhéanann uaigneach é

 

de rechtheid

van de weg –

eenzaam

 

wind

through shadowy pines –

in shadows I lie

 

gaoth

trí ghiúiseanna dorcha –

sa scáil mo luí

 

wind

door beschaduwde pijnbomen –

in de schaduw lig ik

Go to the pine, was Bashō’s firm injunction. Santōka goes to the pine, to the shadows of the pine, to the weeds, the rain, the clouds, the moon. Without this interpenetration, his haiku would be no more than an indifferent sketching of the surface of things.

If he is not chanting the namu Kanzeon, then something else is singing the praises of Creation:

above me

cicadas chirp in the pine –

before me the murmur of waves

 

boven mij

sjirpen chicaden in de pijnboom

voor mij het gemurmel van golven

The name Kanzeon has been interpreted to mean ‘the one who sees the sounds of the world’ or ‘the sound that contemplates the world’. Wonderful, isn’t it?

rice in its whiteness

pickled plum in its redness –

such riches!

 

báine na ríse

deirge an phluma ghoirt –

cad é mar shaibhreas!

 

rijst in zijn witheid

gepekelde pruimen in hun roodheid –

zoveel rijkdom!

 

everyone’s got somewhere

to lay his head

evening crowds

 

a thigh féin

ag gach éinne . . .

sluaite um thráthnóna

 

iedereen moet ergens

zijn hoofd kunnen neerleggen

avonddrukte

Here our version deliberately echoes Mathew 8.20:

Yeshua [Jesus] said to him, “The foxes have their dens, and the birds flying about have their nests, but the Son of Man has no home of his own.”

The WASP swears by the Bible but would look at you askance if asked to compare and contrast the two texts above, protesting that one is sacred, the other profane. We beg to disagree.

 

my outline

mirrored in the water –

vagabond

 

mo chruth

san uisce –

fánaí

 

mijn schets

weerspiegeld in het water –

landloper

Words have different connotations for different people. Replace ‘vagabonding’ with ‘walking meditation’ and suddenly it becomes respectable. In The Long Road Turns to Joy (Parallax Press, 1996), Thich Nhat Han’h says:

‘In Buddhism, there is a word apranihita. It means wishlessness or aimlessness. The idea is that we do not put anything ahead of  ourselves and run after it. When we practice walking meditation, we walk in this spirit. We just enjoy the walking, with no particular aim  or destination. Our walk is not a means to an  end. We walk for the sake of walking.’

One could say that Santōka Taneda was the walking, living embodiment of apranihita:

without any fixed destination

here I go walking

mid tombstones

 

gan sprioc ar bith agam

seo ag siúl mé

idir leaca uaighe

 

zonder enige vaste bestemming

ga ik hier wandelen

temidden van grafstenen

So many of his haiku can be read on two levels, the literal level and the symbolic or metaphorical levels: they are lived haiku, not inventions, with all the complexities and ambiguities of life distilled into a breath:

 

nothing on my mind  . . .

I stroll along

through a withered forest

 

faic ar m’intinn  . . .

mé ag siúl ar aghaidh

trí fhoraois dhreoite

 

aan niets denkend

wandel ik

door het verdorde bos

 

One could say that both apranihita and trataka (yogic gazing) are at work here, and elsewhere.

the shrike calls –

where can i dump

this useless body!

 

glaonn scréachán –

cá gcaithfinn uaim

an cholainn seo gan mhaith!

 

de klauwier roept

waar kan ik dit nutteloze

lichaam dumpen?

 

it glints . . .

a little coin

tossed my way

 

loinnir uaidh . . .

an bonn beag airgid

a chaitear im’ threo

 

het glinstert

een opgegooid muntstukje

toont mij de weg

 

Well, he might have enough to purchase a drop of sake now!

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16875384/santoka-taneda

END OF PART FIVE. FINAL PART TOMORROW!

Gabriel Rosenstock’s latest haiku volume is Stillness of Crows. His philosophy of haiku can be found on this YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmj54hpqMyo&t=100s

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