does man have kuniyoshi nature?

This cold winter night,
that old wooden-head buddha
would make a nice fire

buson

man's basic nature is sinful and has the tendency to continue to sin. Thus although man may act righteously at times, on his own, or may love unconditionally, ultimately he is bounded by and infected with his sin nature which results in disobedience to God's standard.

On Buddha's birthday
a spotted fawn is born –
just like that

basho 2

A special tradition
outside the scriptures,
No dependence on words,
A direct pointing at man,
Seeing into one's own nature and the attainment of wisdom.3

At a roadside shrine,
before the stony buddha
a firefly burns

buson 4

from the hut of the phantom dwelling

An eminent monk of Mount Kora in Tsukushi, the son of a certain Kai of the Kamo Shrine, recently journeyed to Kyoto, and I got someone to ask him if he would write a plaque for me. He readily agreed, dipped his brush, and wrote the three characters Gen-ju-an. He sent me the plaque, and I keep it as a memorial of my grass hut.

Mountain home, traveler's rest -- call it what you will, it's hardly the kind of place where you need any great store of belongings. A cypress bark hat from Kiso, a sedge rain cape from Koshi-that's all that hang on the post above my pillow.

In the daytime, I'm once in a while diverted by people who stop to visit. The old man who takes care of the shrine or the men from the village come and tell me about the wild boar who's been eating the rice plants, the rabbits that are getting at the bean patches, tales of farm matters that are all quite new to me.

And when the sun has begun to sink behind the rim of the hills, I sit quietly in the evening waiting for the moon so I may have my shadow for company, or light a lamp and discuss right and wrong with my silhouette.

But when all has been said, I'm not really the kind who is so completely enamored of solitude that he must hide every trace of himself away in the mountains and wilds. It's just that, troubled by frequent illness and weary of dealing with people, I've come to dislike society.

Again and again I think of the mistakes I've made in my clumsiness over the course of the years. There was a time when I envied those who had government offices or impressive domains, and on another occasion I considered entering the precincts of the Buddha and the teaching rooms of the patriarchs.

Instead, I've worn out my body in journeys that are as aimless as the winds and clouds, and expended my feelings on flowers and birds. But somehow I've been able to make a living this way, and so in the end, unskilled and talentless as I am, I give myself wholly to this one concern, poetry.

Bo Juyi worked so hard at it that he almost ruined his five vital organs, and Du Fu grew lean and emaciated because of it. As far as intelligence or the quality of our writings go, I can never compare to such men. And yet we all in the end live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling? But enough of that -- I'm off to bed.

Bashô 1

come may

THE LOCUST TREE IN FLOWER

Among
the leaves
bright

green
of wrist-thick
tree

and old
stiff broken
branch

ferncool
swaying
loosely strung—

come May
again
white blossom

clusters
hide
to spill

their sweets
almost
unnoticed

down
and quickly
fall

Among
of
green

stiff
old
bright

broken
branch
come

white
sweet
May

again

William Carlos Williams

五月雨をあつめて早し最上川
Samidare o atsumete hayashi Mogamigawa
The Mogami River, gathering rain of May and even more rapid

Matsuo Bashō

she may be princess of haiku but she's also the queen of the mums

1819

.開山は芭蕉さま也菊の花
kaizan wa bashô-sama
nari kiku no kana

the sect founder
is Great Basho...
chrysanthemums

Issa describes the devotion to chrysanthemums -- raising and admiring them -- as a Buddhist sect, whose "founder" (kaizan) is none other than the great haiku poet, Matsuo Bashô.

Translation © 2008 David G. Lanoue

My eyes which had seen all came back,
 Back to the white chrysan- themums.

Issho (ca. 1688)

Translation © 2008 Asatarō Miyamori

(comb from the wonderful barbaraanne's comb blog)

So deep into autumn
their fellow flowers
are all gone—
if the frost would only hold off,
leave me the incomparable chrysanthemums!

Saigyō (1118–90)

Translation © 2008 Burton Watson

POEMS AFTER DRINKING WINE

I built my hut beside a traveled road
Yet hear no noise of passing carts and horses.
You would like to know how it is done?
With the mind detached, one's place becomes remote.
Picking chrysanthemums by the eastern hedge
I catch sight of the distant southern hills:
The mountain air is lovely as the sun sets
And flocks of flying birds return together.
In these things is a fundamental truth
I would like to tell, but lack the words.

T'ao Ch'ien [or T'ao Yuan-ming Ch'ien T'ao ] (365–427)

Translation © 2008 James Robert Hightower

I built my hut in a zone of human habitation,
Yet near me there sounds no noise of horse or coach.
 Would you know how that is possible?
A heart that is distant creates a wilderness round it.
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze long at the distant-summer hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day:
The flying birds two by two return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail us.

T'ao Ch'ien [or T'ao Yuan-ming Ch'ien T'ao ] (365–427)

Translation © 2008 Arthur Waley

FOUR POEMS WRITTEN WHILE DRUNK

1
Fortune and misfortune
 have no fixed abode;
This one and the other
 are given us in turn
Shao Ping working
 in his field of melons
Was much as he had been
 when Lord of Dongling.
Cold and hot seasons
 follow one another,
And the way of man
 will always be like this
The intelligent man
 sees that it must be so.
Having gone so far
 he will not doubt again,
But from that moment
 every day and evening
He will be happy
 holding a cup of wine.

2
The Tao has been lost
 nigh on a thousand years
And people everywhere
 are misers of their feelings
Though they have wine
 they do not dare to drink it,
And think of nothing save
 keeping their reputation.
All the things that make us
 care about our lives —
They are surely compassed
 within a single lifetime
And how much can that life
 amount to after all —
Swift as the surprise
 of pouring lightning,
Fixed and circumscribed
 within a hundred years —
Hemmed and bound to this
 what can we hope to do?

3
I built my house near where others dwell,
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses
You ask of me. “How can this be so?”
“When the heart is far the place of itself is distant.”
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
And gaze afar towards the southern mountains
The mountain air is fine at evening of the day
And flying birds return together homewards
Within these things there is a hint of Truth,
But when I start to tell it, I cannot find the words.

4
In the clear dawn
 I hear a knocking at my gate
And skirt on wrong way round
 go to open it myself
I ask the visitor
 “Pray, sir, who may you be?”
It is an old peasant
 who had a kindly thought,
And has come from far away
 bearing a jug of wine,
Because he thinks I am
 at variance with the times
“Sitting in patched clothes
 under a thatched roof —
This will never help you
 to get on in the world!
All the world together
 praises that alone,
So I wish, sir, that you too
 would float with the muddy stream”
“Old man, I am deeply
 grateful for your words,
But your advice does not accord
 with my inborn nature.
Even if I could learn
 to follow the curb and reins,
To go against one's nature
 is always a mistake
Let us just be happy
 and drink this wine together —
I fear my chariot
 can never be turned back.”

T'ao Ch'ien [or T'ao Yuan-ming Ch'ien T'ao ] (365–427)

Translation © 2008 William Acker

white ducks

Darkening waves –
cry of wild ducks,
faintly white.

Ocean waves are dark,
only calls of ducks
faintly lighten in the sky.

Dusk falls upon the sea as
ducks call
faintly in the whiteness.

The sea darkening . . .
oh voices of the
wild ducks
Crying, whirling, white.

The sea darkens;
the voices of the wild ducks
are faintly white.

The sea grows dark.
The voices of the wild ducks
turn white.

Brilliant moon,
is it true that you too
must pass in a hurry?
Issa

Above the veil
of mist, from time to time
there lifts a sail.
Gakoku





Nine time arising
to see the moon
whose solemn pace
marks yet only midnight.
Basho














Kisa Lagoon--
the morning sun rising
autumn dusk
Issa


Brother of W. Corwin Chase. The brothers taught themselves the art of the color woodcut in the mid 1920's using Frank Morley Fletcher's manual and produced magnificent color woodblocks for only about ten years.