solitude

in continuing with my supposition that an important, perhaps the most important, aspect of culture is religion, i wish to begin to look at, for ease's sake, some differ- ences between christianity and buddhism. it's clear that i'm not a scholar on this subject, and i know that some of you are, so please add your knowledge, and please don't judge me too harshly for my inevitable errors.

while both religious traditions have some form of simplicity at heart, both have their garish elements as well. but this will not be a discussion of externals, but rather a discussion of how both deal with the internal reaches of the spirit.

let us look first at solitude, at our percep- tions, and at "realities." when a solitary figure is featured, what is your reaction, and what does that depend on? are different internal processes inferred for a woman than for a man?

i find one of my own internal prejudices in noting that she looks dejected while he looks creative. is the difference in the images or in myself?

while both of these images are by west- erners, one is of a monk in japan by an artist (orlik) who spent much time there. by my perception, i see him as walking in contemplation, while in the other i imagine someone returning home with the groceries, hurrying because of the cold.

why the differences? again, are they inherent in the images or in me?

(though this next might seem like a change of subject, i think this will all tie together in the end.)

so then let us look at the simi- larities in the origins of the two religions. i find it striking how similar these sound.

At the beginning of his public ministry Jesus of Nazareth subjected himself for forty days to physical and spiritual testing in the desert; and the Gospels record other times in which he retired for periods of solitary prayer. In the early church, individuals would live ascetic lives, though usually on the outskirts of civilization. 1

jesus said, "Don't go into fear; don't get overly stuck in the judgmental functioning of the mind; consider the lilies; learn to love your neighbor with the same love as you give yourself; love one another as I have loved you; know the truth, and the truth will set you free; be perfect, just as God is perfect... be still ... and know ...." 2

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” 3

the buddha as well fasted in the desert "at the beginning of his public ministry." the buddhist temples were, and continue to be, on the edges of town.

the buddha said, "Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind." 4

"Consider others as yourself." 5

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." 6

in fact, perhaps the only disagreement in the origins of the beginnings was that in buddhism we are taught to look inward, and in christianity we are taught to look outward, to god. the irony is that both are talking about the same thing.

another difference, in practice, is the reason for that practice. christians' goal is the sweet hereafter. buddhists are more interested in the sweet now.

fascinatingly, there are websites and books galore on all of the parallels between the two men, the two traditions. thai buddhist monk and teacher thich nhat hanh has written and edited several himself. just google jesus and buddha and you will have days of reading at your fingertips.

so it seems that the differences began to occur as christianity began to change in the centuries after christ's death. (i know -- this isn't news -- but it seemed important to mention at this point of the explor- ation.) eventually, churches were moved to the center of town. eventually, wars were fought in christ's name. eventually, people were scorned or banished for any number of "sins" that had developed in those centuries.

these changes never developed in buddhism.

so what of solitude? while buddhism continued its embrace of the practice, christianity became more "community oriented." the practices following the buddha's teachings remained pretty much the same, but the concept of finding god, and truth, and be set free by it has turned, all too often, into an iron-clad institution: find our god, our truth, or we will see to it that you have no freedom.

the externalizing of god, in the west, led to a certainty that god was "out there," which was never what jesus really taught. yes, things are changing. meditation has become in important part of the religious traditions of the west. and there wouldn't be a market for all those books if people were not now recognizing their needs in a new way. but how did the divergence happen, the one that i'm positing is the reason for the divergence in the arts. i'll try to take that on next.

blue iris

RIPENESS

Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.
Not only the heavy apple,
the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from their core.

To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.


And however sharply
you are tested –
this sorrow, that great love –
it too will leave on that clean knife.

--ⓒ 2009 Jane Hirshfield

WILD GEESE


You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk
on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are,
no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

--ⓒ 2009 Mary Oliver


BLUE IRIS

Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?

Can't fly, can't run and
see how slowly I walk.

Well, I think, I can read books.

"What's that you're doing?"
the green-headed fly shouts
as it buzzes past.

I close the book.

Well, I can write down words,
like these, softly.

"What's that you're doing?" whispers the wind,
pausing in a heap
just outside the window.

Give me a little time, I say back to its staring, silver face.
It doesn't happen all of a sudden, you know.

"Doesn't it?" says the wind, and breaks open, releasing
distillation of blue iris.

And my heart panics not to be,
as I long to be,
the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

--ⓒ 2009 Mary Oliver

gakiku for haiku

inspired & informed by the luminous princess haiku, i bring note of a chrysanthemum exhibition happening for the next month at the new york botanical garden. (watch the video)

The chrysanthemum, the flower loved by Tao Yuan-ming (365-427), a distinguished Chinese poet of the East-Chin dynasty, was brought to

Japan around the beginning of the Heian Period (794-1192). It took root in Japan and was called by many different names such as "Katami-gusa (memory flower)" and "Chigiri-gusa (promise flower)."

In the Edo Period (1603-1868), there were several hundred varieties of chrysanthe- mum in Japan. Gakiku is a picture book dating from 1519 and published in this form in 1691, which introduces one hundred kinds of chrysanthemums with beautiful illustrations. The flower's name and a Chinese-style poem is also written for each of the flowers. The preface was written in 1519 by Eikin (1447-1537), a priest of the Rin'zai Zen Sect in Japan, which says that the pictures were the work of Junpo (1504-1549), the second son of a feudal lord of that time. We can also find the postface and the imprint at the end of this book, from which we learn that the book was published in 1691, and that the Chinese-style poems and the postface were added in that year.

Gakiku is the first picture book of chry- santhe- mums produced in Japan, possibly modeled on the Kikufu Hyakueizu, a translation of a Chinese book of the same kind published in 1686. The writing and lines are wood-block printed in black, and the illustrations are hand-painted in yellow, white, red, purple etc. according to the colors of the flowers. The book was once owned by Yokoyama Shigeru (1896-1980), a scholar of Japanese literature.

Following the publication of Gakiku, books on chrysanthemum cultivation were published one after another. There was a chrysanthemum boom and chrysanthemum shows were held in Kyoto every year. In the middle of the 18th century, the Kikukyo, a learned work on chrysanthemums, was written by Matsudaira Yorihiro (1702-1763), a feudal lord of Mutsu-Moriyama (now part of Fukushima prefecture, located to the north of Tokyo). In the first half of the 19th century, chrysanthemum craftwork became popular in the Komagome and Sugamo area of Edo (now part of Tokyo), and later on, at the end of the Edo Period, chrysanthemum dolls in Dango-zaka (now Bunkyo ward of Tokyo) became an attraction in autumn.

Throughout the Edo Period, the chrysanthemum attracted people of all classes. 1

(Digital images of all the pages of Gakiku are available here.
Please note that this is a different link from the one in the newsletter.)

song

SONG

You are as gold
as the half-ripe grain
that merges to gold again,
as white as

the white rain
that beats through
the half-opened flowers
of the great flower tufts
thick on the black limbs
of an Illyrian apple bough.

Can honey distill such fragrance
As your bright hair--
For your face is as fair as rain,
yet as rain that lies clear
on white honey-comb,
lends radiance to the white wax,
so your hair on your brow
casts light for a shadow.

h. d.

holding the moon

been thinking a lot today, about the nature of holidays and the holidays of nature. in japan, the blossoming of the cherry trees calls for cherry-viewing parties at the highest levels.

in persia, the first day of the spring
is new year's day.

yes, we have nature-based holidays. our spring holidays are easter and passover. these are really celebrating the equinox as much as chanukah and christmas
celebrate the solstice.

but for the japanese, it's much more conscious. something about us being part of nature, nature being part of us, has not been lost.

van gogh may have been right, writing his brother about the regard with which the japanese hold a single blade of grass. the blossoming of the trees is cause for poetry.
this is ono no komachi writing a poem.
could this sad poem be it?

How invisibly
it changes color
in this world,
the flower
of the human heart.




(Chikanobu Toyohara, Shunzan Katsukawa,
Nobukazu Watanabe, Arthur Wesley Dow,
Gesso Yoshimoto, poem from Ink Dark Moon, tr. Hirshfield/Aratani.)