Carpe Diem Theme Week 4 (3) Latifa Prayer "I desire"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy to see how you are responding on this new Theme Week about that powerful Latifa Prayer and I am so glad that you all do like this new Theme Week. Today we are exploring the second line of the Latifa Prayer "I desire".

cold winter night
dreaming about the coming of spring -
cherry trees blooming

© Chèvrefeuille

In this haiku the desire for spring is the leading theme. After the long cold winter I am longing for spring and of course spring starts (at least for me) as my old Sakura in the backyard starts to bloom.

Introduction:

The second line of the Latifa Prayer is "I desire" and with that line you open your thoughts for your desires and become aware of them. What are your desires?

I once had the desire to write a novel I chased that goal and I made my desire real. I wrote a novel. Of course there are more desires I have and to bring another one up here ... Another desire I had was to become a well known haiku poet. As I fell in love with haiku in the late eighties I always thought that I would only be writing in Dutch, but at the start of this century I found the courage to publish a Dutch haiku translation to English and published it on the WWW. From that moment on I only wrote English haiku and became who I am now. Again one of the desires I had was fulfilled.

May we have desires? Of course you may have desires, you may chase goals you have set for yourself ... nothing wrong with that too.

It's my experience that chasing desires to become true gives a lot of pure energy. It's not wrong to have desires, but you have to be aware of them.

desire

My response:

But ... let us look at us as haiku poets. We all know that haiku has roots in Zen-Buddhism and as we look at Zen-Buddhism than having desires is something very different as meant above. In Zen-Buddhism the only desire possible is to become enlightened ... does that mean that haiku poets may not have desires? I don't know ... but as I look deep inside myself, in my Higher Self, that pure energy which is our guardian in our life ... than as a haiku poet I have just one desire. The only desire I have, not to become enlightened, but creating that one masterpiece in which I can read, see, feel and reveal the master, my master Basho, that's my only desire.

I am aware of that desire and it's my lifelong goal to once create that masterpiece, maybe I have done that already, but I am not aware of it ... 

Be aware of your desires ... don't feel ashamed when you discover your desires ... desires and being aware of them makes you human.

silent prayer
reaches for heaven
sunflowers bloom

© Chèvrefeuille

This Theme Week episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will be open until May 21st at noon (CET).