Carpe Diem Namasté, The Spiritual Way #3 spiritual love based on Zen Buddhism

!! Namasté is open for responses for three days !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of Carpe Diem Namasté, the spiritual way, the special feature in which we are exploring the spiritual way, the spiritual background, of haiku (and tanka). Today I love to tell you a little bit about the Zen Buddhism background of haiku.

We all know that haiku has roots in Zen-Buddhism. 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

spiritual love based on Zen Buddhism

I discovered haiku in the late Eighties and I was caught immediately by its beauty. I fell in love with haiku, addicted to the beauty of nature, addicted to love. Haiku, however, wasn't my first love ... my first love was classical music especially the music by J.S.Bach. I played the organ and studied all the works of Bach. Through his music I learned to appreciate beauty.

Later I discovered painting and photographing. While I was busy learning to become a better painter and photographer I ran into haiku ... Haiku at that time gave me the opportunity to train my writing skills, to say more with less words.

What has "real love" to do with haiku? Let me tell you something about love in haiku.

As you all know tanka is more the poetry for love, but in my opinion, haiku is also about love. Love in haiku is universal and that means "haiku transcends everything even the love between people. Haiku is love and we can find that idea in the wonderful spiritual roots of haiku, Zen Buddhism.

Zen is love (real love) of the universe. Without this love, joy is uncertain, pain is inevitable, all is meaningless. Othello says:

[...] "When I love thee not, chaos is come again". [...]

The love must be complete, - not that it aims at the universe as a whole, but that the personality as a whole is to be concentrated on the thing; the thing is to be suffused with the personality. Then we have the state, described abstractly by Dr. Suzuki in the following words:

[...] "When an object is picked up, everything else, One and All, comes along with it, not in the way of suggestion, but all-inclusively, in the sense that the object is complete in itself". [...]

lotus flowers

rising from the depths of the pond

everlasting love

everlasting love

like a river flows onwards

uncertain of its goal

uncertain of its goal

rising from the depths of the pond

lotus flowers

© Chèvrefeuille

The relation of love to poetry may be easy to make out, but that to Zen is much more difficult. Look at it like this ... If we are without self-love, greediness, without desire of gain, of happiness, of life itself, all this energy must overflow somewhere. It overflows into all things, including oneself, so that now no actions are selfish or unselfish, good or bad, but are like the sunshine or the rain, but with mind instead of mindlessness. 

We say that we see the beauty of the fine drops of rain, the glittering of the leaves in the sun, the stars in their calm, - but what we really see is the mind of man, our own mind, in all these things. Through our activity and cooperation, these inanimate things acquire mind and affection. The waves drown the shipwrecked sailor regretfully, the sun scorches the weary traveler with remorse.

This kind of love, then, is not the means, the first step, but the end and aim and consummation of our pilgrimage here (on this world). It is expressed in quite other ways than altruism and self-denial. It is effortless and continuous, unconscious and nameless, but we feel it and know it ourselves and others as the health of the soul.

Namasté

Love is the only energy capable to bring peace to the world. The love for the tiniest things in nature are making us the haiku poets we are. We are all lovers of nature and that love is rooted in the Zen Buddhism background of haiku.

shepherd’s purse

trembles in the summer breeze -

bees seek for honey

© Chèvrefeuille

Well .... I hope you did like this new Namasté episode and I hope it will inspire you to create haiku and tanka in which we can find that spiritual love based on Zen Buddhism and our love for nature.

Namasté

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 10.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 20th at 10.00 PM (CET). Have fun.