Carpe Diem #1802 New Beginnings ... without beginning

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Maybe you think "What?" because of the title of this new episode "without beginning". Maybe it brings you ideas of that classical dillema "What was first the chicken or the egg", but no ... that's not the dillema here.

"Without beginning" points towards the circle, or the wedding ring. The wedding ring is a milestone, it's a new beginning, but its form ... a circle ... is without beginning. So today our prompt is related to the circle ... without beginning.

I recall an article I once read about deathpoems and one of the examples was the deathpoem by Shinsui.
During his last moment, Shisui's disciples requested that he write a death poem. He grasped his brush, painted a circle, cast the brush aside, and died. The circle— indicating the void, the essence of everything, enlightenment— is one of the most important symbols of Zen Buddhism.

Deathpoem by Shinsui (* - 1769)

Isn't it a wonderful deathpoem? But as we look closer to this deathpoem ... we see were Shinsui started the "circle" (at the 'bottom' somewhat to the left, we can see the start of the brush). Does this mean a circle has a beginning and an end?

eternal circle
lotuses blooming and decaying -
ancient wisdom grows

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 29th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1472 emptiness

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My apologies for being late. I had a very busy day on our chemo-therapy unit. So I hadn't time earlier to create this new episode of our Imagination Without Limits month, July 2018. So ... because of being late I will only give you the image for today to inspire you. I think it's another beautiful image and I hope it will inspire you to create your Japanese poetry.

Emptiness

what happened?
left coffee cup
her perfume

© Chèvrefeuille (experimental haiku)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 17th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1413 Loneliness (Haibun in the classical way)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I love to wander along the beach, only the sound of waves and seagulls, all alone. I love to sit down in the backyard on my own, only nature and my own thoughts and feelings. I love being alone sometimes. I think I need that ... I have a busy life, my family, my work as an oncology-nurse, being your host and being myself, the haiku poet Chèvrefeuille. Loneliness is something you can choose for, but mostly loneliness is not something that we choose. There are enough humans that are alone, who live their life in loneliness but didn't choose for it. Loneliness ... our theme for today. I think we have had this theme earlier here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai:

Here are a few links to earlier posts:

Carpe Diem #405
Carpe Diem Tanka Splendor #17
Carpe Diem #886
Carpe Diem Namaste, The Spiritual Way #6

Loneliness

Loneliness ... what does it mean for you. Do you choose loneliness sometimes, to find new inspiration and new energy? Loneliness ... a strong emotion with a strong task today, because I love to challenge you to create a classical haibun. In other words, the haiku (or tanka) have to be written in the classical way. (More about this classical way of haiku-ing you can find above in Carpe Diem Lecture 1) Your haibun may have a maximum of 300 words.

Here is a (non-classical) haiku from my archives about "loneliness":

in front of the fireplace
an empty bottle and broken wine glasses 
after the quarrel

© Chėvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until April 24th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode, nakedness, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1290 spiritual way - Haiku's state of mind - zen

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Our celebration month is almost over, we have only three regular prompts to work with and two (this weekend, musical episodes. Our trip along memory lane has brought us into 2017. 2017 Was a year of changes. For example I decided to create a new feature "weekend-meditation" and I prolonged the time of responding. These changes were not only for me, but also for you. The "weekend-meditation" feature gave me the opportunity to take weekends off and the responding time prolonging was especially for you, but it gave me also more time to create new episodes and to visit you all.

And there was that new feature "Carpe Diem's Namasté, the Spiritual Way" in which I taught you all a little more about the spiritual background of haiku (and other Japanese poetry forms). Today's episode in our "trip along memory lane" brings us to the spring of 2017. To be precise ... to March. In one of the "weekend-meditations" I brought a "CD Namasté episode" about the state of mind of haiku Zen.

Let me quote myself:

[...] "To start with I have a haiku in which one of the most important issues of Zen Buddhism, Emptiness, is mentioned and with that haiku I hope to start this episode of Namasté and bring it to a great end.

an empty bowl
but in it is the spirit of emptiness -
the spring breeze

© Chèvrefeuille

This is the "heart" of haiku .... emptiness .... based on the ideas and thoughts of Zen Buddhism, but in haiku it's not only "emptiness" it is also "selflessness", "loneliness", "wordlessness", "simplicity" and "grateful acceptance". And of course there will be more to say, but that is not possible in the shallowness of this episode ..." [...]

logo CD Namasté 

I remember my first haiku book, it was a small anthology of my Dutch haiku, nice lay out and a few paintings by myself. That first haiku book was titled "Leegte" ("Emptiness") and it was not only because of the idea that haiku is emptiness, as in the Zen way, but in the lay out I also had chosen to create that "Emptiness" by printing only one haiku on every (A4) page. In that way I not onkly shared the "Emptiness" of the haiku, but also that Zen "Emptiness".

Emptiness ... I think every haiku (or tanka or other Japanese poetry form) needs that. It makes your poetry stronger and your reader will be feeling one with the haiku, because it's the only thing on a page he reads ... how much more stronger do you want to make the emptiness?

boundless world
the tranquil gardens of the temple 
I empty my mind
to make room for another thought
emptiness is cool

© Chèvrefeuille

rice straw

piece of straw
blown off into emptiness
a new beginning

© Chèvrefeuille

Two nice poems in which I have tried to bring in "emptiness", here is a last one, a redone "cascading haiku".

one empty bowl
thrown away in the sink
the faint scent of tea
as I empty the kettle -
time for coffee

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like this trip back in the close by history of CDHK. And I hope it will inspire you to create your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 2nd at noon (CET). I hope to publish our new episode, another nice piece of inspirational music, later on.

Carpe Diem Namasté, The Spiritual Way #6 Haiku's State of Mind - Zen

!! Open for your submissions Sunday April 2nd 7.00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome  at our "weekend-meditation" episode of this week. This week I have a nice episode of Carpe Diem Namasté The Spiritual Way for you to mediate and contemplate on. As you all know you can respond on this "weekend-meditation" on Sunday after publishing. This gives you the time to think it over and meditate on it ...

This week I had some trouble to getting an idea for this Namasté episode, but after a while I thought maybe I can do something on Zen Buddhism, because that's one of the pillars for a classical haiku. Maybe this will episode will give you an idea how to bring spirituality into you haiku. As you all know (maybe) next month, April, I will have all classical (maybe sometimes modern) kigo (seasonwords) for spring, also a pillar of haiku. April will be in total classical, because I hope to challenge you to create haiku and tanka based on the classical rules. (These classical rules you can find in our exclusive e-book "In The Way of Basho" above in the menu).

Let me take you "by the hand", let's go find out what haiku and spirituality have to do with each other.

Maybe you remember that we have had a series here at CDHK about "Zen in haiku", based on the "bible" of  haiku, the four volumes "Haiku" by R.H.Blyth.

cover of Volume 4 of the series by R.H. Blyth

To start with I have a haiku in which one of the most important issues of Zen Buddhism, Emptiness, is mentioned and with that haiku I hope to start this episode of Namasté and bring it to a great end.

an empty bowl
but in it is the spirit of emptiness -
the spring breeze

© Chèvrefeuille

This is the "heart" of haiku .... emptiness .... based on the ideas and thoughts of Zen Buddhism, but in haiku it's not only "emptiness" it is also "selflessness", "loneliness", "wordlessness", "simplicity" and "grateful acceptance". And of course there will be more to say, but that is not possible in the shallowness of this episode ...

Last week I brought the idea of "emptiness" already towards you all, so I think this is a clear thought already. So let us take a look at the other things mentioned here. First "selflessness" ... What is selflessness? It is a condition in which things are seen without reference to profit or loss, even of some remote, spiritual kind.
If you start writing haiku the first thing that will be said to you is "don't personalize your haiku, the poet has no place in your haiku, it's only nature". Maybe you have heard that when you started to create haiku. But in my opinion the haiku I create are me, in my haiku I am always present, because I am the poet who has crafted it. Haiku is a nice way to say things as you feel them and sometimes you need to bring yourself into the haiku (or tanka).

the butterfly having disappeared,
my spirit
came back to me

© Wafu 

woodblock print "butterfly" (image found on Pinterest)

And than "loneliness". What is loneliness? I think you all know that, but as Zen explains it: Loneliness is the underlying rhythm of thought rather than the thought itself. Loneliness we can bring into our haiku, an example:

wandering

through the city park near by

just the wind and me

© Chèvrefeuille

Or this one crafted by Buson, one of the "big five":

an autumn eve;

there is joy too,

in loneliness

© Buson

There is need to use words for haiku and tanka, for all kinds of poetry and other writing skills. Without words we don't create, but "wordlessness" is also one of the pillars of the classical haiku, but how can that be?

What does "wordlessness" mean in Zen Buddhism? Zen is essentially a wordless state, in which words are used, not to express anything, but rather to clear away something that seems to stand between us and the real things which are then perceived by self-knowledge.

Or as Thoreau says at the end of Walden:

"The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains."

this evening, ... the happiness,
while I washed my feet, ...
those two or three words

© Kaito

There are times when words lose their own power and serve us in humility and truth, when our thoughts peacefully arrange themselves in conformity with the order of things.

a gleam in the mirror

of colored leaves falling -

the sound of rain

© Chèvrefeuille

Zen has an extreme simplicity, and the  volubility of the Japanese language has been completely overcome in haiku. When we say "Eastern Thought", meaning the manner of apprehending the world by Japanese, Chinese, Koreans and Indians, we refer to a unity of Chinese practicality, Japanese simplicity and plainness, Korean independence, and Indian non-ego-ness. That's simplicity. Isn't that what we are trying to do in our haiku and tanka? Trying to say, describe, a scene in its most naked form, in its most simple way .... isn't that what we do?

For example this haiku by Basho, my master:

the Rose of Sharon

by the roadside,

was eaten by the horse

© Basho

That simple it is. Basho describes just what happened ... that horse eating. Or this one ... also just a description of the scene as it is:

what a joy

the song of birds

a new day rises

© Chèvrefeuille

That is what it is, every day again ... that is simplicity. We are all wonderful haiku and tanka poets, let us be grateful for all what nature gives us ... the Earth herself and all that is on, in and above it provides us with the scenery to use in our haiku or tanka ... just that simple ...

cherry blossom petals

fall one by one in the puddle

hugged by the moon

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... enough to mediate and contemplate I think. Have a great weekend.

This Namasté episode is open for your submissions on Sunday April 2nd at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until April 7th at noon (CET). I will publish our new episode, the first prompt of April, a classical kigo, also on Sunday April 2nd around 7.00 PM (CET). For now ... have a great weekend and I hope I have inspired you to create haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry forms.

Carpe Diem Namasté, the Spiritual Way #4 keepers of the earth

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

In my garden I have a small statue of Buddha, he always sits there, meditating and contemplating. I a way he is my spiritual master. Sometimes I kneel in front of him. I bow my head. Than my mind becomes clear and silent. All my thoughts stop, complete emptiness in my head. All my senses awaken and than ... the miracle ... I hear nature, I breath nature, I see nature, I feel nature, I sense nature in a way I have never sensed it. I become one with nature.
As I look back than I feel, I experience every moment of my life again. Than I see how my. our, life has changed.

Recently I had a small depression. I questioned all and everything I had done. One day I sat down and looked back on the years that have passed. I saw how "my" Buddha was covered with snow and he sat there without having a problem with it. Than Buddha was covered with the fragile beauty of cherry blossom of the old Sakura in my garden. I became Buddha, I felt the softness of the cherry blossoms, I smelt the decay of the blossoms. I saw the life-stream through the Sakura and followed it through its branches, its trunk  and in its roots deep hidden in the earth. I became the Cherry tree. Right at that moment I learned to appreciate the Cherry.
One day, just after the start of summer, Buddha was the only one in my garden that captured a spot of sunlight. It was a mystical experience ... the (so-called) Pelican-Tree behind Buddha, a surrogate for the Bodhi Tree, caught a bit of sunlight too. At that moment I had a "karumi" experience, a revelation. I saw for the very first time that the leaves of the Pelican Tree had a thin red pinkish edge. I really hadn't seen that earlier, but it must have been there forever, I however hadn't seen it. On that moment I thought "Wow, nature is gorgeous. I have to go back to nature. Only than I can be one with nature as a real haiku poet".

Pelican Tree (Salix Integra)

Later that year, when summer departed and autumn colored nature I saw that beauty again, more intense than ever. A small colorful leaf was in the folded hands of Buddha, a few days later we had the first frost and that leaf in Buddha's hands had become more fragile, more beautiful ... that thin layer of frost told me "seasons come and go, and nature knows it  better than which intelligent species on earth".

Just a little story to explain what this Namasté episode is about. We are one with nature. We need nature, we have to take care of nature, we have to be the keepers of the earth like all those shamans all around the world. We are all keepers of the earth and we are praising earth with our haiku.

Be a keeper of the earth, live with nature as if you see it for the very first time. See that apple as if you see it for the first time. Look at the apple follow its life back to the blossoms, the bare branches, the trunk, its roots ... than you will experience its beauty, its richness, its taste to the max. In a way become the apple. Isn't that what Zen-Buddhism means?
Zen-Buddhism is one of the pillars of haiku. In Zen-Buddhism one of the sacred ideas / thoughts is Oneness. Be one with all and everything around you .... be the keeper of the earth.

This Namasté feature is meant to be a kind of "meditation" to contemplate and think it over. Become part of the story of your life ... you are a keeper of the earth.

To give you time to meditate and contemplate you can start to submit your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form next Sunday March 5th at 7.00 PM (CET) until March 7th at 7.00 PM (CET). So you have a few days to think it over and create your poetry and you have a few days to post your submission.

I hope to publish our new episode, dancer, Sunday 5th around 7.00 PM (CET). Enjoy your weekend.

Carpe Diem Namasté the Spiritual Way #2 pilgrimage

!! For this special feature you have three days to respond, instead of five as the regular prompts !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Last week I started with Namasté, the spiritual way, a new feature here at CDHK in which I love to explore the spiritual side of haiku and tanka. As you all know one of the classical rules of haiku is that there has to be in some way a deeper meaning in haiku (and tanka). That deeper meaning is mostly based on Zen Buddhism, but in my opinion it's not necessary to bring that Zen Buddhism into your haiku, it can also be a Hindu meaning, a Christian or Muslim meaning, because I think that haiku has no boundaries towards religions and spiritual beliefs. In my opinion all religions and spiritual beliefs are One ... There are a lot of similarities between religions and spiritual beliefs and in my opinion we are all in a way part of God, Great Spirit, Higher Self or what ever name you give it.
Being part of God, made of "god-stuff" as I explained last week in the first episode of "Namasté", makes us one.

Last month we were on a pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela, but that wasn't our first pilgrimage here. Back in 2014 we were on a pilgrimage straight through the former USSR with the Trans Siberian Rail Road and we went on a pilgrimage along the 88 temples on Shikoku Island, see also our regular episode of today, and I hope to do another (virtual) pilgrimage later this year.

This episode of "Namasté" is titled pilgrimage and I think that it fits the "Namasté" theme, because we saw what Namasté menas last week.
This week I love to go on an inner pilgrimage, I am not going to explain how our body works, we are not going to visit or intestines ...

Inner Pilgrimage

 The above image I have found on a wonderful website named "Creative Pilgrimage"  and I think that's what we are doing as haiku and tanka poets we are on a creative pilgrimage. We are on our way to our Inner Self, as the inside of a shell. We encounter a scene, a short moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water and that brings us to the final frontier ... the haiku or tanka to create.

Fredrick Franck, a philosopher, writer, painter and renown as "The Renaissance Man" and a fellow Dutchman, has once said:

[...] “That I speak here of art as a Way, gives away that I see the way of the artist as a kind of pilgrimage. When you go on a pilgrimage, you set out from where you happen to be and start walking toward a place of great sanctity in the hope of returning from it renewed, enriched and sanctified. However far you may walk, every pilgrimage is a safari into your own dark interior, an inner journey.” [...]

Franck said "The meaning of life is to see" with that he was the founder of what I love to call "the Inner Pilgrimage". His bestselling book about his ideas is titled "The Zen of Seeing".

To bring this idea back to haiku (and tanka). As I stated, and as the classical rules tell us, there has to be a spiritual meaning in your haiku (or tanka) and our haiku are based on what we see ... that tiny little moment that surprises us catches us and makes us emotional and devote ... the only thing we can do is bowing our head in silent adoration, admiration or how you love to call it.

The challenge for this week's episode of "Namasté" is to look around you with the eyes of Zen and try to catch the beauty of that moment ... 

in the puddle
the fragile beauty of clouds
a broken rose

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like this episode of "Namasté" and I hope that I have inspired you to create haiku or tanka ... Go with me on an Inner Pilgrimage ... explore the Zen of Seeing.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 14th 10.00 PM (CET)

Carpe Diem #1071 brush (zen-calligraphy)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today another nice regular prompt in which I love to share with you the tool that is mostly used by the so-called Zen Calligrapher, the brush. The art of calligraphy is an ancient way of meditation and contemplation.
In ancient Japan the technique, or art, of zen calligraphy has been brought to a level of perfection which we cannot find on other places on our globe. To inspire you I have chosen to share a You Tube video in which a few examples of writing with a brush are shown.

Japanese calligraphy was influenced by, and influenced, Zen thought. For any particular piece of paper, the calligrapher has but one chance to create with the brush. The brush strokes cannot be corrected, and even a lack of confidence shows up to the work. The calligrapher must concentrate and be fluid in execution. The brush writes a statement about the calligrapher at a moment in time (see: Hitsuzendo, the Zen way of the brush). Through Zen, Japanese calligraphy absorbed a distinct Japanese aesthetic often symbolized by the "enso" or circle of enlightenment.
Zen calligraphy is practiced by Buddhist monks and most shodou or shodo practitioners. To write Zen calligraphy with mastery, one must clear one's mind an let the letters flow out of themselves, not practice and make a tremendous effort. This state of mind was called the "mushin" ("no mind state")
by the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro. It is based on the principle of Zen Buddhism, which stresses a connection to the spiritual rather than the physical.

Before Japanese tea cermonies (which are connected to Zen Buddhism), one is to look at a work of "shodo (shodou) to clear one's mind. This is considered an essential step in the preparation for a tea cermony. (source: wikipedia)

Tokonoma in which we can see a calligraphy, this is the "shodo" to clear the mind before attending a tea ceremony 

a charcoal drawing
in the tokonoma
koan of life

© Chèvrefeuille

young monk
brush in hand one with nature
writes Mu *

© Chèvrefeuille

* One of the most popular Ichijikan (One -word barriers) in Zen calligraphy is that of Mu(無), which can be translated as nothing or nothingness. This Mu probably is the best known Koan in the Zen Buddhist tradition, and to penetrate on its true meaning, the endeavor in the practice of Zazen or Zen sitting is essential. By the same means, Zen calligraphy must be understood as a realization of this practice, since the Zen calligrapher manifests in his art not just mere technical ability, but his No Mind ( Mushin). So by the gate of Zazen practice, the calligrapher can enter into the practice of Zensho (Zen calligraphy).

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 8th at noon  (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, our first Universal Jane, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1043 emptiness

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today we are entering spring. Our first episodes were all from the New Year section of "A Dictionary of Haiku" by Jane Reichhold and today we are starting with the spring section of her saijiki.
Today our prompt is emptiness and that's what I am still feeling since I heard from Jane's passing away. I feel empty as if my drive to create haiku has been gone ... I really miss Jane, she was such a nice friend and an awesome mentor.

"Emptiness" is also a very strong idea within Zen Buddhism and that's also part of haiku. Today I have a few nice haiku by Jane reichhold to inspire you, to tribute her:

nothing fills
the emptiness of the question
where are they?

the empty nest
my daughter's house
after the wedding

© Jane Reichhold

Two haiku in which you can feel the emptiness ... That first haiku makes me sad and gives words to my feeling of emptiness. That last line could be easily be 're-written' into where is she?

Emptiness ... where is she?

How to turn that feeling of emptiness into something positive? I think I have found it and I give it words through the following tanka:

boundless world
the tranquil gardens of the temple 
I empty my mind
to make room for another thought
emptiness is cool

© Chèvrefeuille

Jane Reichhold has left an emptiness in my heart, but I always will cherish her in that same heart. Jane was not only a great haiku poet, but she also created wonderful tanka. So I just had to create a tanka this time.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 8th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, our first CD-Special by Dolores and a new regular episode mysteries later on.

Carpe Diem's Summer Retreat 2016 "One With Nature"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I love to introduce to you our first Carpe Diem Summer Retreat. This new feature is only once a year in summer (sorry for those who live on Southern Hemisphere, because it's winter) and it is ... how shall I formulate this?

Carpe Diem's Summer Retreat is a period of 30 days, starting tomorrow July 15th 10.00 PM (CET) and ends August 15th 10.00 PM (CET). It's as the title says already a kind of retreat. Without prompts, without challenges, only you, my Haijin, visitors and travelers. The only thing I ask from you is to look at nature in a way of becoming one with nature to bring the haiku poets Inner Self in balance with nature. We are all haiku poets and I think we are all one with nature.

Go outside let the beauty of nature overwhelm you, be part of it and share your experiences with us through haiku preferably, but tanka is also okay. No prompts ... the only thing I ask for is to share a haiku a day during this Summer Retreat.

Mother Nature is our muse ... she and only she can inspire us all as haiku poets ... haiku is at its base the poetry of nature and I think its in our hands to create little pieces of nature through our haiku.

the beauty of nature

Are you with me?

If you like to participate in this first Carpe Diem Summer Retreat "One With Nature" than you can link your daily haiku for the "summer retreat" to the linking widget. To link every day you have to add a number to your link. I am looking forward to this Summer Retreat.

This first Carpe Diem Summer Retreat opens tomorrow at 10.00 PM (CET) and will close on August 15th 10.00 PM (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #84, "from a treetop"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First I love to thank you all for your kind words according the "trouble" at my work. Yesterday I have had a wonderful, very spiritual, conversation with my head of unit. It was really a beautiful conversation and the problems which were the reason for my "conflict" have been solved. Really it's great to open up in a conversation and meet each other in the middle to come closer to each other. It was really an experience which had to be I think.

Ok ... back to our Tan Renga Challenge. We are on the trail with Basho as you all know and the Tan Renga of today starts with a beautiful haiku composed by Basho. Again a haiku which isn't well known, but it's a beauty. This haiku was for sure the starting verse or "hokku" for a Renga session in which Basho was part of. He is in his early thirties, already a well known Renga master, and his haiku are becoming better and better ... and more beautiful. Ok ... enough trumpeting .... you all know how much I adore Basho and his haiku. Here is our "hokku" for this new Tan Renga Challenge:

from a treetop
emptiness dropped down
in a cicada shell

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

Well .... I think I have said nothing to much about this haiku .... a real beauty, maybe one of his best haiku he ever wrote, but that's just my humble opinion, but I am of course prejudiced (smiles).

Credits: Cicada shell

In this haiku I read Zen ... and the scene is Zen I think. Basho as always is on the trail and has eye for everything and everyone around him. He is really part of nature and is one with it. He has eye for the little things and is in complete awe as he sees the empty shell of a cicada lying under a tree. This shell is empty, but once was full of life ... Is this shell really empty? I would ask myself and as I give this a thought than I say ... "no this shell isn't empty, in this empty shell is still the cicada present ..."

The goal of this Tan Renga Challenge is to make the Tan Renga complete by writing the second (two lined) stanza with approximately 7 syllables (or sounds, onji) per line by associating on the images in the first stanza. Of course I had to try it myself, but it wasn't easy.

from a treetop
emptiness dropped down
in a cicada shell                   (Basho)

the soothing sound of spring rain
makes the silence stronger                     (Chèvrefeuille)

A nice completion I think. Can you explore how I came to this second stanza?

This Tan Renga Challenge is open for your submissions today at noon (CET) and will remain open until next Friday May 15th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #76, Hamish Gunn's "only emptiness "

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Another week has gone and it's Friday again ... so time for a new Tan Renga Challenge (TCR) in which I challenge you to write a second stanza to complete a Tan Renga (a short chained poem written by two poets) with a given "hokku" or "first stanza" by one of our Carpe Diem Haiku Family members. This week I have chosen a haiku written by Hamish Gunn which he wrote in response on our Haiku Writing Techniques on Wabi Sabi ... here is his haiku:

in the space between the trees
only emptiness
without emptiness no forest

© Hamish Gunn

Credits: Emptiness

The above picture is in strong contrast with Hamish's haiku ... he writes about emptiness between the trees and I will try to write a second stanza towards it more on a concrete idea as the empty hall in the picture. So here is my attempt to write a second stanza towards the "hokku" by Hamish:

in the space between the trees
only emptiness
without emptiness no forest                      (HG)

cicadas' voices resonate
through the old mansion's empty hall        (Ch)

Hm ... not as strong as I had hoped, but maybe I will come with another one later this week ... for now ... have fun!
Try to write the second stanza (two lines respectively 7-7 syllables, no obligation) to make this Tan Renga complete or continue the painted scenery.

This episode of our TCR is open for your submissions today at noon (CET) and will remain open until next Friday March 13th at noon.

Carpe Diem "Sparkling Stars" #6, Sodo's "There is Nothing"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This week's episode of "Sparkling Stars", the feature in which I bring haiku written by classical haiku-poets, known and not-known to you, is about Zen. What is Zen? Zen is as they say: "Not a thing exists of its own nature", all is bound together and is part of each other. What does this mean? As we think back at our "river"-prompt all and everything has its own Buddha-Nature, but is also bound together. And that's what Zen says: "All and everything has its own spirit. All and everything is God-like/Buddha-like and bound together".

This week I have a wonderful haiku (full of Zen) for you all, for your inspiration, written by Sodo (1642-1716). I think it's a wonderful haiku because of its simple complexity. In this episode I will, hopefully, bring this simple complexity, to real simplicity to let you all understand the meaning of this haiku and all other haiku are at their base a like with this one by Sodo.

yado no haru nanimo koso nanimo are

in my hut this spring,
there is nothing, -
there is everything!

© Sodo

This is poetry only when we take it as a spontaneous gush of feeling at some particular, fresh expression of the infinite meaning of things. A mouse runs over the tatami, and the whole Zoological Gardens cannot manifest more of life. Mildew covers an old piece of leather, and the mystery and power of Nature are revealed. The "philosophy" of the verse may be illustrated by a poem of Hakurakuten (penname of Pinyin Bo Jugi (772-846), a Chinese poet):

A Summer Day

The Eastern window is not hot at dusk;
Through the Northern door comes a cool breeze.
Sitting here, reclining there,
I have not left the room all day;
But if the mind is in its essence attached to nothing,
At home or abroad is just the same.

The Zen expression of Sodo's verse, however, is terser and better:

[...] "Not a thing exists of its own nature". [...]

This is what Mugaku Sogen (a Zen-Buddhist monk who lived from 1226 'til 1286 who also wrote wonderful poems), expresses in the following whimsical but profound way:

I thought
I would like
To give you something, -
But in the Daruma Sect,
We have not a single thing

And this poem says it all I think. Sodo, maybe did know this poem by Mugaku and used it for his inspiration ... who knows ...

Credits: Empty Bowl

To write a haiku in the same tone, sense and spirit as the one by Sodo will not be easy, but I have to try is of course ...

an empty bowl
but in it is the spirit of emptiness -
the spring breeze

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode of "Sparkling Stars" is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until next Saturday at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #434, Okubo-ji (temple 88)

Dear O-Henro ... Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Here it is, our last episode of Carpe Diem's Shikoku pilgrimage along 88 temples. It was a joy to go on this virtual pilgrimage with you all, with our haiku-community, our haiku-family, but this is it. Next month we will have another wonderful month of kigo (seasonwords), all modern ones based on "A Dictionary of Haiku" by Jane Reichhold, but before we enter this new month I love to tell you all about the last theme in the State of Zen in Haiku, courage.

The last of the manifestations of Zen is in the form of courage. Though not one of the virtues especially emphasized by the moralist, it nevertheless includes all the other twelve characteristics which came along in the last two months, selflessness, loneliness, grateful acceptance, wordlessness, non-intellectuality, contradictoriness, humour, freedom, non-morality, materiality and love. All these elements are in some way present when an act of courage is performed.

It may be difficult, however, to see how courage is an essential, even the most essential part of a poet. Courage is life, living. Life is change; change is suffering; the will to suffer is courage.
Without courage we shall never be able truly to grasp the fact that all things, all events are vehicles of something that is far above and beyond the rules of morality.

It takes courage to become a pilgrim, as we have seen the last two months. It takes courage to become a haiku-poet, because you have to say what you have seen in an eye-blink in three lines of 5-7-5 syllables. Courage to say in a minimum of words that short moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into the water.

the sound of water
resonates through the mountains
deepens the silence

(c) Chèvrefeuille

Okubo-ji (temple 88)

Maybe it takes courage to enter the last temple on our Shikoku Pilgrimage, but at the other hand ... it must be a joy to realise that we have made it to the last temple Okubo-ji, devoted to Yakushi Nyorai the Buddha of Healing and Medicine. Maybe that's what this pilgrimage has brought us Healing ... but that I can not say, because I don't know how you all have experienced this pilgrimage. To me it was just a joy and in a way very healing and I think this pilgrimage has transformed me into ... another strong loving being.

Well ... that concludes our pilgrimage along the 88 temples on Shikoku Island and now we will enter a new month of Carpe Diem in which we will celebrate spring and in which month we will have our first 'ghost-writer' week.
This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until April 2nd 11.59 AM (CET). I will (try to) post our new episode, the first of a new month of Carpe Diem, later on today. Than we will enter spring with Awe.

Namaste

Carpe Diem #433, Nagao-ji (temple 87)

Dear O-Henro ... Haijin, visitors and travelers,

With this episode we enter the last phase, the last two days of our Shikoku pilgrimage and as I have promised I will the last two themes of the State of Zen in Haiku.
In this episode that will be love and in our last episode tomorrow that will be courage.

Love ... a wellknown emotion and in Zen-Buddhism love is very much referred to all and everything, but what to say about love as theme for the State of Zen in Haiku? Let me tell you ...

Credits: Spiritual Love

Zen is love of the Universe. Without this love, joy is uncertain, pain inevitable, all is meaningless.
This 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.

[...] "When an object is picked up, everthing 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" [...] (Source: Dr. Suzuki)

The relation of love to poetry may be easy to make, but that to Zen is 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 overflowes into all things, including one self, 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 in the mind of man, or own mind, in all these things. Through our activity and cooperation, these inanimate things acquire mind and affection.
In return, we become windy, rainy, starry, sunny creatures living in all things, in all times and places.

Love is also a kind of Dualism

Haiku are an expression of the joy of our reunion with things from which we have been parted by self-consciousness, so strong and tender in the sexual act, more diffused, yet equally powerful and delicate in our poetic moments. Though our love of things is so feeble, we all desire to be loved ardently in the wrong, the unbuddhistic, the unchristian way.

A few haiku to give you all an idea of love as a State of Zen in Haiku:

mountain persimmons;
the mother is eating
the astringent parts

(c) Issa

shutting the great temple gate,
creak! it goes:
an autumn evening

(c) Shiki

And a last one composed by San-in, a not so well-known haiku-poet:

it walked with me
as I walked,
the scarecrow in the distance

(c) San-in

Now we know a little bit more about love as a State of Zen in Haiku and now we can enter Nagao-ji, temple 87, devoted to Guanyin the boddhisattva of compassion. Guanyin is in this idea of love as a State of Zen in Haiku the most important boddhisattva, because Guanyin is depicted in both ways, as a male and as a female. So in Guanyin love is clearly there.
Now we can celebrate love as the ultimate, unconditional and universal energy which makes us who we are and who we will become. In my opinion love is the strongest energy to transform us into godlike loving creatures.

Nagao-ji (temple 87)

the last steps taken
to find universal love -
the sound of rain

(c) Chèvrefeuille

And now it is up to you my dear Haijin, visitors and travelers to write haiku inspired by love as a State of Zen. This episode will be open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until April 1st 11.59 AM (CET). I will (try to) post our last episode of this month, of this wonderful and spiritual pilgrimage, later on today. In that episode we will finally, after two months, enter the last temple of the Shikoku trail, Okubo-ji (temple 88).

Carpe Diem # 413, Iwaya-ji (temple 45)

Dear O-Henro ... Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you all know while we are on our Shikoku Pilgrimage I will (try to) tell you something more about the Zen state of haiku. We had already, selflessness, loneliness, gratefull acceptance, wordlessness and now I will (try to) tell you more about 'non-intellectuality'.
Today we will visit Iwaya-ji, the 45th temple devoted to Fudo Myoo, a powerful deity who protects all life and is one of the five Kings of Wisdom, he is also known as Acala.His vow is to do battle with evil with a powerful mind of compassion and to work for the protection of true happiness. To pray for recovery from illness and for safety while traveling is to rely upon his vow and power to save. Acala is also the guide for the deceased, to help save them and assist them in becoming buddhas for the first seven days after death.And the mantra belonging to him is:

Nômaku sanmanda bazaradan senda makaroshada sowataya un tarata kanman

 

This means: Homage to the all-pervading Vajras! O Violent One of great wrath! Destroy!

Fudo Myoo (or Acala)

Oke ... back to our state of Zen. Zen is non-intellectual. Keats says: [...] 'Philosophy will clip an angel's wings'. [...]
What a man (or a women) knows, and the only thing he (she) knows, is God (or Spirit, Higher Energy and so on). In so far as he knows God, he is God, since all knowledge is selfknowledge. That is what we mean when we say that all men (and women) have the Buddha-nature. What we think about things is quite different from what we grasp as the thing itself.
Thought, like passion, deepens intuition, but can in no way substitue for it. Through this comes the inexplicability of life, of poetry.
Poetry has as its (unconscious) philosophic basis, the fact that all things are changing, unfixed, unfixable, contradictory, that a mountain is not a mountain, and yet at the same time it is a mountain.
Poetry can make us not only of Zen, but of the absence of it, as we can read in the following haiku by Hokushi (1665-1718):

I sold the field,
and all the more could not sleep,
for the frogs

We do the will of God even in disobeying Him. Enlightenment and delusion are not two different things. The ordinary man is Buddha. Let us take poetry in the same way that we must take life, as it comes, regardless of theories and prepared explanations. The unity will be there, never doubt it,but should we try to force it, our dead interpretations will be condemned by the life of the poetry itself.
When the mind is quiet, it can accept that we can move mountains and be satisfied with it, but once we elaborate it, the mind, the intellectual part of the mind, is aroused to work by itself.
The problem for haiku, both in composition and in appreciation, is the same as for life itself: how to retain and assimilate the intellectual elements that distinguish the upper from the lower animals, into the instinctive life common to all. Sometimes, indeed, we are able to express what we mean better by our silence than in any other way.

New Year's Day:
what I feel, has been to much
for the words.

(c) Daio (?)

The incoherent, chaotic mass of thought-emotion, which is the fount of our existence, sometimes emerges, crystallized into words. In being expressed, it loses something of its primitive vitality. If only we can express by not expressing, we can have our cake and eat it too, and this is what Daio has tried to do in the above verse. Nevertheless, merely to say a thing is inexpressible is not to express it. But our feelings on New Year's Day are peculiarly difficult to put into words, though so insistent. (For this episode I have gratefully used R,H,Blyth's four volumes Haiku).

on New Year's Day
the wind through the bare branches
still the same

(c) Chèvrefeuille

While we are on our pilgrimage along the 88 temples on the Island of Shikoku we will loose our intellectuality, because we are all one with God, with Buddha and so we are all one with nature nevertheless neverthemore.
Writing haiku has to be a part of our life if you are a Haijin. Ofcourse we will use sometimes, just like the classic haiku-poets, the knowledge we have, but it never can be that our knowledge is a constant part of our haiku. Haiku are written straight from the heart, without thinking, without using our mind. It has to come as it has to come. Maybe to re-form your haiku to that masterpiece (which we all hope we will write once in our lifetime) we can use our knowledge, our wisdom.

Using our wisdom, brings us back to our temple for today, Iwaya-ji, devoted to Fudo Myoo (or Acala) one of the Kings of Wisdom.

Iwaya-ji (temple 45)

Maybe this episode feels like a 'haiku-sermon', but that wasn't my thought as I prepared this episode. So I hope you all will forgive me if you have the feeling that I have given a 'haiku-sermon'.

deep hidden thoughts
reaching for the morning sunlight -
Lotus opens her heart

(c) Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like the read. This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 6th 11.59 AM (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, Joruriji (temple 46), later on today. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your haiku with us all here at our Haiku Kai.