Hai on Ku

Every morning now I write a meditation on a Basho Haiku. When I read the poem, I become the poem and see it as if I’m writing the poem as the poet writes it, as the poet captures his moment centuries ago, so the poem is a timeless moment, and because it is timeless anyone can penetrate their one history and time to the Now that is always eternal.

The farmer’s roadside
hedge provided lunch for
my tired horse.

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This poem is a roadside hedge that provides lunch for my tired mind. Here I refresh myself on the extraordinary energy that is available when my mind rests and eats from the roadside of the moment. Here in this moment I will stop and eat before I return to the road to tomorrow.

I just stopped to take a picture of Trump and Obama meeting at the White House…this roadside hedge provides lunch for my tired mind. I never thought this hedge would happen on my journey along the hedge lined road…but every moment is this hedge that lines the mind’s road like a river band holds the river. Every moment is lunch for our tired mind meandering along in its road to the future. I just stop and take a bite of the Hedge of Just This.

The mind, tired of its story, tired of the past and future of my road in time, just stops and eats Just This…Trump entering the White House…Just This…it is Just This…Stories abound, stories surround Just This competing for the mind…but here at this hedge it is Just This. This moment provides lunch for my storied bound mind. Each moment can feed the old horse; each moment is the hedge that lines my story bound life…ah…Just This…how refreshing to not have to labor in time. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not born…Just This…is all there is.

How reluctantly
the bee emerges from the deep
within the peony. (Basho)

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I love the way the poem spaces its lines so that each step makes you pause to taste it before you move down to the next step. Like bites of food, the poet has you chews each bite so that you get this series of tastes that then blend into the whole poem.

How reluctantly.…Just pause here and savor the hesitation. What does it feel like to be reluctant, to not leave where you are so comfortable, or even to venture into something new because you are reluctant to leave what you know. Reluctant is the feeling of transition between one place and another. There is always a trace of reluctance in whatever we do.

the bee emerges from the deep….Oh, its a bee that is reluctant to leave the deep. One can just see the bee gorged on nectar, laden with pollen, reluctantly leaving the flower. Is he returning to the world after mediation?

within the peony.….ah, a specific flower. Not just any flower, but a peony. Not any moment but this moment. The bee is a universal bee, not a specific bee (hey, all bees look alike) but a specific flower since all flowers do not look alike. So in this specific moment a bee emerges from its flower…does the bee feel reluctant? Do bees feel? Does the bee know the flower is deep? And does he care if it si a peony? So obviously the poet and the bee are one in the haiku. And when I read the haiku from “within the deep” I and the poet and the bee are One.

One can get lost in the smell of a flower, in the taste of honey, an the vivid and full sensation of the moment, and then emerge, reluctantly, back into the dual world of subject and objects where once again you are separated from the poet, the bee and the flower. But for a moment you were deep, for a moment you were the bee and the poet, tasting the moment as the poet is tasting it, smelling the flower as the poet is smelling it. Then reluctantly, you succumb to the call of the world and return to being an observer of flowers.

High on Ku

High on Ku.

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