Dr. Dolittle
Name dro
p. . . .
What an interesting essay!
1/10,000
Animals are people too, so are plants and rocks. In the living universe of Multibeing. It's easier to wean out of western robot and reboot into default mode, mythic consciousness mode, if the aspirant starts with mammals and works into the less (for tadpoles) obvious.
2/10,000
All the wandering, stir-crazed, mystic beatniks that ever were (or ever will be) knew this. It's child's play. It's how it is. How much more so, the sorcerers of cool? Like Dr. Dolittle, we can talk to the animals (and everything else), and they understand, in their own way, at a bio-level, at a subatomic level, on the wave!
3/10,000
There is no possibility o-of persuading, by rational argument, that All is Life. (Though we do it anyway - as God's DNA insistently insists.)
4/10,000
Key: Creatures get job satisfaction. Note: Sent an Issa annotation to David (G. Lanoue). Never had one not responded to or used (haigo: syllable17). Until. I sent one extending his commentary on a swallows' scolding. The front porch, just above head height, houses a swallow family every year, here. (So, I'm pressing him on this, like you do.) It's the western-block in action. Let me tell you. I KNOW swallows personally. :O) They're off on their annual holidays now to South Africa. My good chum Megan penned this swallow-shaped haiku after her last visit:
back on African soil
waiting -
for the swallows
- mmcg
That'll do. . . . Will be reading this essay over. Great stuff.
John
04-10-11
.......................................................................................................................................................................
--- In simply_haiku@yahoogroups.com, "Robert D. Wilson" <foamfish@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Personification: A Taboo In English Language Haiku?
> By Robert D. Wilson,
> Co-Owner of Simply Haiku
> Owner, Simply Haiku Yahoo Forum
>
> Heike crabs -
> long ago they moon-gazed here
> on boats
>
> Koybayashi Issa
> Translated by David D. Lanoue
>
> Who is it in Japan that first said man is superior to animals? Who's the haiku poet who first shed his cultural memory, what his ancestors taught his family throughout time, and let the rice field snails eat what the tree spirits planted in his reflection?
>
> Was it the Chinese who colonized and introduced civilization to the indigenous people inhabiting the archipelago today called Japan, who convinced those who later became poets to write down for posterity that what had been taught to them via Animism and later in the Shinto doctrine, was wrong in seeing life in both the animate and inanimate, proclaiming themselves god-like and superior to everything that didn't mirror the illusions they painted of themselves?
>
> Was it Anglo-English speaking poets from across the ocean who introduced laws regarding what in Japanese haiku should be followed with their conceptualization of haiku and what had to be jettisoned, telling Westerners that Japanese cultural aesthetics and their own were in many ways incompatible, necessitating changes that have changed what we read, understand, and write regarding English haiku to the point where it is beginning to look like a different genre than what was first introduced to Westerners when Japan opened up it's shores to foreigners in 1858?
>
> Occidental poets, especially those in the United States, were early on influenced by R.H. Blyth, Harold Henderson, Kenneth Yasuda, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, and other contemporary 20th century poets. The majority of these poets believed haiku to be the bi-product of Zen Buddhism, with the exception of Harold Henderson, who focused on the suggestive clarity of well composed haiku, especially when it came to the use of a cutting word, which does two things: encourages ma (what publisher, educator, and poet, Denis Garrison calls “dreaming room�) and to divide the haiku in half allowing the reader to put together two contrasting sections of a haiku (opposites) to form a whole that creates deeper meaning that is symbiotic in meaning.
>
> The understanding of haiku and like genres were primarily limited at this juncture in time to the translations and research in English penned in a series of books by a handful of Occidental scholars that naively developed rules that conformed to the studied illusions of these authors coupled with their own individual illusions of viewing life, people, and poetic meter.
>
> Available were only a few anthologies of Japanese haiku translated into the English language, one set published by Peter Pauper Press in New York in 1955. There were other resources, but not enough written in English to give educators and readers as thorough a knowledge of haiku as we have available today.
>
> Few original manuscripts written by Basho, Issa, Chiyo-ni, Buson, and other poets and teachers of their era in a form of Japanese that is different than the Japanese language as it is spoken and understood today, had been translated into English or made available for translation, as many of these manuscripts were the property of private families who were unwilling to share with foreigners what their heirs had bequeathed them or with rival poetic schools.
>
> Let’s examine some of the teachings regarding the writing and definition of haiku by Occidental educators and poets during the first half of the 20th century when haiku began to be noticed in any real depth. Some are valid and some are not.
>
> Examples:
>
> Kenneth Yasuda said haiku:
>
> “eschews metaphor, simile, or personification.
>
> Wrote R.H. Blyth in, A History of Haiku: Chapter One:
>
> “Haiku being poetry of sensation, ideally speaking, what happens is this. We [Western writers of English language haiku] receive, or create, a sensation, a mere sensation, almost entirely physical and mechanical. It then becomes humanized, and at that stage is called Zen. To these are added emotions, and then thoughts, and more emotions and more thoughts, so that we we get dai-ni- nen. Haiku is dai-ichi nen but is not mere description, just photography, and to divide the haiku in half allowing the reader to put together two contrasting sections of a haiku (opposites) in order to form an entity of it's own.�
>
> Wrote James W. Hackett, a close friend of Blyth, and one of the founders of the haiku tradition in English, in his Introduction to, That Art Thou: A Spiritual Way of Haiku, a manuscript in progress as of March 2005:
> “As applied to haiku poetry, ‘That Art Thou’ (or ‘spiritual interpretation’) refers to a sense of identity intuited between poet and subject. Basho was influenced by this ancient spiritual principle and urged its use in creating haiku poetry. Zen interpenetration is, in a very real sense, the consummation of the haiku experience . . . .�
>
> Counters Professor Haruo Shirane, Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, from an interview entitled “The Shirane Tapes� (Blithe Spirit, Vol 11: 4, December 2001):
>
> "I’m not saying that the Zen inspired model is not haiku, because that would be a misunderstanding. It’s fine, but it’s not necessarily the essence. . . . I guess my own motive was that I saw these American scholars looking at Japanese culture that way. That was a serious misunderstanding. This was something that had been imported and was then being re-imposed on Japan. To me, that was unbearable.�
>
> Dated and poorly researched articles and statements regarding English Haiku are still being used, especially in regards to the use or non-use of personification and anthropomorphism in English language haiku, which for some is a subject area necessitating serious perusal.
>
> George Frost, the author of Teaching Through Poetry: Writing and the Drafting Process, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1988, in Haiku Lesson #7, The Knowledge of English Haiku, on his website: In The Moonlight A Worm, writes:
>
> “We try to avoid projecting human viewpoints into natural things. So as not to humanise (and so patronize) the things of Nature, the English haiku poet is wary of personification and anthropomorphism, even though their
> use is tolerated in ancient and even modern Japanese poetry.�
>
> Tolerated? Based on what information and resources? Animism is deeply ingrained in the cultural memory of the Japanese. We versus a weak reluctant they?
>
> Continues, Frost,
>
> “Haiku is the poetry of meaningful touch, taste, sound, sight, and smell; it is humanized nature, naturalized humanity, and as such may be called poetry in its essence . . . when the word and the object are divided or divisible, when the word and the object, the man and the thing are in any way separated or separable, no poetry, and especially that of haiku in any language, is possible.�
>
> The Haiku Society of America (HSA) defines haiku as a:
>
> “short poem that uses imaginistic language to convey the essence of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition.�
>
> In the notes below HSA's definition, the assertion is made:
>
> “Most haiku have no titles, and metaphors and similes are commonly avoided. Haiku do sometimes have brief prefatory notes, usually specifying the setting or similar facts; metaphors and similes in the simple sense of these terms do sometimes occur, but not frequently. A discussion of what might be called "deep metaphor" or symbolism in haiku is beyond the range of a definition.�
> This, of course, would include the usage of personalization when saying haiku is an imaginistic short poem “intuitively linked to the human condition.�
>
> Wrote poet, Anita Virgil, in an unpublished manuscript, who was a member of the HSA’s original definitions committee, about the HSA’s official definition of haiku:
>
> “Although haiku often includes images of nature, it strives to convey the significance of the poet’s experience, his thoughts and feelings, in accordance with the object or event . . ."
>
> “The deep sense of the transient nature of all existence present in haiku is,"according to Virgil, “rooted in its close associations with ‘the religion of Buddhism and the Japanese concept [abstract aesthetic} of Yugen . . .� [depth and mystery]
>
> Stated Lorraine Ellis Harr, in one version of her famous “Guidelines for Dragonfly: East/West Haiku Quarterly (Harr was the editor of Dragonfly from 1972 to 1984):
>
> “Haiku isn’t figurative language. It typically avoids figurative devices like similes, metaphors, and personification. These artificial devices attempt to humanize life. Try instead to naturalize man. Symbols, however, do exist in nature. Cherry blossoms, with their multitude of fragile petals lasting only three days, represent of themselves the brevity and beauty of life. Let an object speak for itself instead of superimposing a value on it.�
>
> Will each reader of a haiku making use of Symbolism using anthropomorphic terminology see it as such, since each reader's job is to interpret a haiku according to his or her cultural memory and life conceptualization?
>
> Is Harr privy to the beliefs and inner workings of the haiku poet's mind during its composition, and positive without doubt that poet is using symbolism and isn't an animist or a person with a metaphysical visage who views the world contrary to accepted Western norms?
>
> Due to its metamorphic, transient nature . . . one thing becomes another, which in turn forms another and another, always changing, although, as recent research has proven, haiku equally enjoys a close association with the animism passed down through the centuries by Japan’s original indigenous inhabitants, the Ainu, the anthropomorphic beliefs of the Shinto religion, Daoism, and the philosophy of Confucianism.
>
> Not buying into this kind of reasoning, Bruce Moss wrote in his book, Haiku Moment, An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku (Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1993), xii:
>
> “The movement from a special attention toward non-human nature to some kind of union with that nature is a central facet of Japanese culture and is derived from Taoism, Buddhism, and Shintoism. This movement from attention to union at the heart of the haiku tradition is for the most part alien to Western culture."
>
> “This point was recently addressed,� wrote Moss in his book, �by Sono Uchida, President of the Haiku International Association."
>
> "Haiku has also developed as a poem which expresses deep feelings for nature, including human beings. This follows the traditional Japanese idea that man is part of the natural world, and should live in harmony with it. This differs considerably from the Western way of thinking, in which man is regarded as being independent of, and perhaps superior to, the rest of nature. �
>
> The use of anthropomorphism (personification) in English language haiku, some claim, is to describe something human and should not be taken literally. A question to consider:
>
> Who in the West came to this conclusion; and from what culture, since most nations in the West are multi-cultural?
>
> Haiku is a minimalist poem aiming at the raw, simple truth as interpreted by the reader via his own frame of reference and cultural memory. Minimalism is a catalyst necessitating that every word, every pause, and the unspoken are important to a haiku’s meaning. The poet must say in a few words what an occidental poet says in several words, hinting, not telling all; drawing the reader into a haiku’s essence; and not necessarily a photograph of the moment, since not all haiku are a poet's now.
>
> Too many today say haiku is an aha moment, a metaphysical now, an illumination, based upon personal experience that can't allude to the past tense nor be fictional even if used s a parabolic lesson, a merging of nature and the poet, a common belief held by Imagist poets including Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and e. e. Cummings
>
> Writes Michael Dylan Welch, in his online Captain Haiku column;
>
> "It's a poem [haikurecording a moment of heightened awareness of nature or human nature. It should come across like a moment of realization, producing an "aha!" moment in the reader in the same way that it gave you that moment of realization when you, as the writer, experience the haiku moment in the first place."
>
> Professor Haruo Shirane, one of the world's leading authorities on haiku disagrees with Captain Haiku's assessment:
>
> “One of the widespread beliefs in North America is that haiku should be based upon one's own direct experience, that it must derive from one's own observations, particularly of nature. But it is important to remember that this is basically a modern view of haiku, the result, in part, of nineteenth century European realism, which had an impact on modern Japanese haiku and then was re-imported back to the West as something very Japanese. Basho, who wrote in the seventeenth century, would have not made such a distinction between direct personal experience and the imaginary, nor would he have placed higher value on fact over fiction.�
>
> Beyond the Haiku Moment,
> Modern Haiku, XXXI:1, Winter Spring 2000, 48.
>
> The writer of the introduction in the Peter Pauper Press book, Japanese Haiku, notes:
>
> “ . . . the haiku is not expected to always be a complete or even clear statement. The reader is supposed to add to the words his own associations and imagery, and thus become a creator of his own pleasure in the poem.�
>
> This is the beauty of haiku. It is the reader who completes the poem. No one can interpret a haiku for you as each reader has his or her own way of understanding and viewing life. Here is where the “zen� some adhere to haiku comes in.
>
> Taught D.T. Suzuki in The Manual of Zen Buddhism, excerpted from the 2nd edition of The Complete Works of D.T. Suzuki (available online at: http://www.terebess.hu/english/suzuki.html:
>
> “By ‘what is seen of the Mind-only’ is meant this visible world including that which is generally known as mind. Our ordinary experience takes this world for something that has its "self-nature", i.e. existing by itself. But a higher intuition tells us that this is not so, that it is an illusion, and that what really exists is Mind, which being absolute knows no second. All that we see and hear and think of as objects of the vijnanas are what rise and disappear in and of the Mind-only.�
>
> THE IS AND ISN’T: myths, truth, and the in between . . .
>
> Wrote Blyth:
> " . . . even where an English haiku lacks a season word, when they are too long, or have too many adjectives, or tend to morality or emotionality or philosophy, they have something in common with the Japanese haiku. This common element is sense in thought, thought in sense, the thought that is not mere thought, but the thought subsumed in sensation; the sensation is not simply sensation, but the sensation involved in real thinking, that is poetical thinking. When they are divided or divisible, when the word and the object , the man and the thing are separated are in any way separated or separable, no poetry, and especially that of haiku in any language, is possible.�
>
> Looks like Frost had been studying Blyth.
>
> In Blyth's statement, he expounds a belief that many in the West blindly believed when his writings were published and are still believed today, that English haiku doesn’t necessarily need a season word or have to conform to the metric structure indigenous to the genre, thus weaving into Western poetic thought the concept that English and Japanese haiku don’t have to follow the same rules but follow a zen-like free fall pattern of thought, which was culturally hip though not throughly comprehended in the circles Kerouac, Ginsberg, Snyder, Corso (the Beat Generation), Imagist poets, and those who were part of that generational/
> cultural mindset . . . a mindset that is and isn’t, each poet painting illusions on paper that differing from one another and only loosely complimenting the other, given the complexity of human thought, cultural memory, lifestyle, education, and physical chemistry, that, at times, strays due to mental illness, alcoholism, and illegal drug use.
>
> They were and are, dead or alive, sailors sailing through what each perceives or has perceived, as Heaven’s River (The Milky Way), laughing, smiling, sharing this and that, each one a rule breaker, a free spirit, and oddly, with many skeletons in their closets, each bone a scale from a dragon’s tail, taunting them with what was, could be . . . and too few who commit or have committed themselves seriously to Japanese short form poetry which requires study, and a non-psychedelic understanding of Asian aesthetics (to understand the essence of the form) that will never become the flavor of the moment.
>
> Wrote Jack Kerouac, who some claim fathered the Hippie Generation via the publishing of his book, On The Road, probably under the influence of alcohol, a tormented drunk, who sought release from almost all forms of responsibility through drug use, alcoholic consumption, wandering through the halls of this world experimenting with this and that without a definite except when he was dying from alcoholism and was, at the time, a strict political conservative:
>
> "The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don't think American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be completely packed with Void of Whole) should worry about syllables because American speech is something again ... bursting to pop.
> Above all, a Haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi's Pastorella."
>
> Kerouac is talking here from his hat and according to the biographies written abut his life, hadn’t taken the time to study haiku in any depth except for his brief tutelage under the poet Gary Snyder ( a genuine scholar and Buddhist), and via the reading of Blyth’s books on haiku, and Harold Henderson’s book, An Introduction to Haiku, while visiting Snyder in his home upon his return from Buddhist monastic studies in Japan. Keruoac was a transient, unwilling to stay anywhere for too long.
>
> One doesn’t become over night, or in a few short, unstable years, an expert on haiku, especially when it comes to comparing the linguistically and metric schemata of a poetic genre as given to the world originally by the Japanese with the intricacies of English language poetics and how the American version can differ from the Japanese conceptualization, then telling us the American conceptualization is hip and ready to “pop.�
>
> States Susumu Takiguchi,
>
> "Initial exploration of HAIKU by non-Japanese was like gunmo taizo wo naderu (a lot of blind men feeling a great elephant) whereby one says that the elephant is a tree trunk and another says that it is a giant fan, and so on. The loud voices saying that HAIKU was Zen, or HAIKU was not poetry, or HAIKU was Here and Now, or HAIKU was the product of the HAIKU moment, or HAIKU was nature poetry, or HAIKU was a verse in present tense, or HAIKU was devoid of ego, or HAIKU was an extremely serious and sacred business, or HAIKU reached some mysterious and profound truths captured in a few words, or HAIKU was not anthropomorphism, and all other hundreds of things rang out across the world and muffled any other voices saying things to the contrary."
>
> World Haiku Review
> 2008
>
> No one is one. No one is apart. All live in the collective mindset of what was, is, and will be, as interpreted individually by human beings, some who think they are superior to Blyth’s “objects� and some, those with animistic views, who do not feel superior to what is and isn’t around them, and are not threatened by what they don’t understand like some do who belong to specific spiritual sects, scientific ideologies, and educational institution: the same mindset that laughed at the idea that the world was round.
>
> Blyth was a serious scholar who gave much to the understanding of haiku, and without him, haiku may not have become as popular as it has become in the West. He had great insight when it came to haiku but was limited to the knowledge accessible during his day.
>
> I wonder what people will think of the writings of modern scholars like Makoto Ueda, Donald Keene, and Steve D. Carter fifty years from now, when even more is known, and more manuscripts are translated and made available to western scholars including insight into the secret coding integrated into many Japan poems centuries ago (and today?) by competitive poetic societies in the Japanese Imperial Court when haiku made its debut, causing a stir, as it became the poetic voice of the people instead of a pastime limited to society’s elite.
>
> Blyth, and other Western haiku scholars in the 1950’s and a few decades before, wrote insightful informative books about haiku but at the same time made some mistakes in their assessments that linger today that have become doctrine to some highly visible Occidental poets who publish journals, e-zines, author books of poetry, and hold leadership posts in well publicized poetry societies. They do not speak for or represent the majority of western poets, (public and private schools have the most influence,) but their voices are authoritative.
>
> Unfortunately, many with authoritative voices have different interpretations regarding the English expression of Japanese short form poetry. These disagreements weaken the credibility of English language Japanese poetic expression.
>
> Thus, the basis for this paper: the use of anthropomorphism in Japanese haiku and related genres and whether or not they can be a part of occidental English language haiku.
>
> David Landis Barnhill, in the chapter he contributed to the book, Matsuo Basho’s Creative Spaces, entitled: The Creative in Basho’s View of Nature and Art (©2006, Palgrave Macmillan), tells us that:
>
> "The role of Shinto and folk religion in Basho’s religious/ philosophical mindset is poorly understood by many. Basho was influenced by Buddhism, Daosim, Confucianism, Shinto, and folk religion (animism). We should not impose our western tendency to metaphysical specificity or logical consistency on the complexity of Basho’s experience or the multi-faceted expressiveness of his language.�
>
> Merrian Webster‘s dictionary defines personification as:
>
> The “attribution of personal qualities; especially: representation of a thing or abstraction as a person or by the human form.�
>
> Personify: “To conceive of or represent as a person or as having human qualities or powers.�
>
> Anthropomorphism: “An interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics.�
>
> In essence, the two terms, personification. and anthropology are one and the same and often used interchangeably. Interestingly, the word, anthropomorphism, comes from the Greek, meaning "human form," and it was the ancient Greeks who first made the use of anthropomorphism (personification) in literation and oration a social taboo. The philosopher Xenophanes objected to Homer's poetry because it treated Zeus and the other gods as if they were people. Xenophanes thought it arrogant and irreverent to think that the gods should look like us? If horses could draw pictures, he suggested mockingly, they would no doubt make their gods look like horses.
>
> Much of Occidental philosophy is derived from Greco-Roman influences: politics, poetry, literature, art, architecture, and Judeo-Christian theology. Few realize that Judeo-Christian beliefs were influenced also by oral transmissions from traders and travelors, let alone the Coptic beliefs from Egypt and the metaphysical Gnosticism of Irael's Essenes.
>
> I am reminded of the thinking of highly influential occidental psychologists and behaviorists like B.F. Skinner who thought of animals as lower forms of life without personality or reason. This kind of thinking has also influenced Occidental theology ( re,: The Scopes Monkey Trial).
>
> The dichotomy of the following statement by Blyth regarding the British poet, William Wordsworth, is just that, a dichotomy. He says Wordsworth believed the main purpose of a man’s ability to think was to distinguish between what is and isn’t alive. ( As if the West and the East shared the same perceptions regarding poetry).
>
> Wrote Blyth, “Haiku is at it’s best when Wordsworthian, that is, Wordsworth at his most simple, ‘a sort of thought in sense"
>
> Coupled with what Blyth called the common element between English and Japanese poetry, Blyth believed that man and nature are one and cannot be separate; one is a thing, the other, a human being with his ability to describe and speak of nature by using symbolism, metaphors, parables, and symbolism. A poet looks at something in nature, associates himself with it, literally becomes it, and then entertains illusions as to that “thing�in nature feels.
>
> Buson did this very thing when he took walks in nature. Something would capture his eye and he’d stop, and with an emptied mind, and, momentarily, become the object he focused on.
>
> Did Buson believe he was superior to the “thing�in nature ? Did he assume human traits when he became the object of his focus? Did he metaphysically become both human and what he was viewing with an empty mind , in a sense, the two forming a symbiotic whole? And more importantly, did he view life with the same mindset of an occidental?
>
> Even more
> because of being alone
> The moon is a Friend
>
> Yosa Buson
> Translated by Yuki Sawa and Edith Shiffert
> Haiku Master Buson
> Heian International, Inc.
> ©1978
>
> What is Buson saying in this haiku? Am I to interpret it from my cultural memory and viewpoint or should I try to understand it from Buson’s mindset? Did he make use of personification by saying the moon is his friend? Did the poet/painter consider the moon to be his friend or a temple from which a spirit lived and communicated with him?
> No researcher then or now will know as no human being has direct access to another person's inner thoughts except for possibly an identical twin.
>
> Personification can be used metaphorically to represent or paint one's feelings; and Buson was an artist. Anthropomorphic thoughts can additionally transcend it's use as an aesthetic tool, and be in concrete terms, animism personified.
>
> Sometimes late at night, when I am alone, and feeling lonely, I talk to the moon, and, in a metaphysical moment of transference and positive self talk, it answers me in my mind.
>
> ‘Robert, you’re a good person, but because you’re different than most, people think your a jerk. We both know they're wrong, but you let what they say about you behind your back, get to you. Ignore the idiots. They aren’t you. They don’t know what or how you think, they just think they do. Why? Because they don’t like themselves and transfer their fears and inadequacies on you.�
>
> Is the moon really talking to me or am I using the moon subconsciously as an aide to get me to think more positively?
>
> Isn’t this like a small child talking to his teddy bear? Have we come to the point in Western culture where we jail our inner child and forbid him to go outside and play?
>
> Are we at a point where we don’t believe anything we hear, believe half of what we see, and in our own metaphysical illusionary journey, check things out for ourselves?
>
> Have we become so educated that we buy into everything a professor reads or writes, although what he or she is teaching may be a theory based upon the current beliefs of the day, or what I call, “The flavor of the month?�
>
> Look at the field of psychology. What is the right theory for a psychology major to follow and eventually use in his practice? This field is classified as a Social Science.
>
> Is the field of History consistent, or does it too fall victim to a variety of interpretations? History too is labeled a Social Science.
>
> We must always be a student; never satisfied with the status quo, know that all is in motion. Yet, we must also accept some things as fact. A bone is a bone. A fish is a fish. A cat is not a dog.
>
> Cubism is an artistic genre of painting with room, of course, to be creative and explore but also has a definition and a set of rules that help us to distinguish it from other artistic genres such as pop art or Dadaism. Is Haiku a genre of poetic expression given to the world by Japan? How do they define a haiku? Does a haiku remain a haiku when it is changed into something it wasn't when it was first created?
>
> Should we as Westerners cut up haiku like a cubist cuts up reality and reassemble them and still call them haiku?
>
> If Westerners remove the kigo, ignore the S/L/S metric schemata, and write three verses anyway we want to: long,long, short; short/ short/ long, etc., and eschew metaphors, similes, and personification, can Westerns call what they are writing, haiku?
>
> Or, are Westerners writing a haiku-like genre, that is not a haiku but a genre they’ve invented but insist on calling haiku? Are they instead writing what they call haiku in a way that subscribes to what the Imagists thought haiku was, such as Ezra pound who wrote In A Station Of The Metro in 1913:
>
> The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
> Petals on a wet,black bough.
> Jump back as section
>
> Pound's poem belongs to the Imagist school of poetry that is not describing in concrete terminology as he sees but is using imagery to make a point via the juxtaposition between the first line and the last two.
>
> Of note is the length of each line. Pound's short three line is the same as the number of lines in a sonnet. The words are distributed with eight in the first line and six in the second, mirroring the octet-sestet form of the Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet.
>
> Pound's poem at first was 31 lines in length.
> Impressed with the minimalism and tightness of haiku, Pound kept paring down the primary poem until it consisted of three lines
> Pound never claimed to be a haiku poet but openly identified with the Imagist school of poetry.
>
> According to Literature Dictionary:
>
> "Influenced by the Japanese haiku and ancient ancient Greek lyrics, the Imagists cultivated concision and directness, building their short poems around single images; they also preferred looser cadences to traditional regular rhythms."
>
> Explains Dr. Donald Keene:
>
> ". . . the haiku, for all its extreme brevity, must contain two elements, usually divided by a break marked by what the Japanese call a “cutting wordâ€� (kireji). One of the elements may be the general condition â€" the end of autumn, the stillness of the temple grounds, the darkening sea â€" and the other the momentary perception. The nature of the elements varies, but there should be the two electric poles between which the spark will leap for the haiku to be effective; otherwise it is no more than a brief statement. That is the point which has been missed by such Western imitators of the haiku form as Amy Lowell, who saw in the haiku its brevity and suggestion, but did not understand the methods by which the effects were achieved."
>
> Two of Amy Lowell’s haiku-like poems:
>
> If I could catch the green lantern of firefly
> I could see to write you a letter.
>
> Brighter than the fireflies upon the Uji River
> Are your words in the dark, Beloved.
>
> In these examples the words are poetic, but the verses do not have the quality of a haiku, for the reason I have given. …….
>
> Japanese Literature:
> An Introduction for Western Readers, 1955
>
> Pound, was a firm believer in the Imagist outlook on poetics until he changed allegiance and joined the Vorticism poetic school in 1914.
>
> If you compare The Station of Metro with some of the poems Westerners are labeling today as modern English haiku, you will discover a semblance closely associated with
> Imagist poetry:
>
> Starry night . . . 3 syllables
> Hot popcorn. 3 syllables
> In white paper cups. 5 syllables
>
> Carol Raisfeld
>
> sigmoidoscopy 5 syllables
> reading the comics 4 syllables
> in the waiting room 5 syllables
>
> jerry ball
> Walnut Creek, CA, USA
>
> Haiku or Imagism?
>
> Did Imagists follow the metric schemata of S/L/S found in Japanese haiku?
>
> Do a lot of poets claiming to be haiku
> Poets follow the same metric schemata!
>
> Did Imagists believe in brief statements?
>
> Do a lot of so-called haiku poets write what are in actuality brief statements that lack real depth, meter, or memorability?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Is it a sign of madness to talk to an animal or a flower, to feel equal with another form of life, flora or fauna?
>
> Can a western poet believe and write differently than the average occidental, being that every poet, regardless of his geologic biosphere, have their own specific cultural memories and illusions based upon their own experiences, education, upbringing, and tradition?
>
> Just as it is wrong to say that westerners should become Japan-ophiles and adhere only to Japanese aesthetics, it is equally wrong to expect a Western poet to become an English-ophile?
>
> Poetry in any form is an expression of the creator and the creator should have the freedom to express himself with integrity and his own voice.
>
> Wrote Fujiwara Teika:
>
> “. . . both the gifted and the untalented have an individual style that is congenial to them. . . It would result in terrible damage to the Art of Poetry to insist that a person who has no disposition for it compose in a certain style that the teacher prefers simply because he happens to find it personally congenial to himself. A given style should be taught to a pupil only after careful study of the particular style of poem he tends to compose, for with every style, it is essential to keep in mind that it must be honest and right.�
>
> Translated from the original manuscript by Robert H. Brower from the Maigetsusho (“monthly notes,� 1219?) in NKBT [Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei (Japanese book).
>
> Animism as practiced by the indigenous people of pre-civilized
> Japan, The Ainu (who still exist), along with Buddhists, Daoists, those following Confucianism and practictioners of Shinto, believe that humankind and other forms of life are just that, forms of life, one no more superior than another.
>
> Many also attribute life to the inanimate, believing that many were(are inhabited by spirits.
>
> Some North American tribes talk to spirits, and see animals as their equals. If one of these tribal people were to write haiku, would he have to write haiku that adhered to Judeo-Christian influences, and deny his real beliefs in order to follow the rules of writing English language haiku developed by scholars, poets, and others who relied and still rely on outdated beliefs unsupported by up- to-date research?
>
> As of 1975, children from Native American tribes were required by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to attend schools in urban cities far from their tribal homes and required to. speak only in English, dress in non-tribal clothing, and to give up their beliefs.
>
> States F.B.M. de Waal in his 1997 article in the journal, Discover, entitled, Are We In Anthropodenial?:
>
> “Logically, these agnostic attitudes toward a mental life in animals can be valid only if they're applied to our own species as well. Yet it's uncommon to find researchers who try to study human behavior as purely a matter of reward and punishment. Describe a person as having intentions, feelings, and thoughts and you most likely won't encounter much resistance. Our own familiarity with our inner lives overrules whatever some school of thought might claim about us. Yet despite this double standard toward behavior in humans and animals, modern biology leaves us no choice other than to conclude that we are animals. In terms of anatomy, physiology, and neurology we are really no more exceptional than, say, an elephant or a platypus is in its own way. Even such presumed hallmarks of humanity as warfare, politics, culture, morality, and language may not be completely unprecedented. For example, different groups of wild chimpanzees employ different technologies---some fish for termites with sticks, others crack nuts with stones-that are transmitted from one generation to the next through a process reminiscent of human culture.
> Given these discoveries, we must be very careful not to exaggerate the uniqueness of our species. The ancients apparently never gave much thought to this practice, the opposite of anthropomorphism, and so we lack a word for it. I will call it anthropo-denial: a blindness to the humanlike characteristics of other animals, or the animal-like characteristics of ourselves.�
>
> The other day, a poet friend sent me an e-mail , asking me: “ Isn’t personification a no no?�
>
> Is it or isn't it? Opinions vary.
>
> States George Frost, the author of Teaching Through Poetry: Writing and the Drafting Process, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1988. in Haiku Lesson #7, the Knowledge of English Haiku, on his website, In The Moonlight A Worm . . .
>
> “We [the English speaking poet] try to avoid projecting human viewpoints into natural things. So as not to humanise (and so patronise) the things of Nature, the English haiku poet is wary of personification and anthropomorphism, even though their use is tolerated in ancient and even modern Japanese poetry.�
>
> I wonder who Frost was referring to when he used the tern, WE?
>
> L.A. Davidson in an article he wrote for Feelings Magazine in 1996, was adamant when he stated, “One great difference between haiku and other poetry is that there is no anthropomorphism in it, no giving human attributes to non-human things. Each thing, whether animal, bird, insect, plant, even a physical form such as a rock, is viewed as it is in its own right. Other forms of Japanese writing and myth use personification extensively, but not haiku. Western poetry has reveled in portraying other forms of life and nature with human characteristics.�
>
> Wrote Robert Spiess: “Simile, metaphor, personification, anthropomorphism, seldom are necessary, especially in the best haiku, for a genuine haiku poet is aware that every entity has to be the way it is and could not possibly be any other way.�
>
> Spiess’s use of “a genuine poet� is opinionated based upon the recognized Judeo-Christian conceptualization of the relationship between human kind and other life forms of life of his age in the Occidental world. His statement negates the use of imagination, inference, imagery, and other ascetic and descriptive tools in the composition of quality haiku.
>
> The use of such tools were used by the Chinese who introduced poetry and written language to Japan. They were also utilized by Issa, Basho, Chiyo-ni, Buson, and other
> great haiku pioneers.
>
> Skinny frog
> Don’t give up the fight ---
> Issa is here
>
> Kobayashi Issa
> Translated by Makoto Ueda
>
> The bush warbler
> In a grove of bamboo sprouts
> Sings of growing old
>
> Matsuo Basho
> Translated by Sam Hamill
>
> Bowing
> at the Buddhist altar ---
> the purple violets
>
> Chiyo-ni
> Translated by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi
>
> Enroute to the monkey chief
> On a cold night,
> A visiting rabbit.
>
> Yosa Buson
> Translated by Yuki Sawa and Edith M.
> Shudders
>
> Issa the rebel rouser! It was he more than any past Japanese haiku master who used personification without clothing it, and gave a liveliness to haiku that attracted the masses and their children.
>
> Writes Art Durkee:
>
> Issa's body of work is full of "rule-breaking" haiku.
>
> He often breaks away from purely imagistic haiku, and uses personification and anthropomorphisms in his famous animal and insect haiku, ascribing to them the same emotions humans have; some of his haiku are forthrightly humorous rather than contemplative; others are purely philosophical, and contain only one image, not the two contrasting images often required by the "rules"; still others are one-sentence haiku, rather than two fragments with a turn, or hinge.
>
> art durkee.blogspot.com
>
> Exciting as Issa's openly animistic haiku are, he knew the dangers of overuse, and relied on multiple aesthetic tools and a variance in subject matter.
>
> To be fair to Dr. Speiss, there’s validity to the segment of his statement regarding the necessity of using these tools, unless necessary. No tool should be over used. There is more than one tool in the toolbox.
>
> States Dr. Gabi Greve:
>
> “Anthropomorphism is usually avoided in traditional Japanese haiku, since it collides with the idea of shasei (Shiki’s term meaning sketch of life), but of course, there are exceptions when a very special affect is aimed at.�
>
> She also writes, : "Within the tradition of shasei, sketching from nature, it is better just to observe and not interpret your experiences.�
>
> Dr. Grebe’s statement works well for students of shasei, even though shasei’s a poetic school of thought that too experienced and still experiences metamorphism as the term, shasei, is further understood, defined, and explored, as was the case with Shiki. Shasei is one teaching and interpretation of haiku in Japan. There are other school’s of haiku thought in Japan.
>
> Grebe is right, when she advises a haiku poet to avoid the over use of anthropomorphism in haiku. Every tool has its use.
>
> The composition of a haiku is dependent on the poet’s frame of thought, and what he is conveying. Similes, metaphors, imagery, etc. all have their place in the composition of haiku, Western or Japanese, and can or should not be used depending on what is said and/or referenced to.
>
> Is the use of anthropomorphism (personification) a legitimate taboo in the composition of haiku? Or, is this a thought patterned part of occidental cultural memories and social conditioning?
>
> Over Blyth’s grave:
> an offering of spring rain
> muddy knees, and brow
>
> J.W. Hackett
> The Moss of Tokeiji
> ©2010
> Deep North Press
>
> Wrote David Landis Barnhill, the Director of Environmental Studies and
> Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, to me two weeks ago,
>
> “A thorough answer [regarding the usage of personification in English language haiku] would require an analysis of different ways and degrees haiku is similar to the Western notion(s) of personification.�
>
> Professor Barnhill also stated in the essay he wrote for the book, Matsuo Basho’s Poetic Spaces ( ©2006, Palgrave Macmillan):
>
> “While it is important to recognize the sophistication of the metaphysical elements in his [Basho’s] world view, we should not impose our Western tendency to metaphysical specificity or logical consistency on the complexity of Basho’s experience or the multi-faceted expressiveness of his language.�
>
> In an e-mail conversation between myself and Professor Esperanza Rameriz-Christensen, she stated:
>
> “Personification was used in classical or premodern haiku, and in waka as well. In those times, haiku (a name that came into common usage only in the modern era) was known as hokku, same 17-syllable 3-line verse form but commonly occurring as the very first verse of the longer 100-verse linked poetry sequence known as renga or of the 36-verse renku favored by the Basho school. Personification is almost inevitable in hokku (or haiku) because this first verse was required to allude to the actual time and occasion for convening the renga or renku session.
>
> Thus, for example,
>
> na wa takaku
> koe wa ue nashi
> hototogisu
>
> High is its name
> and unsurpassed its song,
> the wood thrush!
>
> Murmured Conversatiions, p. 109
> Stanford University Press ©2008,
>
> . . . is one of the hokku for poetry sessions held at the residence of the Regent Nijo Yoshimoto in the Fourth and Fifth Month of 1355. The poet, Gusai, clearly means the wood thrush (or cuckoo) in the hokku to be in praise of Yoshimoto's poetic fame and talent and more important, his crucial role, as a high court official, in the promotion of renga. It is a greeting to the host of the sessions. In other words, personification was used to allude to actual persons involved in the occasion for the renga or haikai sequence, using natural images. In the hokku below by Shinkei, the personification is more overt, as it is based on an analogy between the beauty of the poetic heart-mind and the plum blossoms:
>
> Yo ni wa hito
> hana ni wa ume no
> nioi kana
>
> Man's being in the world:
> the radiant glow of plum blossoms
> among all flowers.
> Shinkei
> Heart's Flower: The Life and Poetry of Shinkei, pg. 71."
>
>
> "Modern haiku, continues Rameriz-Christensen, "composed outside the context of a session and occasion, have no need to allude to them, and so seldom employ personification. It is, I believe, the social occasion that generates personification. And even then, the hokku will not necessarily include it, if the focus is not on people but on the occasion or the actual landscape of the session. In that case, it is more likely to be metaphor or symbolism that is employed rather than personification.
>
> E. Ramirez-Christensen
> Professor of Japanese Literature
> Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
> University of Michigan
>
> In an e-mail a month ago, Robin Gill, the translator of several academically acclaimed books of haiku told me:
>
> “In the case of Japan, haikai turned over the old use of nature as a backdrop and metaphor for the romance of old waka [tanka]. Actually waka was at first more interested in nature itself -- and used anthropomorphism to make the poetry of nature more interesting.
>
> Even when more anthropomorphic, I do not find any fallacy there, as adult poets are not children, and they are not falsely reading nature, as their readers are not naive enough to think, that a fly is praying for his life;
>
> Don’t kill the poor fly!
> He cowers, wring
> His hands for mercy
>
> Kobayashi Issa
> Translated by Sam Hamill]
>
> and, while Issa’s poems are not early haikai, take note of the way I describe what he wrote as being anthropomorphic yet not being so because of the ease of the metaphor which becomes grossly or childishly anthropomorphic when “englished� because of the accidents of language.
>
> We [Westerners] find most of our early nature poetry was at first filled with Greco/Roman gods -- as much theo-morphic as anthropomorphic.
>
> In the 1900’s and early 20th century, we see an enormous body of work mostly for children -- maybe that and the thought that the ancients were children to us with our science, gave rise to the ridiculous anthropomorphism phobia in regards to Western poetry.
>
> When the Japanese were exposed to Western literature when Japan reluctantly opened up its borders in 1858 to western influence, due to pressure from the United States and the presence of armed American warships, some Japanese poets and authors seem to have reacted in some cases by denying they anthropomorphosized and that was ridiculous as the critics who wrote that obviously did not read much of their own old poetry.�
>
> 1858 was an exciting time for Japanese intellectuals and writers, with many wanting to emulate, digest, and understand occidental literature. Even today, the Japanese people are influenced by Western music, art, literature, fashion, etc. And equally the west is adapting some facets of Eastern thought and culture.
>
> Integrity was and still is an important virtue to the Japanese people, so when Japan opened up itself to Western influence, and even though many immersed themselves in the newness of Occidental thought, most then and now stay(ed) true to their cultural memory, especially when it comes to the writing of haiku, a genre they gave to the world. Today, over 5 million people in Japan study and write haiku.
>
> In the synopsis for the Columbia University Press book, Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism (2006) by Lorraine Daston and Gregg Mitman, the publisher comments:
>
> “Humans use animals to transcend the confines of self and species; they also enlist them to symbolize, dramatize, and illuminate aspects of humans' experience and fantasy. Humans merge with animals in stories, films, philosophical speculations, and scientific treatises. In their performance with humans on many stages and in different ways, animals move us to think.�
>
> Are “things�, and other forms of life, props used to illustrate haiku with it’s limitations of space and words?
>
> With this in mind, let us examine more statements made by major voices in the English language Japanese haiku arena:
>
> In a personal e-mail, Professor Steven D. Carter, Yamamoto Ichihashi Chair in Japanese History and Civilization at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, wrote:
>
> “Personification (of flowers, birds, the moon, etc.) is very common in hokku and in haiku. So is apostrophe, which is I guess a kind of personification. Now, someone might try to argue that what we are confronting is not really personification, because people actually believed the plants and birds had consciousness, but I don't think that approach will explain most examples.�
>
> Writes David Landis Barnhill,
>
> “The countless cross references to Chinese religious and aesthetic thought require that we place his {Basho’s} texts in the context of Daoism and Confucianism as well as in Buddhism {not just the Zen sect of Buddhism}, and in the context of the Chinese aesthetic tradition (both poetry and painting) as well as in Japanese literature.�
>
> Basho wasn’t the only haiku pioneer who made references to Chinese poetry written during the Tang dynasty, nor was he the only poet influenced by a variety of Japanese and Chinese religious beliefs. Many combined their thinking into a universal mindset indigenous to the times and the great influence China still had on Japanese philosophy, prose, and poetics.
>
> George Frost, the author of Teaching Through Poetry: Writing and the Drafting Process, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1988. in Haiku Lesson #7, the Knowledge of English Haiku, on hiis website, In The Moonlight A Worm . . . entertains a different conceptualization regarding the use of anthropomorphism in modern English language haiku poetics:
>
> “We try to avoid projecting human viewpoints into natural things. So as not to humanise (and so patronize) the things of Nature, the English haiku poet is wary of personification and anthropomorphism, even though their use is tolerated in ancient and even modern Japanese poetry.�
>
> Is the use of personification in the composition of English language haiku a taboo?
>
> Is the use of personification in Japanese haiku as Frost states, tolerated? And if so, I wonder where he obtained that information. Taboos against the use of personification in Western haiku are the inventions of well meaning prominent occidental poets (most of then Anglo-Americans) who distance themselves from the genre called haiku that Japan shared with the world, their justification, that the West has a difference sense of poetic meter, cultural memories, and aesthetic taste; and as Westerners poets, they should be free to adapt haiku to their culture.
>
> North America, however, is a cultural melting pot without a dominant culture. In California, there are more Mexican Americans than Anglo-Americans. In the United States, there are large populations of Native Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Irish, Romanian, and other cultural groupings, each with their conceptualizations of aesthetics, religion, cultural memory, ethics, and background.
>
> I think it's a mistake, therefore, to define haiku in a way different than what is it is as defined by those who gave us haiku. Yes, there is a logic is using less syllables, but the S/L/S/ metric schemata is indigenous to haiku as is the unspoken, and other aesthetic terms that are used in both Eastern and Western circles such as ma: dreaming room),metaphors, the use of imagery, suggestion, and so forth.
>
> I also find it hard to buy into the reasoning of those advocating that English language haiku doesn’t have to adapt itself to Japan’s definition and understanding of haiku and, therefore, they have the freedom to alter it to a point where it more closely resembles American short free verse and imagist poetry, especially when I read excellent
> poems like these that adhere to the traditional form of Japanese haiku minus the use of less syllables:
>
> even the fish
> could lose a little
> Buddhist temple
>
> Peter Newton
>
> Snow moon ---
> within the tunnel of trees
> the wind takes refuge
>
> Patricia J. Machmiller
>
> Dawn ---
> the bullfrog with the moon
> on his breath
>
> Alexis Rotelli
>
> a sunbeam
> glistens in the tears
> . . . of the snowman
>
> Dana-Maria Onica
>
> weeping cherry tree
> fills the breeze with petalsâ€"
> soft april shower
>
> Denis Garrison
>
> rain in gusts
> below the deadhead
> troutswirl
>
> John Wills
>
> States American haiku poet, Dennis Chibi:
>
> “ We must allow room for different mindsets especially those that differ from our own. I think this allows for the “Western� taboo of personification in haiku-like poems. Ironically, I contend that there is no Western haiku at all. Haiku is indigenous to and exclusively Japanese. Variations of short poems that embrace haiku aspects in other than Japanese are a different genre.
>
> What amuses me is how serious the critics are of the use of personification on modern English language poets, yet none of them said a word when Cor Van den Heuval penned his famous one word haiku: tundra, published in Curbstones (1998). If this poem is a haiku, it means I can called a sonnet a limerick. The poem made Western haiku a joke among serious scholars and a mockery in the eyes of the Japanese people. It was then that Western haiku made the declaration that it would go in any direction it wanted to as long as it was a short poem of 31 to 1 syllable in length. It's the elucidation one could expect from someone on an LSD trip.
>
> It is imperative that we as Western Haiku poets accept and respect haiku as a specific genre of poetry, and study it in detail, before looking at it and saying,
>
> “Heck, I don’t want to write my haiku like this. I want to write it the way I want to write it, the rules from Japan be damned. We have our own metric schemata and the Japanese have their own. If I copy their use of meter and follow their rules, I’ll be, a “Japanofile [a derogatory term sailor, poet,M. Kei uses to call Westerners who adhere to the Japanese schemata and the use of aesthetics]. I’m a Westerner, for god’s sake!�
>
> To this kind of thinking, which is becoming more and more prevalent, Thomas Hemstage wisely advices:
>
> “ . . . during the time the West has been trying to come to terms with Japanese haiku, has seldom been considered at all, and if at all, then not considered enough.�
>
> “Hail, Herbs, and Turnips
> Modern Haiku, Vol. 35:1, Winter Spring 2004
> Translated from the German language by David Cobb
>
> Bright sun
> The sheen of tall grass
> When it bends
>
> Jim Kacian
> Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan
> ©2008
> Shambala Publications
>
> Says Donegan:
> “Within the Japanese Shinto tradition, all of nature is sacred and imbued with a spirit called a kami. Every rock, tree, and blade of grass has a spirit. This exists in most so-called ancient, indigenous, spiritual traditions world-wide [including Native Americans] worldwide. However, this tradition goes even further, that this spirit is inherent not just in animate things, but also in inanimate things.�
>
> She goes on to say that this belief “is ‘a sacred outlook’: to be able to see the sacredness or spirit with everything in our world without discrimination.�
>
> The use of personification is allowable in English language haiku just as it is in Japanese haiku. A haiku is a haiku is a haiku.
>
> The use of anthropomorphism should, however, as Dr. Gave Grebe wisely states, be used sparingly.
>
> Personification: Why the taboo? Why is it wrong for another in the West to use this tool and/ or to have animistic beliefs?
>
> Is Western haiku a follow
> -the-herd poetic dictum and not as free spirited or as liberated as many claim?
>
> Writes Shirane,
>
> “Nature exists as something concrete and living before the viewer’s eyes. , as immediate, and is respected as such. At the same time, however, nature can implicitly have a semi-metaphorical effect, particularly as a projection of the poet’s inner or outer state or as that of the addressee.�
>
> Traces of Dreams Stanford University Press
> ©1998
>
> Most important to haiku written in any language is as Cor van den Heuvel says so eloquently:
>
> "The poem is refined into a touchstone of suggestiveness. In the mind of an aware reader it opens again into an image that is immediate and palpable, and pulsing with that delight of the senses that carries a conviction of one's unity with all of existence."
>
> Discussions like this, especially in the West, upset some people. Why, I’m not sure. Perhaps it threatens another to see something in the mirror they don’t want to face. Some are close-minded, convinced they are privy to the Way, and believe that any other thought patterning is heresy.
>
> What I’ve written is my view. It is not doctrine but the studied illusions I have regarding haiku and the use of personification in this Japanese genre of poetry.
>
> The mind is our canvas; our thoughts, the brush strokes painting the canvas, and like all art, no one painting is the same. And let us never forget, art is subjective. What one person likes, another may hate.
>
> I’ll end this paper with something the American Buddhist Amy Gross said recently in an interview for Tricycle, an online Buddhist journal:
>
> “"At certain stages maps can be useful; they point out the way. But at other stages they can be a big hindrance, because we often get caught up in interpretation and judgment: “How far along am I?� “Am I there?� These thoughts simply strengthen the sense of self, while the whole path is about dissolving it. And particularly in our Western culture, which is so competitive and judgmental, instead of adding more fuel to the fire of self-judgment - �Oh, where am I? I’m not good enough� - we could see our entire spiritual journey as this wonderful flowering of understanding. We just keep going; we just keep watering the Bodhi tree of wisdom."
>
> Amy Gross
> Tricycle Journal
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://simplyhaiku.theartofhaiku.com
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> http://lousymirror.blogspot.com
>