is haiku still a stained glass window, nowadays?
Reading the classics of haiku, out of old Japan, we cannot help but be made aware of a depth surrounding the mental mirage of everyday life that can sometimes make us shiver in our haiku walking boots. We are reminded that all around us is a mystery in process so vast and pressing that, when we gravitate back to our daily mundane tasks, it bugs us. Reading much that passes for haiku here in the humanist and scientific West, I cannot help but wonder where that, at least nodding, respect to the infinite has got lost along the haiku way. What, if anything, should we do about that - any ideas?
on a journey
resting beneath the cherry blossoms
i feel myself to be in a noh play
Basho
-
Note: There are many technical terms that can help us understand the more mystical aspects of haiku and its practice. However, leaving these aside as a requirement, what are members own intuitive feelings about the implications enbedded in this topic's question. Just being alive qualifies you to respond. No worries about being clever, proving it using Google Search and presenting reams of curriculum vitae. Plain language and sincerity is fine. Whether you're a haiku tadpole or a haiku frog - share your views! ^_^
Stained glass windows What a wonderful metaphor of conscious awareness these beautiful things are. Better, in some ways, than the old movie projector analogy. You know; light source - film - screen. The idea being, of course, to illustrate how one becomes diverified (Tao's: '10,000 things'). The figure/ground concept of psychology comes to mind, also. Haiku can be related to all this quite well. The words of a haiku being the stained glass's articulation of light; whilst sunlight itself plays the part of the luminous infinite. (White Tara of Tibetan buddhist iconography.) No, it's not about Christianity, not as used in this topic's title. A useful abstract model, perhaps.
-
Yes, bringing into conscious awareness the connectedness of all things and causes, especially the extraordinary nature of that which we have had decreed as 'ordinary'. Practising haiku allows this to happen, by default. It could be a covert DNA intiative? ^_^
jp