Arts: This Dewdrop World

I recently re-read Issa's famous dewdrop haiku and while I previously liked it, something really hit me this latest reading:

This dewdrop world –
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet, and yet…

At first I found it incredibly haunting that he seems to be saying that despite our practice and all our Buddhist teachings, there are times where our sorrow is just too much and overwhelms us.

But then I read it as that while Buddhism gives us all these practices and answers, we aren't made of stone and it is healthy to feel and express emotion. As Jundo sometimes says, when it's time to cry, we cry.

Gassho,

Heiso

StLah

Thank you, Heiso! I find it affects me similarly.

Even though The Diamond Sutra proclaims "Like a tiny drop of dew... so is all conditioned existence to be seen.", I think we all know how real emotions can feel.

Issa experienced a huge amount of loss in his life and wrote this poem after the death of his daughter, having already lost his first child, a son, shortly after his birth.

His third child also died, followed by his wife, Kiku, a few years later, prompting this haiku:

Ikinokori
ikinokoritaru
samusa kana

outliving them,
outliving them all,
ah, the cold!


Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Thank you for sharing that, Heiso. It is beautiful and has always made my heart both open and weep.

Deep bows.

Gassho, Jim
ST/LaH

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk

gassho2

Thank you Heiso for sharing this along with your reflection. I'm always fascinated by how we react to poems when we first encounter them compared to how they resonate with us when we revisit them again and again. Even in the shortest poem, there is something new to be found every time we read them.

Gassho,
Seikan

-stlah-

Gassho

sat

So vanishing as I grow older, soon I will join Issa, ash left in museum near my good fried, my sponsor shall my love live longer, my ash to remember, ah-- Issa where did humankind place your remains, mine but twinkling in sky, flash of galaxy, I wait there in my mind twenty years or less, Issa you lived life of poetry; my life of Pearls, life seamless web of woman and man with one to live after. Issa, be forever in your lines passed from generation to generation.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

I suddenly remembered a haiku written by my friend Alan Summers:

tonight’s world of dew
if a moment Issa’s shade
would walk beside me

Gassho
Kokuu

It’s interesting how one’s general view on life taints certain things, because I perceived less of that “grief” in the haiku and more of a grounding into our very palpable reality, which is not only sorrow. I see in those lines a reflection of existence in its most subjective way. The world is fleeting, ephemeral, temporary, like dewdrops that arise from conditions and naturally become absorbed into everything else, but while the drop still hangs from the tip of the blade of grass, it is present, real, heavy or light, unique, big or small...

[emoji1374] SatToday lah

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kokuu

I suddenly remembered a haiku written by my friend Alan Summers:

tonight’s world of dew
if a moment Issa’s shade
would walk beside me

Gassho
Kokuu

---

thanks, Kokuu..

gassho2

aprapti

sat

She cannot see, I weep,
Weep in spring, she sees
My bones, dew into dust.

Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi