COMPASSION

Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live thoughtlessly and begins to devote himself to his life
with reverence in order to give it true value.
— Albert Schweitzer

3/29/2013

Koans by Kobayashi Issa



Slowly, slowly, climb
Up and up Mount Fuji,
O snail.



Far-off mountain peaks
Reflected in its eyes:
The dragonfly.



For fleas, also, the night
Must be so very long,
So very lonely.



Stop! Don’t swat the fly
Who wrings his hands,
Who wrings his feet.



With bland serenity
Gazing at the far hills:
A tiny frog.



Emerging from the nose
Of Great Buddha’s statue:
A swallow.



Spring rain:
The uneaten ducks
Quack.



Red sky in the morning:
Does it gladden you,
O snail?







 ...................................................................

 Kobayashi Issa, from his poems. Born in a snow-whipped mountain village in 1763, Issa at the age of two lost his mother and, he later claimed, wrote a poem at the age of five because he was teased for being a “motherless child”: 

“Come here/and play with me, orphaned/little sparrow.” 

In 1777 he left for Edo, where he eventually studied the verse form haikai with the poet Nirokuan Chikua. 

After his mentor’s death in 1790, Issa wandered around western Japan for nearly ten years, publishing his first poetry collection, Travel Gleanings, in 1795. He died in 1828.
 

From The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse. Translated by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2009. © 1964, 1998, 2009 by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite. Used with permission of Penguin Books Ltd.


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Source:  For Fleas, Also

 http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/for-fleas-also.php

 

 


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