Takashi Ikemoto

This anthology is divided into four sections: Chinese zen (Chan Buddhist) poetry, old style Japanese zen poetry, haiku by Japanese zenists (as the editor calls them), and poetry by Shinkichi Takahashi.

I like "zen" poetry in the sense that I like poetry that wakes you up to experience something you haven't before. However, much of this poetry is about the zen experience of satori and other tenets of Buddhism. I really didn't find it all that interesting.

If that sounds interesting to you, or you want to read Stryk's translations of some of the Japanese haiku, then a copy might be worth picking up. Otherwise, I'd give it a miss.… (mehr)

150 poems which capture the four main “moods” of Zen: Sabi (which I would loosely describe as solitude), Wabi (humbleness), Aware (transience), and Yugen (mystic calm). A little uneven but a nice mix across Chinese and Japanese poets; I also liked the inclusion of this poem in the introduction from modern poet Shinkichi Takahashi so much that I find myself saying it at times when I’m in a forest:

The wind blows hard among the pines
Toward the beginning
Of an endless past.
Listen: you’ve heard everything.

Others:
On death, from Tokken (1244-1319):
Seventy-six years,
Unborn, undying:
Clouds break up,
Moon sails on.

On death, from Dogen (1200-1253):
Four and fifty years
I’ve hung the sky with stars.
Now I leap through –
What shattering!

On death, from Shoten (11th century):
Leaving, where to go? Staying, where?
Which to choose? I stand aloof.
To whom speak my parting words? The galaxy,
White, immense. A crescent moon.

On enlightenment, from Shinsho:
Does one really have to fret
About enlightenment?
No matter what road I travel,
I’m going home.

On learning by being quiet, from Kakua:
Fisting, shouting like a petty merchant,
Saying, yes, no: quicksand.
Cease pointing, explaining. Keep quiet.
There: now hear the flutist coming home?

On solitude, from Zengetsu (833-912):
Mind, mind, mind – above the Path.
Here on my mountain, gray hair down,
I cherish bamboo sprouts, brush carefully
By pine twigs. Burning incense,
I open a book: mist over flagstones.
Rolling the blind, I contemplate:
Moon in the pond. Of my old friends,
How many know the Way?

As well as this one from Zengetsu, which I love:
A vegetarian in shabby robe, my spirit’s
Like the harvest moon – free, life through.
Asked where I dwell, I’ll say:
In green water, on the blue mountain.

On transience, from Dogen:
The world? Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane’s bill.… (mehr)