It has become quite fashionable in modern haiku to disparage R. H. Blyth’s strong emphasis on Zen in his books relevant to hokku. That is very much in keeping with the course modern haiku has taken since the mid 20th century, a course that has led it farther and farther away from hokku, because of course hokku has its spiritual roots in Zen.
Are you seeing a pattern here? First there is the anachronistic re-naming of hokku as haiku; then there is the changing of the verse form to fit individual notions of what a haiku should be (which is why it cannot be easily defined — it has lost definition), and then there is the cutting of the spiritual roots of haiku, which makes it simply a few lines on most any topic. With each step those guiding the course of modern haiku have removed it more distantly from hokku.
Some may, therefore, legitimately say that there is no Zen connection in modern haiku. But it is simply incorrect — historically inaccurate — to say that about hokku, which is the verse form prior to Shiki, and which still exists after Shiki in the hokku tradition that today is quite separate from haiku.
Just as one can easily demonstrate that calling the old hokku “haiku” is anachronistic and inaccurate, it is also easy to demonstrate the historical connection of Zen not only with hokku, but with the meditative arts in general as they developed in Japan.
Toshimitsu Hasumi, in his book Zen in Japanese Art (Philosophical Library, 1962) writes:
“Undoubtedly the artistic formation and way of thinking of the Japanese, based as it is on the wholeness and self-contained nature of human existence, is deeply indebted to the influence of Zen.”
The writer goes on to explore how Mahayana Buddhist influence, and Zen in particular, set the aesthetics for the arts from tea to painting, from pottery to poetry.
We find, for example ( Munsterberg’s The Arts of Japan, Tuttle, 1957) in regard to pottery, that a potter made a trip to Japan “as an attendant of the Zen priest Dogen, and ever since the Kamakura period there has been a close connection between Zen Buddhism, the tea ceremony, and Japanese pottery.”
Further, while speaking of the Rinzai sect of Zen, Munsterberg writes, “even people who have never studied Zen are profoundly influenced by its spirit of restraint, its emphasis upon contemplation, and its distrust of ritual and dogma, as well as the many things it brought in its wake, such as the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and the cult of ink painting.“
And we have already seen in a previous posting the statement of Shôei Andô that “…it is almost impossible to disregard the influence of Zen, when we consider any aspect of Japanese culture after the Kamakura Perod. In fact, Zen may be said to lie at the inmost heart of Japanese culture (Zen and American Transcendentalism, Hokuseido, 1970).
It is important to remember, however, that when speaking of Zen in hokku, we are making a distinction between Zen as an organized religious division of Mahayana Buddhism, and Zen as a wider spiritual principle. Japanese culture was steeped in Mahayana Buddhism, of which organized Zen was a part; and as Blyth writes (Eastern Culture), “Zen is the putting into practice, the realizing (making real) of Mahayana Buddhism in daily life.”
In short, Zen is not a religious dogma or limited to the Zen sect of Buddhism; Zen is a spiritual state of mind and activity. The aesthetics we find in hokku grow out of this spiritual state of mind. And it is in that sense that we speak of Zen in hokku, or as I prefer to put it today, the intimate connection between hokku and spirituality, a fundamental characteristic of hokku.
It can easily be seen, then, that one need not have been literally an adherent of the Zen sect of Buddhism in old Japan to have been influenced by Zen in a culture permeated by Mahayana Buddhism and tinged with Zen aesthetics (though some writers of hokku were); and today one need not be a Zen Buddhist to write modern hokku, but one does have to have the same aesthetic attitude.
So let those in haiku who want to disparage Blyth and his important connection between hokku and spirituality go their own way and write whatever they want to write and call it haiku – they hold an untenable position historically, and the loss is theirs. We preserve the link between hokku and spirituality in our writing today, keeping our practice connected to the spiritual roots that nourish it and give it life.
David
