PURE EXPERIENCE

Issa wrote a hokku that we might render in English as:

Half of it
Is fluttering snowflakes;
Spring rain.

It is not a profound hokku, but it does express the “mixed” nature of early spring weather, when we still feel the Yin effects of winter though spring has weakened them.

The hokku makes a statement, but it is not an interpretation.  That is important in distinguishing Objective Hokku from other kinds.  It just tells us — objectively — what Issa saw (those last two words make me want to say “I saw Issa sitting on a seesaw” really fast), and because it is limited to that, we see it too.

That is the great virtue of Objective Hokku (in contrast to other kinds of hokku); it does not put a writer between the reader and the experience.  And it does not block the experience with unnecessary words and interpretation.

In Objective Hokku, the difference is that we present the experience directly, in simple words.  We do not write about the experience — we write the experience.  Now of course we use words to do that, but the words are not important for their own sake — as they are in what we usually think of as poetry.  Instead, the words are just the means of conveying the experience, as a cup conveys the experience of drinking cold water or hot tea.  We do not want them to get in the way.

Nor do we want the writer to get in the way.  If he or she does, then we no longer experience the hokku directly.

Issa wrote another hokku in which he “gets in the way” of the experience by adding an interpretation:

Spring mist;
Noisy from morning on —
The foolish crow.

Instead of just presenting us with the mist and the morning and the continual caws and rattles of the crow, he comments that the crow is “foolish,” or we could also translate that as “stupid.”  Issa has added his own “thinking” to the experience, so it is no longer objective.  He has obscured the pure experience with his own opinion.  To remove his comment, we could rewrite the verse as Objective Hokku, like this:

Spring mist;
Noisy from morning on —
The crow.

I hope you see what a difference that makes.  It is no longer Issa telling us about his experience, it is now we who are having the experience itself, with nothing added, and no writer’s interpretation in the way.

Now how you react to Issa’s verse — and to the objective version — will tell us how you react to verse in general.  Some people are not accustomed to thinking of verse as pure experience, without the added comments, opinions, or “thinking” of the writer.  Some feel that to be “poetic,” all of that must be added.  But as I constantly repeat, we should not think of hokku as “poetry” in the usual sense.

The great difference is that in Objective Hokku, the poetry is not in the words.  They are — we could say — only the seed of poetry, that when read by the receptive reader suddenly sprouts into the experience in the mind.  And that experience itself, pure and alone and unobscured — is the poetry in hokku.

In the first hokku, the experience is the spring rain, half mixed with fluttering snow.  In the third, revised hokku, the experience is the spring mist and the continuous noisiness of the crow from morning on.

This purity of experience, with no writer or comments to hinder it, is the very essence of Objective Hokku.  If you find that a significant discovery, then you are the kind of person who can appreciate Objective Hokku and its remarkable aesthetics.

 

David

THE SPIRIT OF HOKKU

The most difficult aspect of hokku to teach is also the most important — the “spirit” or “atmosphere” or “aesthetic” of hokku.

The form of hokku is very easy and can be quickly learned.  But without the right spirit, the results — even if in perfect hokku form — will not really be a hokku.

Why do so many have trouble in learning the spirit of haiku?  Part of it is cultural.  We live in a society based heavily around the ego and the satisfaction of its whims, and consequently a very material culture.  We also live in a society increasingly separated from the natural world — from Nature and the seasons.

Hokku aesthetics, by contrast, are based on a spirit of poverty and simplicity.  In  hokku, poverty does not mean having no money or resources at all.  It means a life not based on acquisition of objects nor the endless accumulation of material wealth.  To write hokku, you should learn to be “poor in spirit.”  To be “poor in spirit” means to learn the value of living simply and without the need for many possessions.    And because hokku is all about Nature and the place of humans within and as a part of Nature, it is important to re-establish our connection with the natural world and the seasons — the seasons that our double-paned windows and central heating and air conditioning carefully keep out.

The fundamental principle of hokku is transience — impermanence — the inescapable fact that everything around us and within us is constantly changing.  Nothing in the world or in the universe remains the same.  We cannot hold on to any experience or to any moment of time because time will not stand still.  And we and everything around us are not so much nouns as verbs, because all is in a state of perpetual change and transformation.

That is not just the condition of Nature;  it is also the human condition — birth, growth, old age, and death.

Hokku sees everything as a part of this cycle.  We see the changes of human life reflected in the day, from morning to noon to afternoon, evening, and night.  We see the same changes in the seasons, from spring to summer to autumn and winter.

Because we live in constant change, we also know the feeling this impermanence gives us.  It is not exactly sadness, though sometimes it can be that.  It is the feeling we get on realizing that no pleasure will last, that because of impermanence all happiness is temporary, and cannot be grasped and held.  It is the feeling we get when spring passes, the feeling we get when an old friend moves to a distant town, or perhaps suddenly dies.  Everything and everyone we “have” in life will eventually be gone — and ourselves along with them.

That leads us to the next step in hokku — the de-emphasis of the “self,” the lack of importance of the ego.  In hokku we do not generally write about ourselves, our wishes, or our desires.  Instead, hokku is a very “selfless” form of verse.  When we do mention ourselves, we do it in the same objective way we would write about a crow on a trembling branch, or snow falling into a stream.  This gives us a perspective that takes us out of the everyday ego.

In everything I have said here, we can see that hokku is just an expression of the nature of existence as it was and is expressed in Buddhism, out of which hokku grew.  Buddhism teaches the three marks of existence — in Pali, Dukkha, Anicca, and Anatta — loosely meaning unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, and no permanent self.

The impermanence of all things means that existence will inevitably bring dissatisfaction.  We cannot hold on to anything that pleases us, and too often we are in contact with things or events that do not please us at all.  In addition, this “self” that is our constant obsession is just as impermanent as everything else.  It does not last.  We are not who we were as children, nor are we as we shall be in old age.  And whether one accepts the notion of rebirth or assumes consciousness ends in death, in either case the end of this life is the end of the person we think of as ourselves.  So the illusory “self” is just a process, an ongoing transformation like everything else in Nature.

When you begin to understand all of this — to see how inseparable one is from the rest of the ever-changing universe — one begins to get the spirit that is behind hokku.  Then one sees it is not just another form of poetry.  It is a kind of seeing into the nature of existence.  Hokku shows us the depth behind the most ordinary things and events.

Buson wrote:

Bags of seeds
Getting soaked;
Spring rain.

That simple verse is like an explosion of the growing Yang energy of spring, because all of those seeds — each one containing a minute life force — will begin to sprout with the warmth and wetness of spring.  In that verse we see the nature of spring — its character of fresh beginning of activity, of growth, of vitality — of change.   Note that all of that is not explained in the verse, which gives us only the essentials to light the fuse of feeling.  A hokku is the raw material of experience, and when we read it, that experience “explodes” into being within us.

 

David

 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SMALL THINGS

One of the first problems a new student of hokku encounters is the selection of material, and this question arises: What subject is worth making into a hokku?

The answer is that to make a hokku interesting, one must pick an interesting experience. But how do you recognize one? As the old saying goes, “That which interests is interesting.” If an experience does not interest you, does not catch your attention, it is unlikely to interest anyone else. But keep in mind that hokku is generally interested in small events that seem to have a significance we cannot quite put into words, and should not try.

What then makes an interesting experience in hokku? We can find out by looking at some good examples.

Buson wrote:

(Spring)

Bags of seeds
Getting soaked;
Spring rain.

Why is that interesting? Because of the relationship between seeds and water and spring. Not only do we see and feel and hear the spring rain when we read it, be we also feel a kind of hidden energy in it, because we know the rain soaking into the bags of seeds will make them sprout. And sprouting seeds really make us feel the spring. We can almost sense the power in the seeds, ready to burst out in sprouts.

To make such a hokku, someone had to notice — had to pay attention to — the rain falling on the bags of seeds. A great part of writing hokku is simply paying attention to things that most people do not bother to notice because they think them of no importance. But hokku are all about such “unimportant” things that are nonetheless felt to have significance if one only pays attention.

I have written before that it is not seeing what others see that makes a poet, but rather seeing the significance in what others see but think of no importance.  That is certainly true of a good hokku writer. If you do not notice and feel the significance in small things, it will be difficult for you to write hokku.

That principle applies even to Shiki, the fellow who, near the end of the 19th century, decided to call his hokku “haiku,” which later became the cause of much confusion. Here is what Shiki saw:

(Spring)

Turning to look
At the man who passed —
Only mist.

The interest here is in the quick feeling of surprise and puzzlement. The man was there just a moment ago, but now only mist is seen. This sense of someone disappearing into mist is felt to be somehow significant. If we try to explain why it feels significant, we lose the poetry. So in hokku we only present the experience, so that the reader may sense that odd feeling of significance in such a small event as well.

In both hokku we have looked at, there is the sense of seeing something in a different way, a way that feels new to us, a different perspective. In Buson’s verse, instead of stacks of dry seed bags, we see them in the rain, getting wet. In Shiki’s verse, instead of turning around to look at a person who passed and seeing him, we see only mist. It is such little differences of perspective, of things slightly out of the ordinary, that make us see the world in a fresh way. And it makes for fresh and interesting hokku as well. So when choosing a subject, look for things seen in a different way, from a different perspective.

Rofu wrote:

(Spring)

Ebb tide;
The crab is suspicious
Of the footprint.

There are lots of things to see on a beach at ebb tide. Most are rather ordinary. But then we see a crab scuttling along the wet sand, and suddenly pausing at the impression someone’s foot has left. In that pause we feel the crab’s hesitation and uncertainty, his suspicion of this out-of-the-ordinary depression in the sand.  Rofu has selected this out of everything else on the beach because it enables us to see the crab in a different way, from a different perspective — and we also see the footprint in a different way, from a “crab’s eye” view.

Ryōto wrote:

(Spring)

Someone passing
Over the bridge;
The frogs go quiet.

Here the writer has again been paying attention to something that seems very unimportant on the surface, but nonetheless is felt to have unspoken significance. I have put it into the present tense because I like it that way; it seems more immediate and present.

Shiki wrote a similar verse:

(Spring)

Stepping onto the bridge,
The fish sink from sight;
The water of spring.

So the subjects appropriate for hokku are in general just ordinary things, written down in ordinary language. But they are ordinary things that when seen from a new or different or unusual perspective, give us a sense of unspoken significance.

Wakyu wrote:

(Spring)

At the sound
Of one jumping,
All the frogs jump in.

As an event in our modern, busy world, it does seem like much; but we feel the nature of frogs and their green and watery world in it. Hokku is often about the little things that, as Blyth says, we knew, but did not know we knew until we read the verse.

We could call hokku the verse form for people who pay attention.

A PATH TO THE SEA

We have seen how to begin working with models in hokku, using the method of substitution.  It is important to keep in mind,however, that this is only a beginning.  It will enable one to follow the form and structure of hokku, but that means little if one does not understand the aesthetic basis.

That is why I talk about the principles of poverty, simplicity, transience, etc. that one finds in hokku.  Unlike modern haiku, hokku has a particular aesthetic approach to the composition of verses.  The aesthetics of hokku are generally those held in common with the other meditative arts in Japan such as the tea ceremony, flower arranging, calligraphy, ink painting, gardening, etc.  Unlike the aesthetics of Western art, in Japan these practices had the “same flavor,” and if one understood the essence of one, one understood the essence of them all.

We must keep in mind, therefore, that the aesthetics of hokku are critical to writing it, and that without an understanding of those aesthetics, knowledge of structure alone is inadequate.  The student must learn both.  Of the two, structural understanding comes more quickly.  The aesthetics of hokku must be absorbed over time.

Otsuji wrote:

Spring rain;
Seen between the trees —
A path to the sea.

It is a simple verse, plain but effective.  as Blyth says of it, “There is something pleasant and lasting about poems that do not try the reader, that do not pander to popular taste.”

David