chapter iv - shodhgangashodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/29598/10/10...79 chapter iv the...

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79 Chapter IV The Wandering Monk’s Mountain Tasting: Zen Haiku Sake for the body, haiku for the heart; Sake is the haiku of the body, Haiku is the sake of the heart. - Santoka (24) Taneda said, Real Haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one’s heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your ear, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations there you’ll find the essence of true art, religion and science. In his book Mountain Tasting - Zen Haiku, Santoka Taneda, translated and introduced by John Stevens, expounds “When travelling, you truly understand human beings, poetry, and nature.” A wandering poet and an ascetic Zen priest for the last fifteen years of his life, Taneda found life in Sake (liquor) Zen and haiku. The essential qualities of Zen Buddhism namely impermanence, the necessity of solitude, the importance of simplicity in life and the pervasive sadness that accompanies all human affairs is emphasized in Santoka’s verse.

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Page 1: Chapter IV - Shodhgangashodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/29598/10/10...79 Chapter IV The Wandering Monk’s Mountain Tasting: Zen Haiku Sake for the body, haiku for the heart;

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Chapter IV

The Wandering Monk’s Mountain Tasting: Zen Haiku

Sake for the body, haiku for the heart;

Sake is the haiku of the body,

Haiku is the sake of the heart.

- Santoka (24)

Taneda said,

Real Haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in

one’s heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water

flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon.

This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your ear, forget

about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations – there

you’ll find the essence of true art, religion and science.

In his book Mountain Tasting - Zen Haiku, Santoka Taneda, translated and

introduced by John Stevens, expounds “When travelling, you truly understand

human beings, poetry, and nature.”

A wandering poet and an ascetic Zen priest for the last fifteen years of his

life, Taneda found life in Sake (liquor) Zen and haiku. The essential qualities of

Zen Buddhism namely impermanence, the necessity of solitude, the importance of

simplicity in life and the pervasive sadness that accompanies all human affairs is

emphasized in Santoka’s verse.

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Many of his poems point towards the Zen goal of overcoming his

omnipresent melancholy by achieving spiritual enlightenment and serenity. He

said, “Too much contact with people brings conflict, hatred and attachment. To

rid myself of inner conflict and hatred, I must walk.”

Haikus are created in a moment, a fraction of a second, instantly,

spontaneously. Basho says: When composing a verse let there be not a hair’s

breadth separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must

be done in an instant, like a wood cutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman

leaping at a dangerous enemy.

Real haiku is the soul of poetry, and haiku was “life” itself for Taneda. His

haikus were Zen-spontaneous, sharp, clear, simple, direct. Taneda is said to have

walked more than twenty-eight thousand miles during his travel as a wandering

monk. This made Taneda accept everything that came his way without clinging to

ideas of self and others, true or false, good or bad, life or death. He wrote,

Begging: I accept

The blazing sun. (32)

Taneda’s poetry attracted only limited notice during his lifetime, but in

recent years there has been a remarkable upsurge of interest in his life and

writings. His complete works were published in seven large volumes in 1972 and

1973, Teihon Santoka Zenshu - cited as ZS.

As Ivan Morris notes some years ago in The Nobility of Failure: Tragic

Heroes in the History of Japan, the Japanese have a marked fondness for people

who in one way another have made a mess of their lives. Taneda was a prime

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example of the messy type. Much of the popularity that his works now enjoy is

due to their undoubted literary worth, but much of it is also attributed to the

highly unconventional and in some ways the tragic life he led. Taneda’s poetry

and his life demand to be taken together.

In April 1940, six months before his death at 57, Taneda compiled and

published a selection of his haiku written over the preceding fifteen years. The

book titled Somokuto - Grass and Tree Stupa contains 701 haiku that represented

his best work. It is a compilation of six booklets of haiku privately published by

Taneda, the first one being Hachinoko published in 1932 and the second one

entitled Somokuto published in 1933.

The haiku included in Somokuto were written after he became a Zen

monk. He opened up a new field of writing free-style haiku under the tutelage of

the founder Ogiwara Seisensui. It could be even said that thanks to Taneda haiku

became "songs" born from the depths of the minds of modern men. From

Somokuto: I dedicate this book before the soul of my mother who hurried to die

while still young.

In 1932, weary of the hardships of his itinerant life, when his plans did not

work out, Taneda’s friends found a small cottage for him in a mountain village in

Yamaguchi Prefecture. Taneda called it Gochu-an after a verse in the Lotus Sutra.

This verse refers to one member of a large group telling the others to call on the

name of Kanzeon Bosatsu, the goddess of compassion; then all will be saved from

calamities. The Lotus Sutra is widely regarded as one of the most important and

influential sutras, or sacred scriptures of Buddhism. Its key message is that

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Buddhahood – a condition of absolute happiness, freedom from fear and from all

illusions – is inherent in all life.

From 1932 to 1938 Taneda divided his time between Gochu-an and

travelling. When he was staying at Gochu-an, he often had visitors from all parts

of the country. Occasionally poetry meetings were held there. However, in 1938

Gochu-an literally collapse and Taneda moved to a small hut in Yuda Hot

Springs. In December 1939 he settled down in Matsuyama City, Ehime

Prefecture, in a little cottage that he named Isso-an, which literally means One

Blade of Grass Hut. He lived there till his death in the early morning hours of

October 11, 1940.

One of Taneda’s most economical and beautiful poems is the following:

I have no home;

Autumn deepens (41)

This poem touches something deep within and is completely soul- stirring.

Taneda’s homelessness is especially poignant and troubling for him when autumn

comes; and winter with its snow and cold is not far. This is no time to be

homeless, but he is, as, ultimately, we all are. This life is transitory, and any home

we have is only temporary. As the Buddha says in the Diamond Sutra:

So you should view all of the fleeting worlds:

A star at dawn, a bubble in the stream;

A flash of lightning in a summer cloud;

A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

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The Diamond Sutra is a Mahayana Buddhist scriptural text that expounds

the doctrine of the Perfection of Wisdom. The Diamond Sutra was written in

India in Sanskrit and then carried into East Asia, where it was translated into

Chinese. It teaches the practice of the avoidance of abiding in extremes of mental

attachment.

This shows the emptiness in Taneda’s life of begging and traveling as well

as the loneliness of a self-righteous life of solitude. Taneda says : Though I've

been drifting around here and there, now I 've been given a bed which I have

longed for so long.

At Gochu-an snow is falling –

I am alone,

Tending a fire.

In many haiku Taneda mentions the mailman and mail which perhaps

shows his longing for companionship.

He brought mail,

Ate a ripe persimmon,

And left. (99)

Since Taneda was almost continuously on the move, he would send his

friends post cards informing them of his destinations or the sights he had seen, or

containing several of his poems, and so on. Generally they would send back

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issues of poetry journals, news, and sometimes money that he would pick up at

one of his stops.

Twilight – the sound

Of the sad letter dropping

Into the postbox. (109)

In the sunlight on my desk

I write a long, long letter. (110)

During the years when Taneda was living in the Gochu-an and later in

Yuda and Isso-an, he went on few begging expeditions and was almost wholly

dependent for his daily needs on contributions from friends in the neighbourhood

and more distant patrons or on money sent to him by his son, Ken. Taneda made

a very anticipating note in his diary on receiving a mail from Ken.

January 27, 1937. At last a letter from K, much to my relief. Went

out immediately, paid off what bills I could, bought what I could.

(91)

Taneda wrote a heartwarming haiku for his son Ken, saying that in his

dreams, his son visited him. The haiku is so poignant, to write that his son visits

in his dream, and to look forward for his visit in real.

Dozing off,

(My son) Ken visits me

In my dreams. (97)

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As told by Stevens in his translated work of Mountain Tasting: Zen Haiku

by Santoka Taneda; there are two well-known stories about Taneda living by his

percepts told by Sumita Oyama, Taneda’s close friend, editor and biographer.

When the author visited Gochu-an, the hut-hermitage where Taneda lived

in 1938, Taneda asked him if he had had his midday meal. On hearing that he had

not, he brought for him an iron bowl of rice, and a single pimento, which is a hot

pepper used for seasoning. Taneda sat gazing at him, and on being asked, "Why

don't you eat too?" told him, "I have only one bowl." After Oyama finished his

meal, Taneda took the bowl and ate the remainder of the rice and hot pepper.

Taneda washed the bowl in a bucket of water, took the water to wash off the floor

and entranceway and used the remaining water as manure for his little garden.

Another time, in December, the author had to spend the night with Taneda

at Gochu-an. There was naturally only one sleeping quilt, so Taneda gave it to

Oyama. The quilt was little more than a ragged piece of cloth that would barely

cover a child, let alone a full-grown man. As the winter wind blew in through the

many holes in the walls and ceilings, Oyama became colder and colder and was

unable to sleep. Taneda put his priest’s robe, his summer kimono, and several

other pieces of cloth on top of Oyama, but he was still cold. Finally, Taneda piled

all his old magazines and even his little desk on top of his shivering friend. The

next morning when Oyama awoke, Taneda was still sitting in Zazen.

Taneda was used to sharing anything he had. Here is an anecdote about

Taneda and a dog with a rice cake. One night, as Santoka prepared for another

dinnerless evening, a large dog came to his door carrying a big rice cake in its

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mouth. Taneda had no idea where the dog or the rice cake had come from. He

took the rice cake, split it in two and gave half to the dog, who then ran off into

the darkness. As soon as the dog was gone a little cat came up to Santoka and

begged for some of the rice cake. Santoka split it again.

Autumn night –

I received it from the dog

And gave it to the cat. (23)

In these anecdotes about Taneda we see the naturalness of his life, his

unattachedness to things, and his lack of plan in everything. Living life as it came

one day at a time.

After Taneda set out on his first walking trip in 1926, he kept diaries of his

daily activities. He burned the diaries from this first trip, but those from his later

years, beginning in September 1930 and continuing, with only minor gaps till the

time of his death is present and has been published in Teihon Santoka Zenshu. An

excerpt from Taneda’s diary says:

July 6. 1933. I’m turning into a kind of haiku factory. Watch out!

Careful here! One good poem is worth more than a thousand junky

ones! (69)

In his later years, Taneda wrote in his diary:

November 13. 1934. Twenty years since I began writing haiku, and

I realize more than ever: haiku writing is a practice that’s easy to

take up, but very difficult to really get anywhere in. It’s like

Buddhism in that respect. (82)

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In his diary, Taneda customarily noted the weather; his activities,

including what he ate and drank; the friends he visited or who visited him; and the

flowers and birds he saw around him. In addition, he often commented on his

state of mind and the progress of his work. Every evening he recorded in his

journal the name of the inn, the money he received from begging, his expenses for

that day. When he was on a walking trip, he usually noted the distance he had

covered during the day. He used to note down the haiku he had composed that day

or the revisions he had made in earlier poems, together with his reflections. His

dairy was his self-portrait. The following excerpt from Taneda’s diary will give a

deeper insight into his enlightened psyche :

October 30. 1930. Rain. Resting in the inn.

Raining again. Nothing to do but take a rest. Lounging around all

day. I’d like to go to Nobeoka as soon as possible so I can pick up

my mail at the post office, but I try to forget about that. Still, I was

able to do some reading and writing, so it wasn’t such a bad day.

For some reason my head feels heavy, stomach and bowels no

good. Probably the aftereffects of the shochu I had last night, first

I’ve had in some time. That’s what’s the matter, I’m sure.

Makes you wonder about yourself.

Today the whole day – not to get angry

Today the whole day – not to tell a lie

Today the whole day – not to waste anything.

These are my three Vows –

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Not to get angry – it’s possible to obey that rule, to some extent at

least. Not to tell a lie – that’s a hard one. It means not just telling a

lie with your mouth, but not lying in your mind or heart. You can

keep from lying with your mouth – that’s possible – but you have

to get so you don’t lie with your body either. What they call

“constant practice” of the Buddhist teachings has to be like water

flowing, like the blowing of the wind.

If you let yourself get angry when you’re doing your begging,

you’ll never get anywhere. When people say no or look the other

way, you have to ask what you yourself are doing wrong. In fact, I

just don’t have the qualifications needed to receive alms, isn’t that

it?..... These days I look at the clumsy, inept frame of mind in

which I go about receiving things or doing my begging, and I feel

ashamed and downcast.

As far as not wasting anything goes, I observe that rule in a general

way. But if you are really serious about not wasting anything, that

means you have to make the best possible use of a thing, and that’s

extremely difficult. Take the case of sake – I like sake, so I’m not

going to give it up and that’s that – nothing to be done about it. But

drinking sake – how much merit do I acquire doing that? If I let

sake get the best of me, then I’m a slave to sake, in other words, a

hopeless case!....

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And this rain coming down – whether people pray for rain or don’t

pray for rain, it will go on raining as long as it likes. We know that,

yet we look up at the sky and hope and pray it will clear up. That’s

the human heart for you. (36-37)

Taneda poured his life into his haiku and his diary, writing down his most

intimate thoughts and arguing with himself. On his trips Taneda rose at 4.30,

bathed, chanted the morning service, ate a tiny breakfast, and started out on a

begging trip. When he had received enough, he would return to the inn or move

on to the next place, depending on his mood. He might even stay as long as a

month if he liked the area and if the food and lodging were cheap.

Watson Burton in his translations of Taneda Santoka’s For All My

Walking has included lengthy excerpts from the early diaries of Taneda to indicate

the nature and the type of life he experienced on his begging expeditions.

Now they’re burned

These are all the ashes

From my diaries?

Taneda burned the diaries from his first trip because he was ashamed of

what he had written. As rightly said by Stevens : In his travels Taneda “touched

this and that and recorded the mind’s changing impressions.” Taneda poured his

life into his haiku and journals, writing down his most intimate thoughts and

arguing with himself. When he felt that he was getting attached to his journals;

then he would burn them or throw them away. Similarly, before he left Gochu-an

I he burned the few possessions he had accumulated.

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Taneda set off on the first of his walking Zen pilgrimage in 1926. His only

possessions were his black priest’s robe, his begging bowl, and his kasa, a large

woven straw hat worn by travelling monks to shield them from the sun and rain. It

is uncertain just what impelled him to embark on these wanderings. Such journeys

were often part of the religious training of Buddhist monks.

Autumn wind

For all my walking –

For all my walking –

Fig. 10. Picture from 2.biglobe.ne.jp

Taneda frequently concludes a poem with an image drawn from the

natural world, appending it to the end of the poem without indication of just how

it meant to relate to what has gone before. The above haiku written in 1939 when

Taneda was in Shikoku on his extended walking trip, the image – the autumn

wind, appears at the beginning rather than the end of the poem, conveying the

setting of a somber mood. The wind blows on like a constant companion to him;

there is a happy continuity in the mood. The imagery of movement, kinesthetic

when Taneda walks; along with him the breeze, wind all move, indeed so

refreshing, and a feeling of relaxation in all that walking.

There are major themes that thread throughout Taneda's work. The first

and the foremost is his motion, his walking and traveling. Taneda sought salvation

on the road. He also knew that he had no real destination. There was always one

more trip. By moving he was able to avoid his own realization.

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Going deeper

And still deeper -

The green mountains.

(27)

Fig. 11. Picture from 2.biglobe.ne.jp

Taneda makes it clear in this haiku that he is venturing deeper and deeper

into the green mountains of the Japanese countryside, at least on the literal level

of the poem. But the deeper meaning suggests that someone is pushing or forcing

his way through a dense and resisting mass: the green mountains, the poem

implies, are perhaps not as pleasant or as passable as they seemed from a distance,

and there is a hint that the traveller may in fact never come out on the other side.

He would be just going deeper and deeper into an unknown realm.

This is a poem about spiritual practice. "Going deeper and still deeper"

means to look into ourselves as deeply as we can to try to get to the bottom of

who we are and what human life is. When we look deeply, we come to "The

green mountains," which are huge and unfathomable. This is a metaphor for the

ground of human life. We can always go deeper and deeper. The spiritual

pilgrimage is constant and endless, for we can never reach the bottom.

Understanding can always be deepened.

Taneda’s wandering pilgrimage, his walking Zen never ended, it just kept

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on going deeper and deeper with time, and so did his spiritual journey to seek

himself, to understand who he was.

There is nothing else I can do;

I walk on and on. (37)

Spring-

Walking with my begging bowl

Until the end. (37)

I walk in the wind’s

Brightness and darkness. (42)

Walking in the wind

To receive some rice.

It is often seen in Buddhist-oriented literature, that the journey through the

physical landscape is at the same time a mental and spiritual probing into the

inner self. As the Zen Master Jakushitsu Genko said to one of his students, “You

are the green mountain, the green mountain is you.” Taneda with his best haiku

goes deeper and deeper into the human heart without being able to fathom its

depth.

Mountains I'll never see again

fade in the distance. (122)

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No path but this one –

I walk alone. (32)

Flowing with the water

I walk down to the village. (42)

Nice road

Leading to a nice building

It's a crematorium (46)

Well, which way should I go?

The wind blows. (16)

In his travels, Taneda attempted to accept everything that came his way

without clinging to ideas about himself and others, true or false, good or bad, life

or death. This was truly not so easy to follow. As he rightly said, “Adherence to

all things material and spiritual prevents me from being as free as the wind or

flowing water.” About writing haikus Taneda says in his diary:

February 2. 1933. If there is anything good in my life – or I should

say, anything good in my poems – it comes from the fact that they

are not imitative, they are not contrived, they tell few lies, they’re

never forced. (66)

Baggage I cannot throw off,

So heavy front and back. (21)

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The acceptance of an essential loneliness in the human condition is a

characteristic of the Buddhist meditator. It is a loneliness that we recognize in

others, too:

The long night –

made longer

by a dog’s barking (82)

To Basho the road was not just a literary or religious metaphor. He was a

traveller, walking the open road on journeys the length and breadth of Japan. In

the twentieth century another Zen Buddhist haiku poet followed in his footsteps.

Taneda lived as a wandering mendicant monk, a 'gentleman of the road.' For him

the lonely path was a daily reality:

There is nothing else I can do;

I walk on and on. (37)

Wet with morning dew,

I go in the direction I want. (34)

In the above haiku, when Taneda says that he is wet with the morning

dew, the sensation of touch, is so delicate that it enlivens him and he is off on his

walking pilgrimage going in whichever direction he wants.

Thinking of nothing,

I walk among

A forest of withered trees. (117)

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Walking on and on

Among the endless

Blooming higan flowers (105)

The Higan flowers, which are clusters of amaryllis bloom during the

autumn equinox, when Buddhist services are held for the dead.

The road is a palpably real experience to Taneda and Basho, as well as a

metaphor for one's chosen life-path. Fish do lie facing the current; gulls do soar

on the wind adjusting the angle of their beaks; and snow does take the features

from the landscape. Haiku imagery is always first and foremost a real observation.

It never merely illustrates an idea. It is not a simile. The poems that have the most

resonance and power, however, are those that are observations which have a

symbolic after-taste. The symbolic dimension is an echo of the primary meaning,

uniting the particular detail which is being noticed, often natural, with a human

significance.

An important fact about walking, meditation and Zen is revealed in one of

the diary excerpts of Taneda. We come to realize why most of his haikus have the

Zen flavour in them. Taneda wrote in his diary:

November 9. 1930. What Fayan said, “Each step is an arrival.”

Forget about past walking, don’t think about future walking; one

step, another step, no long ago, no now, no east or west, one step

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equals totality. Get this far and you understand the meaning of

walking Zen. (39)

So simply put in words, that Zen is being in the moment, the present, the

now, nothing related to the past, the future, just one step, one thought at that

particular moment. It is truly enlightening to read what Taneda had in his mind,

his diary and his haikus are a gateway to understand him.

Walking in the freezing wind,

Bitterly reproaching myself. (104)

I walk in the wind’s

Brightness and darkness.

No path but this one –

I walk alone.

That feeling of breeziness seems speeded up somewhat with Santoka's

verses. Because he describes his walking in the Japanese countryside, his haikus

are constantly on the move too. The sense of touch – the cold, chilly wind, biting

into him; the wetness seeping into his body, truly such a lonely figure, silhouetted

against a vast landscape and Taneda is just a small part of it. Philosophically man

is a small being, against the vastness of nature, the immortal soul’s journey

through the living world, the vast nature and in oneness with it.

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In For All My Walking, Taneda Santoka translated by Watson Burton,

which included Excerpts from His dairy, Watson says, “In Santoka’s writings,

“walking” designates not only the mere fact of journeying on foot, but a kind of

religious practice aimed at achieving a higher degree of understanding and

acceptance. For all his endless walking, the poem suggests, that the goal continues

to elude the poet.”

Aware of his abundant shortcomings, Taneda stated that there were only

two things he could do well: walk and write poems. Walking becomes a spiritual,

sensuous and intellectual exercise for Taneda.

Some excerpts from Taneda’s diary:

September 9, 1930. Off on another trip… Once more I come to realize that in fact

I’m nothing but a beggar –monk, and so I start out on another journey….I’ll walk

as far as I can walk, go as far as I can go. (31)

Taneda is clear in his thought while starting his walking journey, for here

he is comfortable with the straw sandals, which were the usual footwear of monks

on begging trips. Taneda often wore the split-toed cloth footgear usually worn by

workmen, because they were cheaper and lasted longer. But here he feels the

straw sandals just right and comfortable to start his walking meditation on a clear,

bright morning.

clear bright morning

straw sandals

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feel just right.

In Taneda’s haiku there are certain recurring symbols. Water dominates

his verse. It is a symbol of life and poetry as it is simple, plain, uncomplicated,

and forever flowing.

Aimless, buoyantly,

Drifting here and there,

Tasting the pure water.

The giant camphor tree, I,

And the dog

Are soaked through.

When Taneda wrote about water in his haiku, it meant him being drenched

with it, flowing with it, bathing in it, listening to it, drinking it.

From the back,

Walking away soaking wet? (39)

One of the few real pleasures of Taneda’s begging, walking trips were the

hot baths. He has referred to them frequently in his verses and made a note about it in his

diary entries too. Japan has lots of hot springs and Taneda took his hot baths in inns,

public baths, or hot springs. This refreshing experience not only eased the pain and

fatigue of his day-after-day of tramping, but helped greatly to raise his spirits.

(My favourite hot spring –)

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Bathing alone,

Sleeping alone.

I sleep soundly;

I stretch out my body

In the hot water.

After washing

I dry myself

On a nearby rock. (50)

Taneda made a very rejuvenating entry in his diary about hot spring, and

the stimulating experience of a bath, for a tired body and soul.

November 8, 1930. Rain. Yunohara, Komeya, 35 sen, middling….

Though this is far out in the country, the hot-springs bath is still

very good. The bathhouse is rather dirty, but the place is pleasantly

relaxed in atmosphere and unpretentious. As soon as I arrived I

took a bath, and took another when I got back from the

barbershop. I’ll get in the water once more before I go to bed and

again tomorrow when I get up. The hot-spring water is rather

sweet-and-sour tasting, not anything you could drink. But I feel it

must be good for my body. Anyways, whenever I get in the bath, I

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can’t help thinking how lucky I was to have been born in Japan.

No joy in life as healthful and cheap as a bath !

I stopped at a sake brewery and found the sake very good and

cheap – before I knew it, I’d had one, two, three drinks. Very tasty,

though it doesn’t seem to have set very well on my stomach.

Tomorrow I’ll have to drink lots of water.

Tonight all night I could hear the sound of water. To me it’s a kind

of lullaby. A bath, sake, water – these are the things that bring me

a good night’s sleep. (39)

One can only imagine, visualize and spiritually feel the enlightening

experience that Taneda used to get from the real, simple pleasure of a hot-spring

bath. While writing in his diary, Taneda used certain notations to jot down the

name of the inn where he stayed, the price of a night’s lodging, and his ratings of

its quality.

The water in those days was pure, good tasting and abundant. Taneda’s

greatest joy was drinking cold water at the end of a day’s journey and warm sake

at night. For a time he thought that he preferred water to sake. An excerpt from

Taneda’s diary tells about his preference for water over sake :

March 27, 1932. Cloudy. Laid up all day. Finally had to take to my

bed. The fact is, the shochu I drank night before last was no good.

And then the bean curd I ate yesterday seems to have disagreed

with me. Bothered by stomach pains all night, today nothing to eat,

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just drinking water and staying in bed. By evening I started getting

better little by little.

Because I was in such good health, I forgot all about health. Illness

brings reflection and abstinence. Getting sick on a journey alone

should be looked on as a kind of punishment.

Get sick and invariably you think about dying. I know it would be

a mess if I died like this, in a place like this. I’d only be a trouble

to myself and others.

Death! Something cold silently enveloping your whole body, a

lonely, frightening, indescribable coldness.

So today even I manage to keep from drinking anything (that is,

drank no alcohol, only water). Didn’t feel like drinking anything,

knew I couldn’t.

Just wish I could settle down soon in Ureshino Hot spring. Then

live out the rest of my life with the fewer possible wants in the

most modest circumstances possible. (51-52)

When Taneda did not get sake, he used to drink shochu, a cheap liquor

made from sweet potatoes.

It can be said that movement is of vital necessity and the partial release it

brings to the anguish of the soul. Taneda’s haikus are a unique “journey into the

depths of the human heart.” He writes,

In the ceaseless sound

Of the water

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There is Buddha.

Thirsty for a drink of water –

The sound of a waterfall.

Today’s lunch:

Only water.

A stomach full of water;

I sleep soundly. (114)

A wandering beggar monk enjoys peaceful sleep even on a day he gets

nothing. Water satisfies. Water is life and it is used as a vibrant backdrop to

express a poignant moment, that is in itself a deep revelation : life’s joys and

sorrows.

The rain-filled bucket

Brimming with beautiful water.

Such delicious water

Overflows from the spring (105)

Taneda wrote about pure cold water in an interesting manner. We find his

thoughts to be so polemical, as on one end we have him being a servant to sake,

alcohol representing so many negative things in many cultures and of course it is

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against Buddhist precepts to ingest any intoxicants, while on the other end we

have the pureness of water and the countless other things it represents. Clear

water can act as a mirror also, to see one's reflection; this water also acts as a lens

to see all things. Water is the giver of life, we drink it, plants need it; water can

connect us to the heavens. Taneda writes :

Glad to be alive,

I scoop up the water.

The leaves fall;

From now no,

Water will taste even better.

Receiving the deep autumn waters

I return

There is still something to eat:

The cool water.

The deep clear blue water

Shines brightly –

My sad shadow. (101)

These images work because they are evocative. We share and co-relate

them with our own experiences. Have not all of us noticed, at some time in our

lives, our images in the water? Receiving water and the simple joy and gratitude

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he feels is also something shared by all. Nothing satisfies a thirsty man as water.

Japan is a wet, humid country surrounded by the sea and full of hot

springs. Rain is the constant companion of Japanese travellers. Many of Taneda’s

verses describe the various possibilities of being soaked. He spent most of his life

in the southern part of Japan where snowfall is rare, but the winter rain has a more

chilling effect.

Taneda wrote a number of insightful verses on rain, as it was his constant

companion in his walking Zen pilgrimage. A bento is a small lunch box usually

containing rice and one pickled plum. This was during Taneda’s time, but these

days the ready to eat lunch boxes are more elaborate.

Eating my bento –

It, too, is rain-soaked.

In the early morning rain,

I sow the daikon seeds.

The thistles –

Bright and fresh,

Just after the morning rain.

Just as it is –

It rains, I get wet, I walk.

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Completely drenched –

This stone

Marks the way.

The rain-soaked persimmon leaves

Becomes even more beautiful. (100)

For Taneda, the rain is a part of his life, his thoughts, and his Zen haikus.

Along with him, he includes everything in nature, the bird, the flowers, the trees,

the signposts, the mountains to participate him with the agony, the joy, the pain,

the pleasure and the complete spiritual experience that he gets.

Birds in the rain –

They have nothing to eat.

Soaking wet –

I can’t read the letters

On the signpost.

The mountain stillness

Makes the rain still.

Even the sound of the raindrops

Has grown older. (96)

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The rain for Taneda has not become older, as he is old and can feel this in

the rain too. How philosophically he has put this thought of his and made us

realize that with old age, everything around us seems to grow older to us.

Taneda made an enlightened entry in his diary on his thoughts about rain :

November 4, 1939. [on a walking trip in Shikoku] The rain began coming

down in earnest and the wind was blowing hard… It blew my hat off, and

my glasses went flying too—what a mess! But a grade-school student

passing by retrieved them for me—many, many thanks! Rain kept getting

worse, wind blowing stronger all the time—nothing to do but stop for the

night at Okutomo—but none of the inns would have me. Let it be! is all I

say and, looking like a drowned rat, I walk on, Finally can't go on any

longer and take shelter in the lee of a roadside warehouse. I wring out my

clothes, eat lunch, stay there for two hours. Deluge!—no other word for

it—violent wind lashing it around, sheets of rain streaming sideways like a

loose blind. I felt as though I had been bashed flat by heaven—a rather

splendid feeling in fact. With evening I was able to make it as far as

Shishikui, but again nobody would take me in. Finally I got to Kannoura,

where I found an inn that would give me lodging, much to my relief. (98)

Rain falls;

I walk in my home town,

Barefoot.

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The rain from that cloud

Made me wet.

Winter rain –

People have been so kind

My eyes fill with tears.

Winter rain –

Everyone is drenched ! (92)

When Taneda writes about the winter rain, to which he is a little partial,

one can feel the chill, the cold feeling on reading his haikus. We become a part of

his winter rain, getting drenched, soaked, and chilled to the bone.

The vagrant priest and haiku poet Taneda in a diary entry dated April 6,

1932, wrote : A beggar has to learn to be an all-out beggar. Unless he can be that,

he will never taste the happiness of being a beggar.

In his diary Taneda affirms at one point:

Begging should be like the flowing clouds and like the flowing

water. If I stay at a place for even a moment I become tangled up.

My mind, be like water! My mind, be like sky! I like sake and I

like water too. I liked sake better than water till yesterday. Today I

like water as much as sake. Tomorrow I might come to like water

better than sake. Pure like water, I hope will be the state of my

mind. (47)

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Flowing with the water

I walked down to the village

The warm water

I brought back

Drops and spills.

From the shadow

Of the rocks

Water wells up.

I’ve made it this far;

I drink the pure water and go. (77)

He compared his good haiku to water, and hoped that their purity would

come up to that of water. Not only because of its simple function as the most

refreshing life sustaining drink, water was a very special thing to Taneda. Water

thus became the subject matter of many of his haiku. In one of his diary entries

Taneda writes :

July 16. 1933. Up to now my haiku have been like wine – not bad

wine, but not good wine either. From now on my haiku will be

more like water – clear, bright, not flowing over but rippling right

along – or, I hope that’s what they’ll be like. (71)

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Taneda’s other major and favourite theme was weeds and wild grasses. He

often compared human beings in general and himself to weeds. He said :

“Sprouting, growing, blooming, seeding and withering, just as weeds, nothing

more – that is good.” This is how he compared his life and in general human life

with weeds. Taneda loved weeds, and wrote in his diary for the 19th of August,

1940: Those who do not know the meaning of weeds do not know the mind of

Nature. Weeds grasp their own essence and express its truth.

Weeds were everywhere, uncultivated, living with all their might, until

they wither away, die and are reborn again the following spring. For Taneda,

weeds represented human existence. Man lives, withers and dies to be born again.

Weeds shed seeds, are trampled, yet fight for life and grow again and again.

Weeds represent the fighting spirit of human nature, to survive and stand back

with the same spirit.

When I die:

Weeds, falling rain.

As they are,

The weeds

Sprout new buds.

In happiness

Or sadness

Weeds grow and grow.

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The nameless weed

Blooms all at once – purple. (63)

When Taneda writes about weeds, he says that they are so accommodating

and fight for life. He says that weeds are a part of the beauty of nature just like the

flowers, birds, water and trees. Though the weeds are insignificant, they have

their own charm, beauty and they teach us the facts of life. He writes in a similar

tone in his diary :

April 8. 1932…… This inn is spotlessly clean (and for that reason

seems to attract few guests), an utter contrast to the place I stayed

last night…

I realize now why this inn is so unpopular. All the drifters and

wheeler- dealers who stay at these cheap inns are tired of

struggling to make a living and starved for some place with a

homely atmosphere. For them, an inn is a home. So the most

important requirement for an inn is that it be relaxed and friendly;

in other words, a place where they can feel “at home.” Cleanliness

is very much a consideration of second or third importance. But the

woman who runs this inn is overly zealous, fastidious to a fault in

matters of cleanliness, and not at all accommodating. (55)

As rightly said by Scott Watson in his book The Santoka Versions, weeds

are so prevalent in Taneda’s poems, that the readers would wonder that Taneda

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thought of his own thoughts as weeds. Weeds in the English language for many

would mean the negative connotations from something obnoxious and unwanted.

It has the same meaning in the Japanese language too, especially for those trying

to cultivate a garden. But away from this weeds in Japan carries the meaning of a

sense of strength : weeds are everywhere, almost. (8)

Weeds that may die

Any time –

Blooming and seeding.

After all

Its good to be alone

The wild grasses.

It’s fall –

I sit in the wild grasses.

Settling down to die –

Sprouting grasses.

When I die:

Weeds, falling rain. (62)

Taneda’s diary excerpt about his walking makes one introspect as to what

do we want, what do we feel, where do we want to go :

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January 1. 1932. What I forever aspire to is a mind calm and free

from pressure, a realm of roundness, wholeness that transcends self

and others. Faith is its source, haiku poems are its expressions. So I

have to walk, walk, walk until I get there. (43)

For Taneda the mountains are the world of Buddha – vast, remote,

sublime. This is another major theme in Taneda’s haikus. Stevens very aptly says

in his translated work of the book Mountain Tasting: Zen Haiku by Santoka

Taneda, “Water and weeds are close to us, touchable, comprehensible; mountains

appear mysterious, difficult to grasp . Although mountains seem to be

impenetrably high and wide, Taneda threw himself into their depth.”

Taneda in one of his haiku on mountain says it in such a simple and subtle

way :

Westerners like to conquer mountains;

Orientals like to contemplate them;

As for me, I like to taste the mountains.

On his walking trips Taneda encountered many mountains; he was in awe

of them, the mountains for him stood still, while all the other things in nature

moved, the rain, the snow, the leaves on the tress, the water running down the

mountains. He felt that he needed to make his thoughts as firm and as strong as

the mountains. A kasa is a large woven straw hat worn by travelling monks to

shield them from the sun and rain. Taneda has few possessions and a kasa was

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one of them. Notice the juxtaposition of movement and stillness. It is the

contemplation of an instant, quietness, peace…..

I slipped and fell –

The mountains are still.

If the mountains are peaceful,

I remove my kasa.

The mountain becomes dark,

I listen to its voice.

No more houses to beg from;

The clouds cover the mountains.

At the foot of a mountain,

Several graves stand together

In the warm sunlight.

Waking from a nap,

Either way I look: mountains.(46)

Taneda writes about nature so beautifully, an excerpt from his diary

reveals his thought :

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February 15. 1934. The fusing of the subjective and the objective

into a single entity, or the fusion of the self and nature – I think we

can distinguish two forms that this process may take, namely, that

in which the individual simply undergoes fusion, melts into it, as it

were; and that in which he actively seeks to achieve fusion. Or, to

put it another way, there are two types of persons, those who throw

themselves into the bosom of nature, and those who absorb nature

into themselves. In either case, however, there is no difference in

the realm achieved, a realm in which nature is one with the self;

the self, one with nature.

If human beings are permitted no imaginings, no fancy, then there

can be no art. The truths of art derive from the facts of daily life,

but those truths are not necessarily facts themselves. The truths of

the artist are what, in the artist’s mind, he wishes would be, what

ought to be, what cannot help but be, and these constitute the

content of his creation. (76)

Peace for the heart:

Life in the mountains.

Throwing myself

Into the drenched mountains.

The mountain stillness

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Makes the rain still.

Passing over the mountains,

Again mountains, winter mountains.

The distant snow-covered mountains –

Completely cut off from the world of men.

Truly a mountainous country!

Only mountains, more mountains,

And the bright moon.

In the mountain all day,

The ants too are marching. (106)

Taneda blends together man, animal, nature, and God in the above haiku.

He writes of an everyday experience, the marching of ants and the beggar monk’s

walk, his walking Zen. Movement is very important in haiku, and also in the life

of the beggar monk. The reader feels relaxed reading such lines because he

forgets about himself and is drawn outwards to the sight presented to him.

The quaint image of the marching ants is alluring and charming. They are

in infinite numbers, Taneda is alone. The mountains are as continuous as the

endless lines of ants.

To the mountains,

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To the sky:

The Heart Sutra.

The Heart Sutra is the smallest of all Buddhist scriptures. This is chanted

from memory by Zen monks. Its central theme is “form is emptiness, emptiness is

form.” Emptiness also means the sky. Taneda constantly chanted this sutra. The

dominating solidity of the mountains and the airy emptiness, limitlessness of the

sky, the heavens are tied together, in an ‘is’ness or beingness that is the same,

beyond all differences, linked to the eternal spirit, or the soul that resides in the

heart. Matter and spirit are one.

Sometimes I stop begging

And gaze at the mountains.

Far, far away

A bird crosses over

The snow covered mountains. (112)

Where has the bird gone? There are so many lines written by Taneda

which express an innocent, child-like joy in simple sights. Is it a spirit? Crossing

over is it into the next realm? When will Taneda reach it? When will we, all

human beings reach it? Nirvana, Salvation, Moksha? Does the magic convey that?

Taneda had nostalgic feelings for his village and his home. He wrote many

haikus about his native village. He had an enlightening experience during one of

his trips of walking Zen. In the early summer of 1933 Santoka dropped in at his

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hometown, but the house where he was born was gone. No relatives were living

there except a married younger sister. Nobody recognized him as the son of the

once wealthy Taneda family since he looked like a beggar-monk wearing a

battered kasa and holding a begging bowl. The Children in the neighbourhood

followed him and chased him away shouting, "Beggar, Beggar". His sister was

not glad to see him, and he was an unwelcome guest that night. Very early the

next morning she asked him to leave before the neighbors saw him. She took him

to the gate and silently put fifty sen in his little bag. Stepping outside, it was

raining so he took off his straw sandals and, walking barefoot with tears in his

eyes, he left town.

Walking barefoot makes him feel and touch the land, the closeness of heat

becomes a physical hugging, making him one of this earth, this village, his

village.

Rain falls;

I walk in my hometown,

Barefoot.

I’ve come to a village

Where they use

The dialect of my home town.

Sleeping on a soft futon,

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I dream of my native village.

Water of my native village!

I drink it,

I wash it.

Incessant sound of waves –

My native place

Is more and more remote. (81)

The money used in Japan at the time of Taneda, which he used to get as

begging alms was sen, a fractional monetary unit equal to one hundredth of a yen.

This coin is no longer in use. A futon is a sleeping quilt stored in a closet during

the day and taken out at night.

Watson says about a similar incident in the life of Gautama Buddha,

similar to the incident that happened with Taneda in his native village:

Also in this is an interesting sort of parallel biography to Gautama

Buddha’s return to his hometown. Buddha had come back to

Kapilvastu and with his begging bowl went from house to house

throughout the town. His wife saw this and informed the Buddha’s

father Suddhodana, who was a king or chieftain for that area.

Hearing this, the father ran out into the street, pleading after his

son : “Why are you disgracing our family in this way?! We are

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Kshatriya of ancient lineage, and Kshatriya do not beg in

the street !” (11-12)

Nostalgic Taneda, and in a different age, Buddha, are rebuffed by their

loved ones. Egoless, both move on and what remains is from where they had

come.

“Fireflies” – flying and showing off their lights. And we know that the

true lights of their homes are gone out and become the light of the world.

Nothing remains

Of the house I was born in –

Fireflies.

Taneda noted that, “When you travel, you truly come to understand human

beings, poetry, and nature.” He was extreme in completely giving himself to

impermanence and solitude. Taneda was a beggar-monk who always travelled

alone, flowing with the clouds and water.

Slapping at the flies

Slapping at the mosquitoes

Slapping at myself. (54)

The above haiku reveals an underlying message that immediately crosses

our minds is one does unto himself what he does unto others. One cannot help but

smile when he reads this haiku and imagine the funny situation Taneda must have

undergone. His haiku makes us feel that as if this is happening with him and with

us right now at this moment.

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As soon as he had received enough rice and money for one day’s food and

lodging, he would stop begging immediately and go to the cheapest inn he could

find. He never provided for the next day. Taneda asked : How can you be a

beggar if you have extra money?

My begging bowl

Accepts the falling leaves.

Taneda would gratefully accept whatever was placed in his bowl,

regardless of the quantity or quality. He said : Begging with a heart full of

gratitude and respect, I hope to find the world of unlimited life and light. My

pilgrimage is into the depths of the human heart. Begging is mutual gratitude and

charity, the basis of society.

Begging : I accept

The blazing sun.

Stevens tells about a very interesting incident that happened with Taneda

on one of his begging rounds : Once an old woman mistakenly put a five-sen coin,

a fairly large amount in those days, in Taneda’s bowl. Later, after leaving the

village, Taneda discovered the error; he walked back to the village, found the old

woman, and returned the coin.

Hailstones, too,

Enter my begging bowl.

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Taneda simple possessions included the begging bowl. They were often

made of iron rather than wood so they were more durable. Taneda had a large

begging bowl, which could hold around 1.8 liters of water or sake when it was not

being used to carry rice or receive money. Generally people in the towns gave

small coins, while those in the country gave rice.

The following excerpts from Taneda’s diary on what he thought of

begging :

December 19, 1930. Haven’t got a cent!.... So, much as it irks me, I grit

my teeth and go on begging until I’ve got enough for a night’s lodging and

a meal. When I get to an inn and get a bath, I feel a lot better. But I hate

begging. I hate wandering. Most of all, I hate doing having to do things I

hate! (40)

March 28, 1933. Even if it means nothing to eat, I don’t want to do any more of

that hateful begging! People who have never done any begging seem to have

difficulty understanding how I feel about this. (67)

Taneda wrote :

Days I don’t enjoy:

Any day I don’t walk.

Any day I don’t drink sake.

Any day I don’t compose haiku.

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Sake, Zen and haiku were the three main elements of Taneda’s life; they

were always present together, often inter-changeable and sometimes

indistinguishable. Sake was Taneda’s koan. He said: to comprehend the true taste

of sake will give me satori. He attempted to completely annihilate himself

through drinking, a practice not unknown among certain types of Zen monks. He

struggled with this problem for many years and never solved his greatest koan. On

several occasions he was even arrested for public drunkenness and vagrancy. He

owed money to all of his friends. In spite of this and all his other weaknesses,

there is a profundity and clarity in his poems that speak of a certain measure of

enlightenment. He had little self-pride, that last and greatest obstacle to satori.

Taneda admitted that he could do only three things : walk, drink sake, and

make haiku. Sake and haiku were almost identical:

Sake for the body, haiku for the heart;

Sake is the haiku of the body,

Haiku is the sake of the heart.

Sake is the Japanese rice wine, an alcoholic beverage. Koan is a

paradoxical anecdote or a riddle that has no solution; used in Zen Buddhism to

show the inadequacy of logical reasoning. Satori in Zen Buddhism is a state of

sudden spiritual enlightenment. The word literally means “understanding”.

Slightly tipsy;

The leaves fall

One by one.

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Taneda loved his sake, his liquor. The image of the tipsy leaves and the

drunken poet, drunk on the simple joy of life, waiting to fall, are juxtaposed to

create a wealth of meaning.

Some excerpts from Taneda’s diary impressively revealing his attachment

to sake:

December 28, 1931. Ah – sake, sake, sake – up to now I’ve lived

for sake, and this is what it’s gotten me! Sake – devil or Buddha,

poison or curative? (42)

I can’t give up sake;

The budding trees,

The budding grasses.

August 28, 1940 [written a little over six weeks before his death]

Sake is my koan. If I could understand sake--if I could learn the

true way to enjoy sake, it would be my awakening, my

breakthrough! (101)

Much of Zen thought and education is based on koans, which are mental

puzzles that require a paradoxical approach to solve. An example of a koan is:

what is the sound of one hand clapping?

Taneda’s use of alcohol and water could almost be a koan. When he was

broke and did not have any money, water was the only thing he could obtain to

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quench his thirst. We can just imagine the pain he felt sobering up involuntarily,

left to drink water and seeing himself in a basin's or a lake's reflection.

November 26, 1934. Loving sake, savoring sake, enjoying sake is

not so bad. But drowning in sake, rioting in sake—that won’t do!

Running around drinking in this messy way—utterly stupid! (82)

It was in this pain that he could see his true self. On the other hand when

he had money, or someone treated him to sake, he needed to drink a certain

amount to be sober again, to function as most alcoholics do. This of course was

painful because he would then castigate himself for breaking his religious vows

and having his friends bail him out financially.

May 21, 1932. Awano [Yamaguchi Prefecture]

This area and the inn aren’t bad. Yesterday I had three drinks of

sake, so today I intended to have nothing at all to drink. But it

seems I can’t get along without one drink at least. (58)

June 16, 1932. Same inn in Kawatana, [northern Kyushu]

For the first time in five days, I had a drink of sake. It didn't taste

very good, which makes me feel happy, and also rather depressed.

Anyway, there's no doubt that clearing up the problem of sake is

the first step in clearing up the problem of myself…….

July 20, 1932. People view all things, all events in terms of what

they value in life, with that as their standard. I look at everything

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through the eyes of sake. Gazing far off at a mountain, I think how

I'd like a little drink; I see some nice vegetables and think how

well they'd go with the sake. If I had such-and-such sum, I could

polish off a flask; if I had this much, I could buy a bottle. You may

laugh, but that's just the way I am – nothing I can do about it. (60)

Many of his friends said that Taneda used the excuse of walking

meditation to visit friends in his haiku circle. He then would stay for days on end

and drink with the host out of house and at home, or stick him with a bar bill.

An interesting thing to be noted is that, Taneda went to great lengths to

justify his drinking and even wrote a number of doctrines about drinking. Here are

some haiku by Taneda :

No sake

I stare at the moon

Drunk

I slept with crickets

Sometimes

The sound of swallowing sake

Seems very lonely (81)

Taneda’s haiku are generally bare, they were meant to tell the stark naked

truth even if it were painful. For example:

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Just as it is -

It rains, I get wet, I walk.

My stark naked body

Revealed to the sun

Nothing in Taneda's haiku provides shelter to hide behind. Here we see the

monk wearing a simple robe in the cold:

Daily torn and tattered

Turning to shreds

My robe for traveling

It can't be helped

My old robe

Is rotting away (42)

At a philosophical level, the old robe rotting away means coming close to

the end of life, this life. This is the end of the matter of which we are made, and

we know the spirit moves on. Realizing this truth and accepting it, leads to peace

and enlightenment. Reading such haikus strengthen and liberates man. A sense of

the truth, of freedom, of joy envelopes the reader. The experience is

transcendental.

Taneda even goes further than that, he offers the reader a look at his

exposed inner self:

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No money, no things

No teeth -

All alone.

This haiku reminds us of Shakespeare’s character Jaques from his play

“As you Like it” where in a monologue Jaques give the speech of the “Seven

Ages of Man” and he says, “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

This naked approach to haiku can be found throughout Zen thought.

Seeing clearly is seeing the truth. This seeing though in Buddhism is not an easy

thing to do; it is the same with eating. To really do both properly, to really see or

really eat, one must chew. What keeps Taneda’s haiku afloat is its lightness, the

bareness and the sincerity that comes along with this clear vision and truth that

raises his haiku to a different level.

Taneda wrote many haikus on moon and with moon as a part of the haiku.

In Zen, the moon is symbolic of enlightenment, and Taneda was so enraptured by

the moon, that it enlightened him when he wrote about the moon. The wonderful,

simple imagery he has used in his moon haikus are praise worthy :

Alone I watch the moon

Sink behind the mountains.

No inn to spend the night –

The moon leads the way.

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The deep, cool moon

Appears between the buildings.

Returning to my hut,

One man’s moon

Along the straight road. (69)

The moon leading the way towards enlightenment reminds the readers of

the wise men, being led towards Jerusalem, towards baby Christ by the bright star.

The solace and tranquility of the night, the sparkling moon and the close ties of

man and the heavens, such haiku are a wonderful experience. We have all

experiences this magical rapport with the moon. Symbolically these images are

very rich and deep in meaning and relevance. They reverberate and echo through

ages and ages of mankind.

Taneda made a very reflective entry in his diary on moon :

January 26, 1937. For breakfast, noodles; for lunch, nothing; for

supper, daikon radish – because that’s all there is ….. Today again,

waiting for a letter from [my son] K… In the evening, the fact that

there’s no kerosene for the lamp let to the composing of a number

of haiku – didn’t get to sleep until close to dawn. A beautiful moon

– couldn’t help being profoundly moved. (90)

All the food completely eaten;

The weeds in full bloom.

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The moonlight

Pierces

My empty stomach.

The hunger imagery here transcends from the physical to a spiritual

rendering. Matter and spirit, man’s spirit caught tightly in his physical body and

needs. Yet the soul craves and finds the moon !

At last ! The moon and I

Arrive in Tokyo.

The moon rises –

I’m not waiting for anything. (67)

Deep philosophical undercurrents raise the simple haiku of Taneda to

great heights. The existential angst and conflicts of choice have been transcended

to achieve a peaceful, unquestioning acceptance, along with a oneness with nature

and all it stand for.

There is joy everywhere.

The drifting clouds;

And the temple’s splendor,

Reflect off the water.

Notice the movement of the clouds and that of the reflection off the water;

the unity of the heavens, the temple, the sky, the water and the awesome grandeur

of the scene.Nature, eternity, life after life, the mystery of God… His presence all

pervading, omnipresent:

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Now I stand here,

Where the ocean’s blueness

Is without limit.

Today still alive;

I stretch out my feet. (78)

Taneda made a very intriguing entry in his diary about his life, it goes like

this :

June 23, 1932. Kawatana. I didn’t used to look back, but now

somehow I’ve gotten so I do. My past is nothing but a pile of

mistakes –consequently, an unending, succession of regrets. Same

mistakes, same regrets, repeated over and over again, right?

Too much to say I’ve paid what had to be paid, but I’ve paid as

much as I could. And that makes me feel a big brighter. (60)

Within life and death

Snow falls ceaselessly.

Following the theme of life, there of course is a central theme of death for

Taneda. When we read a haiku from someone who is in great health and not in

serious hardship it would be hard for the reader to accept the poet's words. Taneda

of course faced death everyday for much of his life. We remember that both his

mother and his brother committed suicide and he also tried committing suicide a

few times. It can also be argued that his drinking was a form of slow suicide, and

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with the combination of his lifestyle he was kind of hurrying up to the phase of

death. Here are some haiku by Santoka dealing with life on a daily basis

combined with death:

Some life remains

I scratch my body

Tombstones in a row –

Penetrating silence.

A thought provoking diary entry by Taneda on his thoughts about death :

August 2. 1934. Sometimes a life where I want to die, sometimes a

life where I can’t die, sometimes close to the Buddha, sometimes

one with the devils. Sorry to discover the animal in myself. Then at

last the night is over, the morning sun good …. Today again, must

get myself in shape, make preparations so I’m ready to die any

time. (80)

Who says death is cold? It is tranquil, silent, warm and cozy, at the feet of

God. The sense of community and love and brotherhood dominates Buddha’s

world.

The weeds,

On which I can die calmly,

Withering.

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Death is inevitable, whether it is the weeds or human beings, everyone has

to wither and die. Taneda says it so emphatically: As I grow older I cannot help

feeling profoundly that it is more difficult to die than to be born.

Taneda writes so beautifully about sunset, one can just visualize it on

reading his haikus, of the wonderful imagery he has employed in his sagacious

work.

The sky at sunset –

A cup of sake

Would taste so good !

The beauty of the sunset

Grieves not for old age.

Sunrise, sunset;

Nothing to eat.

Sunset – the plowman’s shadow

Grows deeper.

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Falling leaves

Deep in the forest

I see a Buddha (47)

On reading the haiku about seeing a Buddha one cannot help but be

bombarded with metaphysical metaphors and multiple layers of meaning. This

poem undoubtedly offers us many readings. Here we see the falling leaves and all

they represent, but the most interesting thing is that it is this bareness of the trees

that allows the poet to have a heightened and deeper sense of perception.

It is closer to death that the poet can see clearer and deeper. The Buddha in

the last line is intriguing. It can be a typical stone Buddha found almost anywhere

in Japan, or it can be a vision of a deity welcoming the poet to the next realm. A

Zen answer would be yes, both are correct.

Buddha is everywhere……

Raising my voice above the wind:

Hail to the Bodhisattva of Compassion!

The pine branches hang down

Heavy with the chant:

Hail to the Bodhisattva of Compassion!

Listen to the reverberating sounds of the chant; and notice the humble

bowing down of the pine. Buddha touches everything with love and kindness.

Nature itself bends down in humility. Such a haiku makes us feel gratitude

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towards God for all that he has given us. We accept his blessings with joy. We

hear the chant, Buddham Sharanam Gachhami; relate it with the sense of peace

and protective shelter it evokes; and literally mean that I take refuge in the

Buddha.

The small Buddha statue:

Rained on for the sake of human beings.

Each day we meet

Both demons and Buddha.

In the ceaseless sound

Of the water

There is Buddha. (56)

Takuhatsu is a begging expedition conducted in a group by Zen monks in

Japan customarily. The name of the temple with which they were affiliated or

where they were undergoing training was plainly written on their alms bag so that

the donors will know where their contributions were going. Whereas Taneda

carried out his begging trips strictly on his own and had no temple name on his

alms bag, which put him at a distinct disadvantage. Taneda refers to it as itinerant

begging, and he has mentioned in his diaries that he was at times stopped by the

police for questioning and regarded as little more than a common beggar. Taneda

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make a very soul-searching entry in his diary about surrendering himself to the

refuge of Buddha.

October 10, 1936. To do takuhatsu and then not devote yours to

religious practice as a disciple of the Buddha should is to solicit aid

by fraudulent means. To go on begging expeditions and then

squander the resources you receive – this too is a species of fraud.

If you claim to be a Buddhist but fail to devote all your energies to

the way of the Buddha, what is this but to engage in malpractice?

(88)

The Dharma Hall gates

Are opened;

It becomes light.

Fallen leaves

Deep in the forest

I see a Buddha. (69)

Buddha pervades his world, in every life, every birth, infinite and eternal.

Buddha is present everywhere; the monk hears and feels him in the running water,

in human beings, in the forest, in fallen leaves. He is omnipresent, and the poet is

forever receptive in his love and faith.

Picking the nameless flower,

I offer it to Buddha.

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Buddha lovingly accepts everything; the act of making an offering delights

and satisfies the monk, the name and quality of the flower is not important. what

is important is the action of making an offering, this small offering bares Taneda’

s soul, implying that he is the nameless flower and he is offering himself to the

Buddha, going in refuge to the Buddha.

The same sentiments are echoed in the next, where the vibrant red colour

of the tomato sets its own tone of happiness and brightness

Holding a tomato as an offering,

I place it before Buddha,

Before my mother and father.

God is our father and mother, Tvamev mata cha pita tvamev. Buddha was

everything for Taneda, his walking Zen, his begging, his being, his haiku, his sake

and here he says that you alone are my mother, the Supreme One, who nourishes

me with divine love and graces my life with self-respect, the perception of myself

as the soul-self, and not just as a body, mind, intellect, or ego. You alone are my

father the Supreme being who protects me by raising my consciousness and

transforming my mind into a receptacle of the divine; Who instills in me the

sterling qualities of Divine Consciousness.

Taneda had special feelings for his mother, and seeing her lifeless body

had left him devastated. In his pilgrimage of walking Zen, he prayed for peace for

his mother’s soul. He wrote many haikus for his mother, which discloses how

deeply he missed her in his life.

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Mother ! I am sharing

The white noodles

Offered for your memorial day.

Taneda here offers a dish of noodles before the memorial tablet of his

mother on the anniversary of her death, March 6.

I offer incense

To the Taneda mortuary tablet –

It is all that remains of my family.

A small memorial tablet with the family name on it is usually kept in a

special altar or one’s home or temple. Taneda carried his family’s memorial tablet

with him since the land, ancestral home, and all the family’s belongings were

dissipated by his father.

Another major topic that is abundant in Taneda's work is loneliness. Part

of his loneliness again was to isolate himself, see himself as he truly was and to

do atonement for his falls from grace. This loneliness of course is a major theme

running throughout the history of haiku literature, but maybe not to the degree as

we see in Taneda’s haikus. Some examples are:

After all

It's sad to be alone

The withered grasses

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The caw of a crow

I too am alone

I haven’t met a soul;

The road is bumpy.

If I sell my rags

And buy some sake

Will there still be loneliness? (63)

Taneda often used to feel lonely and noted in his diaries about his

loneliness and wrote haiku with such divine imageries of loneliness, that Taneda’s

loneliness seeps into the reader and would surely make them feel lonely too just

like him.

Taneda was fighting his loneliness, he used to get overwhelmed by the

majestic grandeur of the world and it made the world look even larger for he

viewed the world alone, with his loneliness as his companion. The joy is wrought

with sorrow at times.

February 7, 1934. Mind downcast, as though dumped in a muddy

pond. I try to calm it but can’t settle down. Get settled down but

still I’m fretting. Physiologically a sign of alcohol addiction,

psychologically a symptom of alienation and loneliness – I

understand this, understand it all too well, What to do about it?

(76)

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A lonely night;

Eating the leftover food,

And …..

Taneda knew loneliness intimately, for he was a solitary wanderer.

Sometimes it was fine for him to walk alone and feel lonely,

No path but this one –

I walk alone

Other times it was not fine and he could feel the straight road, to be too

long and too lonely.

This straight road

Full of loneliness

Taneda was a wandering monk, begging alone, and this was sometimes

wonderful for him, his being alone; and sometimes it was relief for him, that he

can go whichever way he wanted, alone; wherever the wind blew and took him

along with it;

Aimlessly, buoyantly,

Drifting here and there,

Tasting the pure water.

Well, which way should I go?

The wind blows. (81)

These are the ups and downs of life, which Taneda knew intimately and accepted

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wholeheartedly. On some days solitude is wonderful, but the next day, it can be

overwhelmingly sad. Taneda wrote about all aspects of the solitary life

unflinchingly.

The opposite of loneliness is being surrounded by people. One of Taneda's

true joys, like many haiku poets, was to be with good friends. Taneda depended

on these friends to some extent. Here is an example, he writes to a friend, The

Caption;

Tomorrow I'll come

cooking wild vegetables

for your visit

The interesting point to note is, what makes this haiku different is that the

vegetables are wild. Taneda probably cannot afford to buy food himself, so he

will forage around for something to serve his guest.

Over the years, he made a number of friends through his literary activities,

and he often visited them in the course of his travels and took part in meetings on

haiku writings. His friends seem to have welcomed such visits, no doubts because

they admired his poetry and found his company congenial, though at times he

rather abused their hospitality. When he was on the road, he sent them postcards

and arranged to get mail from them at towns along his route.

Seeing off my friends,

I return alone

Trudging through the mud.

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On meeting an old friend he writes,

Two old faces –

Silence.

And at the next meeting he writes,

We clasp each other’s

Chapped hands.

R. H. Blyth writes, “Santoka put every ounce of his spiritual energy into

his verses. His verses are a combination of Zen, Buddhism, and Japaneseness, the

last word implying an innate appreciation of the transitoriness of life, the just-so-

ness, the thus-ness of things, and their existence value.”

Whatever be his motive, Taneda was brutally honest about the whole

endeavor, “Talentless and incompetent as I am, there are two things I can do, and

two things only: walk, with my own two feet; compose, composing my poems.”

Taneda discloses stark simplicity and profound imagery in his haikus, and

of course, beauty of a different kind too...

Spring snow falling

woman

so very beautiful

Taneda writes, “In February of 1929 I received ordination as a monk and

became resident priest at Mitori Kannon-do in the countryside of Kumamoto

Prefecture. It was truly a solitary forest life - sanrin dokuju; as for quietness it was

quiet, as for loneliness it was lonely – such a life it was.”

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As the mountains are quiet -

I take off my kasa.

In one of his diary entries Taneda wrote in 1934 :

I have returned to "the world of existence" after a long struggle and

feel as if I have "come back to my own home sitting comfortably".

I have drifted for a long time -- not only my body but my mind. I

suffered from things that should exist, and was troubled by things

that cannot help but exist, and now finally I can be peaceful with

things that exist. This is where I found myself.

Both things that should exist and things that canot help but exist,

are contained in things that exist. When one knows things that

exist, he knows all things. I am not trying to abandon things that

should exist, nor am I trying to escape from things that cannot help

but exist, this is the present attitude of me who wants to understand

the "world of existence". The essential thing for one who writes

poetry has to be writing poetry itself. I must express myself as

poetry – it is my duty as well as my hope. (ZS, vol.6. 53)

In a withered tree,

A crow,

New Year's is over.

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Fig. 12. Picture form

simplyhaiku.com

(New Year’s Day – self-portrait)

Bundled up in rags,

A face full of New Year’s greetings.

New Year's is the biggest holiday of the year in Japan when all members

of the family return home to celebrate together. This is a particularly melancholic

time for Taneda to be alone and lonely.

The self portrait is charming and brings a smile to the readers. The new

and the old so lovingly knitted together – the abundance and the exuberance of the

joyous greetings and blessings he conveys is very moving, and also humbling to

us, who are so caught with having everything new for the New Year. Can the new

ever push out the old? The old enriches and invigorates the new.

Alone,

Hoeing,

Singing a song.

Taneda in an entry in his diary writes :

December 20, 1935 travelling far from home. I am nothing but a

person like a weed, but I am content as I am. It is alright for a

weed to sprout, grow, and bloom, and finally wither as a weed.

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Sometimes I am lucid, sometimes I am muddy, but whether lucid

or muddy it is without question a shinjin datsuraku ("falling away

of body and mind") each time I write a haiku. I feel I have lived for

ten years in one year this year (at one time I had felt I had lived for

one year in ten years) , and I can't help but feel that the older I

become, the more delusions I have. When I look back I just feel

ashamed of the weakness of my mind and the poorness of my

haiku. (86)

Taneda mentioned soulfully in one of his diary entries, “December 6,

1935, I couldn't bear sitting alone in my hut so I started travelling.”

In the water,

Clouds shadows -

Restlessness there too.

Taneda used to do a lot of introspection and always ridiculed himself,

Shadows late at night -

As I eat alone,

Making a little noise.

Taneda said, “Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is

the deep breath of life.

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The following poems were written by Santoka during the Sino-Japanese

war, which started in 1937. John Stevens introduces these poems in Mountain

Tasting by saying, "No one in Japan was permitted to oppose this conflict, and all

poets were expected to support the war effort in their works." War had hurt the

sensitive Taneda. His haiku are pregnant with the confusion and grief he

experienced. Nevertheless, out of great compassion, Santoka wrote and published

these poems, along with others dealing with the war:

Winter rain clouds –

Thinking: Going to China

To be torn to pieces.

Leaving hands and feet

Behind in China,

The soldiers return to Japan.

The bones,

Silently this time,

Returned across the ocean.

Marching together

On the ground

They will never step on again. (71)

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There is universality in Santoka’s poetry that transcends the circumstances

of his life, and it is this universality that makes him a great poet. He touches us

all, no matter where and when we live.

Wounded, handicapped remnants of human beings were brought back to

Japan; or the ashes of soldiers killed on the front, in white boxes :

Brave, yes;

Sorrowful, yes –

The white boxes.

Taneda questions Life, God, Truth when he is haunted by the fear and insecurity

after the war :

The moon’s brightness –

Does it know

Where the bombing will be?

As Taneda felt that his end was drawing near, he fell into retrospection

and felt ashamed of his beahviour. He told his friends that he should stop

pretending to be a Zen priest. He gave away his bowl and robe and went about

only in a tattered kimono and towel.

I’ve become a real beggar,

One towel.

Hidden away in

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A broken down hut,

My broken- down life. (121)

The last haiku are painfully tragic, and express the tumultuous grief in his

heart. He is tired and craves death. He realizes and writes of the sorrow of man’s

existence, the pull of things held dear, and the hopes of a future life.

The breeze from the mountains

In the wind bell

Makes me want to live.

My heart is weary –

The mountains, the sea

Are too beautiful.

When will I die?

I plant the seedlings.

Settling down to die –

Withered grasses.

Settling down to die –

Sprouting grasses. (123)

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For Taneda, the weeds and grasses represented human life. Man dies but

the soul lives on and is immortal. This sentiment fills up his being and his haikus

at the end of his life.

The quietness of death :

A clear sky, leafless trees.

I cling to death :

The pepper is bright red.

When I die :

Weeds, falling rain. (124)

The day before his death, Taneda told his friends, “I want to throw myself

into nature one last time. I haven’t got long to live, and I want to be like the

sparrows or wild elephants that die alone quietly in the fields.” He was called

back gently into eternity. His haikus give immense solace and peace. Through his

haiku we can partake of his unique “journey into the depths of the human heart.”

Has my kasa too

Begun to leak?

When the only kasa he has begins to leak, the poet feels deeply the

impermanence of things. The kasa is a part of him. The body itself is only lent

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like any other thing, and wears thin and old with the passing years.

In a collection of twentieth century Zen Buddhist art, in which Taneda’s

calligraphy is displayed, Audrey Yoshiko Seo says this about him “He has

become beloved in Japan for the difficulty of his spiritual journey, the depth of his

trial and effort, and the simple but profound haiku that he left to the world.”

In the last entry in his diary, written four days before his death, Taneda

writes it so simply:

October 6, 1940. Late in the season as it is, a dragonfly has

appeared and is flying around me. Keep on flying as long as you

can – your flying days will soon be over. (102)

It is through the wide-eyed wonder of viewing the world minutely that

Taneda transcends the mind and the soul. The mind and the soul stretch out to the

magical coolness, the magnificent beauty, the pure whiteness and the sheer joy in

the vision of Buddha. Spiritual delight and a sense of transcendence follow.

Reading these Zen haiku, one is drawn out of himself and in sharing a universal

experience; one forgets his pain and celebrates the joy of life and living.

As enigmatically said by Taneda, “Do not be attached to the past or wait

for the future. Be grateful for each day. That is enough. I do not believe in a future

world, I deny the past. I believe entirely in the present. Employ your entire body

and mind in the eternal now.”