In the west we have a vague sense that poetry is good for our souls, makes us sensitive and wiser yet
We don't always really know how this should work
Poetry has a hard time finding its way into our lives in any practical sense in the east however some poets like the 17th century
Buddhist monk and poet Matsuo Basho knew precisely what effect their poetry was meant to produce
It was a medium designed to guide us to wisdom and calm as these terms are defined in Zen Buddhist philosophy
Basho was born in 1644 near Ueno in the Iga province of Japan
As a child he became a servant of the nobleman Tōdō Yoshitada who taught him to compose poems in the haiku style
Traditionally haikus contained three parts: two images and a concluding line which helps juxtapose them. old pond. a frog leaps in.
Water's sound. This is the best-known haiku in Japanese literature, and it's called Old Pond by Basho himself
It's all deceptively simple, and when one's in the right generous frame of mind, very beautiful
after Yoshitada died in
1666 Basho left home
And wandered for many years before moving to the city of edo where he became famous and widely published.
However, Basho grew melancholy and often shunned company
and so until his death in 1694, he alternated between travelling widely on foot and living in a small hut on the outskirts of the city
Basha was an exceptional poet but he didn't believe in the modern idea of art for art's sake
Instead, he hoped that his poetry would bring his readers into special mental states valued in zen buddhism
His poetry reflects two of the most important zen ideals: Wabi and Sabi
Wabi means satisfaction with simplicity in austerity while Sabi means an appreciation of the imperfect
It was nature more than anything else that was thought to foster Wabi and Sabi
and it's therefore unsurprisingly one of Basho's most frequent topics
Take this spring scene which appears to ask so little of the world and is attuned to an appreciation of the everyday
first Cherry budding by Peach blossoms
Basho's poetry is of enormous shocking simplicity at the level of theme.
There are no analyses of politics or love triangles or family dramas
The point is to remind readers that what really matters is to be able to be content with our own company
to appreciate the moment we're in and to be attuned to the very simplest things life has to offer
like the changing of the seasons, the sound of our neighbors laughing across the street
the little surprises we encounter each day
take this gem: violets - how precious on a mountain path
Basho also used natural scenes to remind his readers that flowers weather and other natural elements are like our own lives
ever-changing and fleeting. Time and the changing of weathers and scenes need to be attended to as harbingers of our own deaths
This transience of life may sometimes be heartbreaking, but it's also what makes every moment valuable
yellow Rose Petals Thunder a waterfall
Basho liked to paint as well as write and many of his work still exists usually with the related haikus Written alongside them
this painting by Basho depicts this very haiku
in literature, Basho valued Karumi - lightness
He wanted it to seem as if children had written it
He abhorred pretension and elaboration, as he told his disciples: "In my view, a good poem is one in which the form of the verse
and the joining of its two parts seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed
the ultimate goal of this lightness was to allow readers to escape the burdens of the self: one's own petty particularities
and the circumstances in order to experience unity with the world beyond
Basho believed that poetry could, at its best, allow one to feel a brief sensation of merging with the natural world
One may become, through language, the leaf, the waters, the stars, leading one to an enlightened frame of mind
Known as Muga, loss of awareness of one's self.
we can see Basho's concept of Muga, or self forgetting
a work in the way he invites us almost to inhabit his subjects
even if they are some rather unpoetic dead fish
Fish shop. How cold the lips of salted bream
In a world full of social media profiles and crafted resumes it might seem odd to want to escape our individuality
After all we carefully groom ourselves to stand out from the rest of the world
Basha reminds us that muga or self forgetting is valuable because it allows us to break free from the incessant thrum of desire and incompleteness
Which otherwise haunts all human lives
Basho knew what some of this was like. He suffered for long periods from deep melancholy after his house burnt down, after his mother died
and sometimes for no reason at all
Sometimes he didn't feel like seeing any of his friends he spent long periods of time traveling the dangerous back roads of the Japanese countryside
With little more than writing supplies, and he spent some truly unglamorous nights
Fleas and lice biting awake, all night a horse pissing close to my ear
Yet Muga freed Basho
And it can also free us from the tyranny of glum moments of individual circumstance the poems are valuable not because they're beautiful though
They are this too
But because they can serve as a catalyst for some of the most important states of the soul
His poetry constantly invites us to appreciate what we have and to see how
Infinitesimal and unimportant our personal difficulties are in the vast scheme of the universe
they remind both the writer and the reader that contentment relies on knowing how to derive pleasure from
simplicity and how to escape, even if only for a while, the tyranny of being ourselves
you