Zen Haiku

Haiku is the shortest form of poetry. The goal of this poetry is to communicate the poet’s immediate experience. Of course the audience didn’t experience what the poet did, so the trick is how it makes the audience use their memories to fill in the gaps. Each individual reader will have a unique image in response to the same poem.

Connection to Meditation

Because of Zen Buddhism’s connection with Haiku, the audience can briefly get a pointing meditation, that reminds us of our present moment experience. Each moment experienced is like a small look at enlightenment and when a person is enlightened they see the interdependence of observer and the observed. We are not separate from our environment, like perceptions make us feel.

For example most of the time we are labeling ourselves and objects in the environment. This can interrupt the vividness of the experience but there are times when the noticing is much more vivid, when we let our labels for things relax so we can notice just the bare experience.

For example you could be looking at a lake and it’s clearly YOU looking at the lake. At other times it’s more luminous when you let go of a busy mind and it’s just the Lake.

To get the most out of this experience just absorb yourself in the images that your mind naturally creates from the words…

Zen Haiku – Jonathan Clements: Paperback: https://amzn.to/2VaPJUG

Classic Haiku – by Tom Lowenstein: Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3o3aMoE

Good English translations here:

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Haiku%20Best%20Masters%20Translation%20.htm

Guided meditations: https://psychreviews.org/category/guidedmeditations/