Haiku (8 page)

T
AKAMASA
(late seventeenth to early eighteenth century). A follower of the Kyoto Danrin school of haiku, Takamasa lived in Kyoto and befriended pupils of Teitoku. He wrote haiku poems describing natural scenes in an unpretentious, free, and sometimes wild style.

T
ANEDA
S
ANTŌKA
(1882–1940). Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, he attended Waseda University but never graduated. He studied haiku under Seisensui. After the bankruptcy of his household, he divorced his wife and became a monk. He spent his life as a traveling monk composing free-style haiku.

T
EI-JO
. See
N
AKAMURA
T
EI-JO
.

T
EISHITSU
(1610–73). Running a paper business in Kyoto, Teishitsu studied haiku under Teitoku. He was also a skilled musician, playing the
biwa
(lute) and flute.

T
ESSHI
(died 1707). Tesshi traveled widely in the Kansai, Kantō, and northern areas of Japan. The book by Tesshi entitled
Hanamiguruma
is a collection of gossip about haiku poets, who appear in the book as courtesans.

T
OKOKU
(?–1690). A rice merchant in Nagoya, Tokoku became Bashō's pupil when the latter came to the area. He traveled with Bashō, and his death was deeply lamented by his master.

T
OMIYASU
F
ŪSEI
(1885–1979). Fōsei traveled in Europe and the United States, then returned to Japan to study under Kyoshi. Eventually he became one of the leading haiku poets of the twentieth century.

T
SUKAKOSHI
M
EITEI
(1894–1965). A poet born in Tokyo, Meitei worked for newspaper companies, one of which was in Taiwan. He created a Taiwan
senryū
circle before returning to Japan after World War II.

U
SUDA
A
RŌ
(1879–1951). Born in Nagano Prefecture, Arō learned haiku under Takahama Kyoshi.

W
ATSUJIN
(1758–1836). A poet in the Kyōtai tradition, Watsujin was a samurai from Sendai who wrote haiku under a variety of art names.

Y
ACHŌ
. See
O
KADA
Y
ACHŌ
.

Y
AMAGUCHI
S
EISHI
(1901–94). Born in Kyoto, he was a member of the haiku journal
Hototogisu
. He introduced new ideas to haiku through his poems.

Y
ASUI
(1658–1743). A merchant from Nagoya, Yasui wrote many haiku following the Bashō tradition. Later in his life, Yasui shifted his interest to
waka
and the tea ceremony.

Y
AYŪ
(1702–83). Yayū was a retainer of the Owari family, one of the three branch families of the Tokugawa clan. After he retired, Yayū spent his life creating haiku and paintings. He was also known for his
haibun
(poetic writing).

Y
ORIE
. See
K
UBO
Y
ORIE
.

Y
ŪJI
. See
K
INOSHITA
Y
ŪJI
.

THE ARTISTS

H
AKUIN
E
KAKU
(1685–1768). Considered the most important Zen master of the past five hundred years, Hakuin was also the leading Zen painter, creating a large number of works with power, humor, and Zen intensity.

I
KE
T
AIGA
(1723–76). One of the great literati painters of Japan, Taiga was unusual in that he displayed his art fully at a youthful age, creating delightful transformations of the scholar-artist landscape painting tradition.

K
I
B
AITEI
(1734–1810). One of the major pupils of poet-painter Buson, Baitei (also known as Kyūrō) lived in Shiga Prefecture and created both landscapes and humorous figure studies.

M
ARUYAMA
Ō
KYO
(1733–95). By creating a style that combined naturalism with influences from China and the West, Ōkyo became founder of the popular Maruyama school of painting.

M
ATSUYA
J
ICHŌSAI
(active 1781–88, died 1803?). Also known as Nichōsai, he was a sake brewer and antique dealer in Osaka who dabbled in poetry, painting, and singing. His humorous paintings have a caricature style all their own.

S
ESSON
S
HŪKEI
(1504?–1589?). One of the major ink-painters of the late medieval period in Japan, Sesson was known for his strong compositions and bold brushwork.

T
ACHIBANA
M
ORIKUNI
(1679–1748). Born in Osaka, Morikuni studied the official style of the Kanō school, but was expelled because in one of his books he published designs that were considered secrets in the Kanō tradition.

Y
AMAGUCHI
S
OKEN
(1759–1818). A pupil of the naturalistic master Ōkyo, Soken was especially gifted in his depictions of figure subjects.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

1
.
T
ACHIBANA
M
ORIKUNI
(1679–1748),
Stream
from
Ehon Shakantei
(1720)

2
.
K
I
B
AITEI
(1734–1810),
Crow
from
Kyūrō Gafu
(1795)

3
.
K
I
B
AITEI
(1734–1810),
Deer
from
Kyūrō Gafu
(1795)

4
.
K
I
B
AITEI
(1734–1810),
Leaf
from
Kyūrō Gafu
(1795)

5
.
K
I
B
AITEI
(1734–1810),
Iris
from
Kyūrō Gafu
(1795)

6
.
K
I
B
AITEI
(1734–1810),
Pine
from
Kyūrō Gafu
(1795)

7
.
H
AKUIN
E
KAKU
(1685–1768),
Gourd
from
Hakuin Oshō Shigasanshū
(1759)

8
.
H
AKUIN
E
KAKU
(1685–1768),
Shrimp
from
Hakuin Oshō Shigasanshū
(1759)

9
.
M
ARUYAMA
Ō
KYO
(1733–95),
Plum Branch
from
Ōkyo Gafu
(1850)

10
.
Y
MAGUCHI
S
OKEN
(1759–1818),
Buds
from
Soken Gafu Sōka no Bu
(1806)

11
.
Y
AMAGUCHI
S
OKEN
(1759–1818),
Cranes
from
Soken Gafu Sōka no Bu
(1806)

12
.
Y
AMAGUCHI
S
OKEN
(1759–1818),
Rice
Fields
from
Soken Gafu Sōka no Bu
(1806)

13
.
A
NONYMOUS
,
Drunkard
from
Toba-e Ōgi no Mato
(1720)

14
.
M
ATSUYA
J
ICHŌSAI
(? –1803?; active 1781–88),
Music
from
Gahon Kochōzu Gahi
(1805)

15
.
Y
AMAGUCHI
S
OKEN
(1759–1818),
Planting
from
Yamato Jinbutsu Gafu Kōhen
(1804)

16
.
Y
AMAGUCHI
S
OKEN
(1759–1818),
Woodcutter
from
Yamato Jinbutsu Gafu Kōhen
(1804)

17
.
A
NONYMOUS
,
Fox-Monk
from
Toba-e Ōgi no Mato
(1720)

18
.
S
ESSON
S
HŪKEI
(1504?–1589?),
Crow
from
Kingyoku Gafu
(1771)

19
.
I
KE
T
AIGA
(1723–76),
Boating
from
Taiga/I Fukyō Gafu
(1803)

20
.
I
KE
T
AIGA
(1723–76),
Willows
from
Meika Gafu
(1814)

Excerpt from
Cold Mountain Poems
by Han Shan, edited and translated by J. P. Seaton

eISBN  978-0-8348-2187-3

 

 

Introduction

H
AN
S
HAN AND
S
HIH
T
E
have been the most popular icons of Mahayana Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism in particular, for more than a thousand years. Their poetry traveled to Japan nearly as quickly as Zen itself, and there, as in China, it inspired a popular and long-lasting tradition of paintings, and of rubbings from stone-carved images of their figures. Like those images, the poetry of Han Shan and Shih Te has survived everywhere into the present century. They are poets to laugh with, to make friends with, and to recognize, easily, as bodhisattvas, Buddhist saints whose purpose in life, and in life after life, is to help each of us to reach nirvana, the release from the suffering of eternal reincarnation. Quite a load for two laughing madmen dressed in rags to carry? But it is one they bear lightly and more than willingly.

In 1958, only a decade after D. T. Suzuki introduced Zen to enthusiastic crowds of American artists and intellectuals in a series of lectures at Columbia University, Gary Snyder, one of the most influential poets of the Beat Generation, published the first translations of Han Shan's poems into American
English. The Beat's great novelist Jack Kerouac embodied Han Shan in a character based on Snyder himself and further embedded the image of Han Shan in young Americans' hearts and souls, quoting Snyder's translation of Han Shan in his hugely successful novel
The Dharma Bums
. Shih Te, always a sidekick, has tagged along through the centuries.

Wang Fan-chih, the third Zen poet in this selection, created his mordant and sometimes truly funny poetry a couple of centuries after Han Shan, in the outsider tradition founded in China by the mountain sage. Then, as the T'ang dynasty collapsed around them, Wang Fan-chih's complete works, along with a batch of unrelated work labeled with his name, were hidden carefully in a monastic library around the year 1000. They rested there until the beginning of the twentieth century, almost as if they were waiting for another age of urban ghettos and seemingly hopeless poverty, of collapsing empires and visions of apocalyptic change. As these approach, Wang Fan-chih is ready to join his fellow Zen masters in the titanic struggle to save us all from suffering.

In their poems and in the pictures that are so much a part of their tradition, we see Han Shan and Shih Te: always the pair, ragged, yes, but always laughing too—sometimes with pure joy—maybe because they know something wonderful? Sometimes pointedly laughing at themselves, and, more daringly,
sometimes pointedly laughing at the readers' follies, that's mine, and yours too. They wrote their poems on trees, on rocks, on the walls of farmers' homes, and on the walls of the monasteries they sometimes visited, taking menial work, as they did in the kitchen at Kuo-ch'ing Temple, a famous pilgrimage site in the T'ien-t'ai mountains in southeast China. But they didn't observe the monastic discipline, and they were never dependable servants, being drawn to hike off toward a cave on Cold Mountain's side, their true home. There, according to the traditional story, finally cornered by temple officials, Han Shan went into the cave at Cold Cliff and
pulled it shut behind him
, leaving his admirers to collect and hand down more than 350 poems by the two poets.

In fact, though I'll follow the convention of treating them as two individuals, Han Shan and Shih Te are pseudonyms given to several poets who wrote poetry and lived the lives of mountain mystics during the two or three centuries (sixth through eigth) when Zen itself was breaking free of the institutionalized Buddhist churches of T'ang dynasty China and establishing itself as the most Chinese of Buddhisms. Zen did this by emphasizing meditation over scriptural study (“Zen” literally means “meditation”) and, maybe even more importantly, by incorporating the wisdom and the humor of the great Taoist sages Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Han Shan became one of Zen's foremost popular representatives, its central,
independent, layman saint. Though he used the simplest time-honored verse forms, he spoke in a voice with an almost completely new tone. His poetry became the voice of ordinary people, liberating the common sense of the people, and though it was largely ignored by critics and bibliographers, it remains popular among poets and poetry lovers.