You remember haiku – from high school English class, perhaps? From China or Japan or someplace like that? Little 17 syllable poems? Well, there’s wisdom in those syllables. I’m here to tell you. Haiku are snapshots of the essence of life. Like Zen, they are grounded in reality. A good haiku is an “aha moment”.
Haiku remind me of chess. Why? I’m glad you asked. Chess, you see, is not just a game. Chess teaches you how to think. Chess teaches you how to negotiate. Chess teaches you that if you attack prematurely in the zero-sum games of life, you will lose. Bruce Pandolfini, famous chess teacher, has expanded on this theme in a book called Every Move Must Have a Purpose: Strategies from Chess for Business and Life. Maybe one day, if you are really nice to me, I will tell you about it. But, that was what you call a brief digression. What I really want to talk about is haiku.
Like chess is not just a game, haiku is not just an exercise in writing silly ditties. Haiku teach you to see differently, to relate differently to “reality” or whatever you call the Other – that which is not “you”. More importantly, for our purposes, writing haiku can increase your wisdom. What? That’s right. That’s what I said: scribbling 17 syllable oriental poems can make you more sage (sager?).
There are rice fields of books about haiku. One of the better ones is Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands On Guide, which proves once again that you cannot judge a book by how corny the title is (even though I do expect a little more from a book about writing; oh well, probably the publisher’s idea). The author, Jane Reichold, articulates what I am trying to convey about how haiku can change your perception by encapsulating that idea in the phrase “living the Way of Haiku”. Is that cool or what? Oh yeah. What does that mean? Here it is. You will note, however, that not all of her haiku have 17 syllables. That could be because they are translations or it could be because … well, never mind. Here are the 6 characteristics of the The Way of the Haiku:
1. Being aware. … Instead of thinking thoughts, you use your mind to check out what is. This is also called “centering” because when you can shut down the voice within that nags, complains, and irritates, you reach a state of equilibrium.
out of earth
the flower shape
of a hole
2. Being nonjudgmental. … The more we can view everything and everyone as being neither good nor bad but as simply being what they are, the easier it is to shut down that inner voice and open ourselves up to the majesty of the world around us.
a mouse and I share
her nest in the sock drawer
a house in the woods
3. Being reverent. … When one really understands the marvels in a square inch of earth – its history, its journey, its purposes, the vast richness of its being – how can one pollute it, desecrate it, or demean it?
adding wings
to the red pepper
a dragonfly
4. Having a sense of oneness. … Some of the techniques of haiku are built on the idea that even very dissimilar things have a common bond. Finding this fulcrum is the basis for many, many haiku.
starfish
all the days of a life
going into a gull
5. Having a sense of simplicity.
slender coolness
a finger-wide waterfall
into cupped hands
6. Having humility. … contemporary poetry is based on what the author feels or thinks – which is extremely ego-inflating. Haiku is based on what the author observes. Thus, the focus is not on the inside world but on the outside world.
More haiku, including some of my own humble attempts (I had to say that!) -coming up.
