The Frog And Pond Haiku

[camerata]

This is a very clear explanation of Basho's famous haiku poem about a frog jumping into a pond (the pond still exists) by scholar and translator Donald Keene:

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Haiku is a whole difficult poetic form. It must do so much in a very short space. You cannot waste a single syllable, and yet in this very very tight world of the haiku, Basho was able to express innumerable kinds of perceptions of the world through various trivial events that he gives a value to. It makes you feel that there is nothing in life that is really uninteresting. If one looks at it properly, one can draw some excitement — even enlightenment — from even a very very short poem.

His most famous poem is about a frog jumping into the pond: furu ike ya (The ancient pond) kawazu tobikomu (A frog leaps in) mizu no oto (The sound of the water)

It's very very simple and many people think of it as a momentary observation. And someone who wasn't prepared to accept the haiku might say, "Who cares whether a frog jumps in or not?"

But to think about the poem carefully is to realize nothing is wasted.

Some may ask why Basho said "furu ike," (old pond). Well, he used that word to emphasize the eternity of the pond. It is there forever. It has been there ever since the world was created until that moment. And then he takes this pond and he inserts a frog jumping in, which is an event of an instant. It may never happen again, and it may never have happened before. It's one moment. The eternal nature of the pond is bisected by the vertical movement of the frog jumping into it. It's a combination of the infinite and the momentary.

"Mizu no oto," which is the sound of water, is a recognition of something having happened. From the sound of water we can understand that something important has happened.

Source.

[anatta]

This is a very clear explanation of Basho's famous haiku poem about a frog jumping into a pond (the pond still exists) by scholar and translator Donald Keene:

---

Haiku is a whole difficult poetic form. It must do so much in a very short space. You cannot waste a single syllable, and yet in this very very tight world of the haiku, Basho was able to express innumerable kinds of perceptions of the world through various trivial events that he gives a value to. It makes you feel that there is nothing in life that is really uninteresting. If one looks at it properly, one can draw some excitement — even enlightenment — from even a very very short poem.

His most famous poem is about a frog jumping into the pond: furu ike ya (The ancient pond) kawazu tobikomu (A frog leaps in) mizu no oto (The sound of the water)

It's very very simple and many people think of it as a momentary observation. And someone who wasn't prepared to accept the haiku might say, "Who cares whether a frog jumps in or not?"

But to think about the poem carefully is to realize nothing is wasted.

Some may ask why Basho said "furu ike," (old pond). Well, he used that word to emphasize the eternity of the pond. It is there forever. It has been there ever since the world was created until that moment. And then he takes this pond and he inserts a frog jumping in, which is an event of an instant. It may never happen again, and it may never have happened before. It's one moment. The eternal nature of the pond is bisected by the vertical movement of the frog jumping into it. It's a combination of the infinite and the momentary.

"Mizu no oto," which is the sound of water, is a recognition of something having happened. From the sound of water we can understand that something important has happened.

Source.

Keene's analysis is good. But to 'explain' the poem is not to experience the Zen of it? Alan Watts in 'The Way of Zen' quotes Basho as saying "To write haiku, get a three-foot child". Watts goes on "Basho's poems have the same inspired objectivity as a child's expression of wonder and return us to that same feeling of the world as when it first met our astonished eyes".

[Svenn]

I am perhaps more cynical than most, but I actually don't think Zen and Basho had much to do with each other.. just by looking at the historical record. Basho is a melodramatic poet, focused primarily on sentiments, i.e. feelings, of various forms of malaise, melancholy, or peacefulness. Japanese culture is fond of such sentiments, and has a certain fetish for packaged minimalist things such as haiku. I'm not trying to belittle them, I just think we Westerners should not give up on the scientific rationality primarily given to us, and concede unknowingly that some great Zen truth can be extrapolated from 3 lines of poem in which it was encased. Perhaps Basho had some satori when he wrote that, perhaps not... either way, we unenlightened folk should not tarry or feign appreciation for something only its author or a few masters could appreciate. Then again, I could just be a thick-skinned philistine

[rockyysdt]

minimalist things, and concede unknowingly that some great Zen truth can be extrapolated from 3 lines of poem in which it was encased.

I suspect the simplicity of anything minimalist can play a part in bringing inner calm to our turbulent ego based minds.

Simple surroundings & simple thought help me with my samatha.

Minimalism also gives us a path away from rampant consumerism.

N'est-ce pas.

Edited September 14, 2009 by rockyysdt

[dutchguest]

I have read that in some japanese zenmonastries monks are meditating for years on such poems and coming closer and closer to the essence of it untill eventually reaching enlightenenment through this kind of meditation.

The same minimalistic attitude you can see back in many aspects of japanese culture, e.g. paintings, the tea-ceremony etc. It seems this minimalistic approach has a meditative quality, because it does not say and explain everything explicitly but leave room for meditation by pointing towards some deeper reality behind the visible.

I have the impression that for most people in the west these poems are not much more then just simple, a little bit banal commonplaces. It can sound interesting suggesting you see some deeper reality in them, but the conditioning of the logical, rational, analyzing western mind gives not much room to experience the absurdity and paradoxality of zen.