Haiku about child-Buddha (11th of January 2013)

Buddha, zazen, laughter
Mouth agape
At falling flowers
A child is Buddha

Kubutsu, translated by Jonathan Clements

Kubutsu Otani's (1875-1943) haiku says that a child, wondering at the falling flowers is (like) Buddha. This thrill of a child, a strong sensation of life, nicely agrees with the concept of satori in Zen - with sudden and strong enlightenment, with the understanding of the real nature of the world and existence in one, "small" thing which is everything. This is also the essence of a good haiku poetry.

For such an insight we need to be a little bit childish, prepared to see the Universe in the "common" and "usual". The children are open enough to it and by this they are (like) Buddha.

The child is Buddha, but Buddha is also the child laughing and rejoicing to a tree, a flower, the wind. The Buddha nature is, among other things, also a child nature.

I've been recently reading (again) Nietzsche's "Will to power". In article 1032. of Book IV Nietzsche in his own, poetic-philosophical way speaks of satori, although he does not call it that way. Here is the quote:

The first question is by no means whether we are content with ourselves, but whether we are content with anything at all. If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event — and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.

For more posts on haiku poetry, take a look at >> the archive.

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Last updated on 11th of January 2013.