A flash of lightning in a September cloud, a Zen reflection on the impermanence of life, but to those don’t know, a precious thing to behold.
A flash of lightning
Matsuo Basho, 1690
Yet unenlightened,
How noble!
稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ
inazuma ni / satoranu hito no / tattosa yo
Figuratively and Literally
Mid-September, 2022, crossing Kansas along US 160, coming home from Las Vegas, New Mexico. In the Gypsum Hills between Meade and Medicine Lodge, the route featured flat mesas, long canyons and arroyos, red rolling hills, and vast empty stretches with no living beings.
As day turned to evening, and evening to darkness, my wife and I were entertained by a show of lightning to the north.
“Beautiful,” said my wife.
Inazuma (稲妻, a flash of lightning) ni (with); satora (さとら, enlightened, understanding, one realizes) nu (ぬ, not) hito (人, people, one person) no (の, possessive); tattosa (貴さ, noble and precious).
Yo (よ, yo, indicating certainty).
Spiritually
Matsuo Basho in 1690, at the age of 47 with but three years to live. He had completed his journey of northern Japan, Oku no Hosomichi — How noble and precious, he who doesn’t think, “life is fleeting,” when seeing a flash of lightning.
Our existence in this fleeting world:
Diamond Sutra, Chap. 32
A drop of dew in the morning, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, a dream…
Thus spoke Buddha.
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