How We Think

Genroku 3, Autumn of 1690,
Basho’s letter, sent to Suganuma Kyokusui 曲水宛書簡, from Osaka

Autumn turns into winter, when one grows older, weaker but no wiser.

In his letter, Matsuo Basho writes: “I drag along my walking stick, regretting my pointless travel and useless walking… Each night I suffer from the cold, my fever has gradually become a chronic illness. As winter approaches, I am heading to Ise.” (Basho’s birthplace, Ueno, Iga province, is on the way. Like salmon returning to the stream where they were born, one wonders.)

looking at lightning
people not seeing
how precious
(is life)

稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ
inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo

Matsuo Basho,

稲妻 . に . さとらぬ . 人 . の . 貴さ . よ

inazuma (lightning)
ni (not) satoranu (understanding), in a Buddhist sense.
hito (people)
no (of, for)
tattosa (precious), the addition of sa さ converts the adjective tatto 貴 into a noun. Tattosa meaning precious or valuable.
yo (!) implying both certainty and emphasis.

Leap of Faith

The point of Basho’s haiku is not that one can look at a flash of lightening in the night sky and conclude that life passes like that. Rather, it is that the great mass of humanity has little or no understanding of what it means to be alive.

All religion, one supposes, and Zen Buddhism in particular, involves a leap of faith, taking one thought and interpreting it in an entirely new light. An aha moment. I get it, or at least I think I do.

One sleepless night, listening to Chamath Palihapitiya on a Joe Rogan podcast (it’s almost three hours long).

Like a stone thrown in a pond, the conversation between Joe and Chamath expands. Topics include the impact of social media and artificial intelligence on how we think. Today, Chamath is best known as the Founder and CEO of Social Capital, a venture capital firm focused on health, financial service, and education, but his background includes forays in Facebook and an assortment of digital and social media ventures. Despite his success in the field of social media, he recognizes that his own children need to disconnect from digital platforms to learn how to communicate and connect with other human beings. At several points in the interview, Chamath stops to consider the impact of human inventions on psychological and physical health.

[Chamath has his own podcast with three other friends called All-In.]

“I’ll tell you what I think.”

“I am a disruptor.”

The essence of thinking is how we interpret data, as computers don’t infer, yet, that, and judgment is all that is left.

One has to listen,
Like water on rock,
Slowly we change.
.
Looking at lightening,
Blinded at first,
Slowly, the world comes into focus

— Bashō no yōna, October, 2024

稲妻 . にさとらぬ人の貴さよ
inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo

Note. Suganuma Kyokusui 曲水宛書簡, lent Basho the use of a hut on Lake Biwa. Basho called it the Hut of the Phantom Dwelling. Basho stayed there after his and Sora’s five month trip in 1689 that would become known as Oku no Hosomichi.

Basho added this haiku to his chorus on the transitory nature of life.

Soon I will die,
And the scene will disappear,
As the cicadas continue their cry

やがてしぬけしきはみえず蝉の声
yagate shinu keshiki wa miezu semi no koe

— Matsuo Basho, Autumn 1690

For what it is worth, I add Puck’s epilogue to a A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Shakespeare.

Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream, …
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1596

Birthdays

Happy Birthday,
7th year of Kabun, 1667
Age 23-24

Gazing at the moon,
An Indian summer evening,
One feels the New Year coming.

月の鏡小春にみるや目正月
tsuki no kagami / koharu ni miru ya / me shōgatsu
Munefusa, who would one day become Matsuo Basho, Autumn 1667

An Indian summer, and autumn signals the passing year. Is that then a birthday?

Kyoto, 1667

One year since Tōdō Yoshitada, his master, died. One year since he left his home in Ueno. One year in Kyoto. One year composing poems. One year passing.

What would the New Year bring?

As the poet would later write in his introduction to Oku no Hosomichi: “The months and days travel throughout eternity. Like voyagers, the years come and go.” Basho was not yet Basho. He was still forming, still becoming, the journey just beginning.

Birthdays?

Matsuo Basho’s birthday is unknown.

In the good old days before greeting cards, balloons, and birthday cakes, Japan had one day, the same day of the year that was dedicated to the celebration of one’s birthday — New Year’s Day. Making sense because then, according to ancient beliefs, that was the day everyone got older.

So, should you wish to wish him Happy Birthday, do it on Shōgatsu (正月), the Japanese festival of the New Year.

Or perhaps, one evening in October, when the moon is full, and the weather’s warm.

For then,

When the moon is full,
you’ll see, clearly in the mirror,
you’re getting older.
— Bashō no yōna, getting older, 2024

Chrysanthemum DAy

October 9, 1694,
from Oi Nikki, the Backpack Diaries,
Near the End

The scent of chrysanthemums,
In Nara,
Ancient Buddhas
菊の香や奈良には古き仏たち
kiku no kaya . Nara ni wa . furuki hotoketachi
Matsuo Basho, October 9, 1694

[kiku no kaya (the smell of chrysanthemums) . Nara ni wa (in Nara) . furuki hotoke tachi (ancient Buddhas)]

Nara was the 8th century capital of Japan. Today it is known as the home to the Todai-ji Temple and the statue of the Great Buddha (Daibutsu-sama).

In China, as well as Japan, the chrysanthemum is a symbol of autumn, flower of the ninth moon, symbol of longevity. Chrysanthemum throne is the name given to the Imperial throne and symbol of the emperor. Chrysanthemum Day is the ninth day of the ninth moon. A chrysanthemum petal placed in a glass of wine was thought to prolong life.

Matsuo Basho was nearing his end. He died in Osaka on November of 1694.

菊の香や, original image from the Library of Congress

Jasmine

The smell of jasmine

So distinctly sweet,

To man and moth, one wonders?

Naxos, Greece

The Greek islands are dry and arid. But from Mykonos to Paris to Naxos the landscape became progressively greener. Although the islands are surrounded by the Aegean Sea, it rarely rains in Summer and Autumn.

It was in mid-October, only on Naxos, that the moths, the bees, and I came across the delicate Jasmine, whose Persian name, Yasmin, means Gift of God.

Far away, one hears the frightful call of all our war. One wonders.

Seek

Dear Kyoruku

Don’t follow me.

古人の跡をもとめず、古人の求たる所をもとめよ
Kojin no ato o motomezu, kojin no motomeshi tokoro o motomeyo
Seek not the way of the ancients, seek what they sought.
(Follow not the the footsteps of the ancients, seek what they sought.)
Matsuo Basho quoting Kūkai (空海, 774 – 835), a Japanese Buddhist

Basho, quoting Kukai (Kobo Daishi), spoke these words to his student, the samurai, Morikawa Kyoroku. The characters 古人, kojin means an ancient (great) person of the past.

Kūkai promoted the Indian philosophy of Dharma, behavior in harmony with life.

Kyoroku was skilled in the six arts of swordsmanship, horsemanship, spear throwing, calligraphy, painting, and haiku, but especially in painting. Basho considered Kouroku his master in this art. “Isn’t it admirable that there are many things to learn, but the result of that learning is only one?”

“Seek and ye shall find,” says Matthew (7:7-8), meaning God is kind, eager to give good gifts to those who believe in Christ. Basho (Kyoruku), however, is not seeking religion but the “inner self.” No John Denver, “follow me in what I do where I go what I do, …” Blaze your own trail, as Laozi suggests in the Tao de Ching.

Basho later added, “Don’t copy me, like two halves of a melon.”

Finally, Oscar Wilde’s witticism, “Be yourself because everybody else is taken.”

Kojin (Gǔrén, Chinese for the ancient wise men) no ato (and their tracks, footsteps, i.e. the Way)

求める motomeru — to seek
求たる motometeru — to be seeking
もとめず motomezu — not seek
もとめよ motomeyo — seek, said in a way you are trying to change someone’s understanding