Matsuo Bashō, the 17th-century Japanese haiku poet, didn’t directly write about Daoism. But he did dabble in Buddhism. And he traveled, one imagines, searching for the Way. He died, on November 28, 1694, on the way to the Grand Shrine in Ise, but got no further than Osaka. He was only 50.
Way beyond words, go —
All things arise from one source,
Travel and behold.
— The Dao, as One
Brrr, baby it’s cold outside. This is a good one. A good one for December, or for any month when the temperatures are freezing, the sky is gray, and the wind brisk.
The oil is freezing
The lamplight thinning,
is this my awakening, I wonder
油こほりともし火細き寝覚哉
Abura kōri / tomoshi-bi hosoki / nezame kana
— Matsuo Basho, year unknown
In French?
L’huile gèle
La lumière de la lampe s’éteint,
C’est mon réveil ?
— Matsuo Basho, Francaise, peut-etre
At what age do we become serious?
Thirty-six is not a bad answer. One has a job, settled down, a few years under the belt, one is figuring things out, wondering, what is the next big step.
Matsuo Basho began his study of Buddhism while in his twenties. In his thirties, he moved to Edo. He enjoyed the Nihonbashi’s night life. He had a gathering of students and disciples. But he began to think there might be more. So, late in December of 1680, at the age of thirty-six, he left the comfort of Edo for the then remote Fukagawa District, across the Sumida River. There he found a small cottage and weathered the winter and awakened as a poet.
He did in time find a new name. Tossing aside Tosei, the unripe peach, for Basho, meaning banana plant. The story is a banana tree was given to him as a gift. It flourished well in the new environment, providing a little shade from the hot sun, but otherwise mostly useless.
I am no expert on the subject but I guess Basho’s oil came from fish or a type of vegetable oil lik canola which comes from rapeseed. Both of these oils would produce a somewhat smoky lamplight. Basho’s awakening would therefore be a little cloudy.
Original Japanese and English Translation
| the oil is freezing | 油こほ | Abura kōri |
| the lamplight thinning | りともし火細き | tomoshi-bi hosoki |
| is this my awakening? | 寝覚哉 | nezame kana |
Nezame 寝覚, there is an 11th century Japanese tale called Yoru no nezame, Awakening at Night, but this appears unrelated. There is also the Nezame no toko Gorge (寝覚の床), meaning bed of awakening, on the Nakasendo which Basho must have passed many times.
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
Matsuo Basho quoting Kūkai (空海, 774 – 835), a Japanese Buddhist
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.)
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
Along the Oku no Hosomichi
Spring 1689
Here it is half way through May and I find myself wondering where Matsuo Basho is on his journey into Japan’s northern interior (Oku no Hosomichi). Matsuo Basho, no doubt, reckoned by lunar months which makes it difficult pinpoint a place with a specific date.
Today, there is a gentle mist, white clouds, and still the birds are singing. The leaves on the trees are green, not the bright green of early spring, but the full rich green of summer.
Yet, I go back to Mt. Nikko, the fifth stop on the journey known as Oku no Hosomichi. Mt. Nikko (日光), which means bright beams of sunlight.
By Basho’s reckoning, it is the last day of March. He and his traveling companion Sora rested at an inn at the foot of Mt. Niko. There they slept in perfect peace. The next day there was a fine mist, and Basho and Sora climbed the mountain to give homage to its holiest shrine. The site was made famous by Kobo Daishi, founder of Shingon Buddhism. This sect emphasizesthe Hindu concept of dharma, nature’s eternal and inherent reality, the underlying cosmic law revealing right behavior and social order. Do good to be good.
One is always struck with awe when the mist ends and the clouds clear. So too with Basho:
Awe! green leaves, young leaves, sparkling sunlight
あらたふ と青葉若葉の 日の光
ara touto aoba wakaba no hi no hikariara (awe) touto (completely, precisely) aoba (fresh leaves) wakaba (new leaves) no hi no (brightness) hikari (light, illumination)
1688 – Genroku
England was experiencing its Glorious Revolution. Europe was beginning its Age of Enlightenment. Japan was at peace. It was the era of Genroku 元禄. The reigning emperor was Emperor Higashiyama (東山天皇), but true power lay in the hands of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (徳川 綱吉), the fifth shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty.
Basho’s study of Buddhism inspired the following haiku. Lightning (稲妻 inazuma) being both enlightening and ephemeral.
稲妻を手にとる闇の紙燭哉
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1687
inazuma o / te ni toru yami no / shisoku kana
lightning —
a paper candle
in the darkness
Note. Paper candle, an ancient means of lighting, a torch.
By the mid-1680s, Basho’s fame was established. He had left Edo for Fukagama where he lived in a simple cottage. There he taught his students and received guests. A disciple gave him a banana plant (basho) as a housewarming gift. And it was this tree that grew beside his cottage that became the symbol of the poet — fragile and, one might say, useless.
あの雲は稲妻を待つたよりかな
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1688
ano kumo wa / inazuma o matsu / tayori kana
that cloud —
lightning is waiting
to visit
In late spring and summer of 1689, Matsuo Basho journeyed to Japan’s northern interior, following a route that took him along the eastern coast, crossing to the west coast, then traveling west and south to Osaka, returning to Edo and the Basho-an in late fall to work on what was to become his best known work (Oku no Hosomichi).
稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ
inazuma ni / satora nu hito no / tattosa yolightning —
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1690
to one who understands
life is precious!
Note. Tattosa 貴さ, noble and precious. Yo よ, adding emphasis.
In the summer of 1694, Matsuo Basho was 50 years old. He left Edo for the last time, spending time in Ueno, his birthplace, and then Kyoto, where he spent time as a student, before going to nearby Otsu by Lake Biwa.
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1694
稲妻や顔のところが薄の穂
inazuma ya / kao no tokoro ga / susuki no ho
lightning —
in place of faces
pampas grass
1694 — summer
Note. Miscanthus (susuki, commonly called pampas grass) — ever changing, from fresh green shoots in early spring to the long lasting shimmering seed-heads of autumn, a reminder of the fleeting nature of the seasons.
稲妻や闇も方行く五位の声
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1694
inazuma ya / yami no kata yuku / goi no koe
lightning
deep in the darkness
the sound of a heron
Note. The heron (crane) is a divine bird traveling between heaven and earth.
Inazuma — etymology. 稲 ina, meaning “rice plant”, plus 妻 tsuma, meaning “spouse”. Deriving from an ancient belief that lightning mated with (fertilized) rice plants.
Compare Basho’s haiku with the Diamond Sutra (a Sanskrit text translated into Chinese during the Tang dynasty):
So you should view this fleeting world:
Diamond Sutra, Chapter 32
As a drop of dew or a floating bubble in a river,
As lightning flashing in a summer cloud,
As a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.
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
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).
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.
At this moment, in the Winter of 2022, a snow storm is crossing much of the eastern United States from Boston to Norfolk. Here in the Midwest, the sky is spectacularly clear, China blue, but bitterly cold. While chattering birds look down from the trees above, scampering squirrels hunt for food in my garden.
Matsuo would ask, do birds and squirrels feel the cold, I wonder?
一時雨礫や降つて小石川
Matsuo Basho, 延宝5年, the 5th year of the Enpo era, Edo, 1678-9
hito shigure/ tsubute ya futte/ Koishikawa
at this moment, it is sleeting
and hailstones are falling all about,
at Koishikawa
To which, Bashō no yōna says:
All about me, it’s sleeting
Bashō no yōna, Wichita, January 2022
I’m freezing, only thinking
Fame is fleeting
To which Matsuo replies:
So is life
Matsuo
Matsuo had arrived in Edo, in 1675, seeking fame and fortune as a haiku master. He resided near Edo’s glitzy Nihonbashi District, a country boy in the big city which Edo was becoming. And he was variously employed, making ends meet, while honing his poetic skills. By the winter of 1678-9, he had achieved some recognition.
An admirer of Buddhism, Matsuo would be thinking, fame does not come to all, to those who are lucky, fame is fleeting, for we are only here for a short while — yi shi, 一時.
Matsuo had not, however, taken on the pen-name Matsuo Basho. This would occur after 1680, when he moved to the Fukagawa District of Edo and lived in a simple cottage beside a banana tree given to him by a student. Not had Matsuo taken his journey to the northern interior, which would give him lasting fame in the posthumous publication of Oku no Hosomichi (奥の細道).
For was, now, simply living in the moment, yi shi, 一時.
Hito, 一時, Chinese, yi shi, meaning at this time, for the moment, not necessarily a concrete moment, a spiritual one; also a Buddhist term for a period in which one chants a sūtra.
Shigure, 雨, a freezing rain, drizzle, sleet, referring to the rainy season in late fall and early winter.
Futte, 降つて, falling about. Matsuo is also implying that he is about to experience a change of fortunes, either for good or bad.
Koishikawa, a place in Edo (Tokyo), a well known garden constructed in the early Edo period, possessing a view of Mt. Fuji. Koishikawa, meaning small river pebble. Basho’s haiku is a play on words with hail as the small pebble. It is also a Buddhist observation of the insignificance of one moment and one man in the eternity of time and space. Matsuo, at this time was engaged in work on an aqueduct, which may explain the connection with the construction of the garden.
A Japanese point of view of Matsuo Basho.
matsuo-basho-haiku 