Yuko Onda, 'Lover of Chaos: Hokusai's Wave, Basho's Inspiration'
☆mediopos2786 July 4, 2022
Because intelligence and reason are exhausting
It is better to "return to foolishness upon foolishness" (Issa)
Because subjectivity and comparison are exhausting
It is better to laugh off all discrimination, for "things" to speak, and for existence to be one of "becoming and changing into one another"
Because the impermanence of time moving from the past to the future is exhausting
It is better to make play as the infinity of body and mind one's business, and to be in the midst of eternity
And yet, people seek to be intellectual, seek morality as a form, insist on being a "self," boast of being superior to others, fear their own death while regretting the past, and head forward as if driven by time
It is good for knowing to be paired with the awareness of one's own foolishness
It is good for trying to be moral to be paired with one's own helplessness
It is good for being a "self" to be paired with being nothing at all, and being able to be anything
It is good for being superior to be paired with being incomparable
It is good for fearing death to be paired with the joy and fear of living
It is good for heading forward to be paired with playing with the circles and spirals of time
Once again, I think it is a blessing (though it carries risks) that there are no subjects in the Japanese language, and that it is a land where "things" flourish. May I continue to live within that irreplaceable aesthetic sense.
■ Yuko Onda
"Lover of Chaos: Hokusai's Wave, Basho's Inspiration"
(Shunjusha, April 2022)
(From "Chapter 1: Body, Mind, and Play" - "I: Thoughts on Body and Mind / Awareness of Foolishness")
"Western art brings joy to the vision that sees things and the brain that recognizes them. As the Gospel of John's 'In the beginning was the Word' indicates, first, there is Logos. Then, what about in Japan? Isn't it 'In the beginning was the Body'? Perhaps words and Logos follow along later, looking plain. Whether it is tea ceremony utensils or Hokusai's paper craft prints, before Logos, there is first the pleasure of taking them in one's hands and touching them with one's skin. This is not limited to Hokusai alone. Whether it is Suzuki Harunobu or Kitagawa Utamaro, ukiyo-e prints all make one feel a trembling in their luster only when viewed up close, as if rubbing one's cheek against them. Hasn't Japanese beauty always originated where the heart and body become one?"
The haiku of his contemporary, Issa, also vividly originate from modest physical sensations that no one else would notice.
Spring begins from the mud on the geta at every gate - "Shichiban Nikki"
In front of every house, on the muddy ground after the rain, the tooth marks of geta sandals dance. The varied, uninhibited footprints press in upon me, along with the luminous texture of the soft spring mud. The shallow, dull tooth marks belong to old, worn-down geta. The irregular stride marks belong to a hurried person. Those intimate, alternating large and small prints are the sign of a parent and child walking hand in hand. The geta, making light sounds under people's feet, retain droplets of mud. Issa, too, walks through the town where the cold has finally eased, splashing mud on his geta. The trivial things—mud tracks and mud splashes—contain the vibrant life of the Edo commoners. The joy of welcoming the beginning of spring was so embodied because the author's perspective was low. Upon reaching his sixtieth year, Issa composed: 'Spring has come / back to being a fool / upon a fool.' It is a rich haiku by a person who has truly grasped the awareness of his own foolishness.
A cool breeze / has come winding its way / 'Shichiban Nikki'
If one leans against the railing of a high hall, a cool breeze would likely strike the forehead directly and comb through the hair. For Issa, living in a back-alley tenement, the cool breeze comes winding its way through the long alley, through the columns of mosquitoes, and through the frayed bamboo of the evening glory trellis. He lost his mother at three, was sent to Edo at fifteen, failed to realize his dream of succeeding as a haikai master in the capital, and it was not until he was fifty-two that he returned to his hometown of Kashiwabara and finally welcomed a wife. He was already in his later years. It was not the cool breeze that came winding its way, but this old man himself. It has been nothing but twists and turns. A sudden gust of cool breeze felt amidst the heat seems to gently dive into the bosom of a man who has known hardship, washing all the way down to the solar plexus.
How beautiful / the Milky Way / through a hole in the shoji / 'Shichiban Nikki'
The seasonal word is 'Milky Way,' making this an autumn haiku. 'Shoji' here does not function as a winter seasonal word. Fifty-one-year-old Issa was recuperating from illness at a disciple's house in Nagano from summer into autumn. It bears the headnote 'During illness on Tanabata.' It has become quite cool. As I listen to the sound of insects without really listening, my body, tired from the summer heat and illness, drifts into a doze. A chilly wind hits my shoulder and I wake up. The shoji is torn and fluttering in the wind. Beyond the hole in the shoji, it is already pitch dark. My eyes are drawn into the darkness filling the hole. Oh, aren't there countless stars shimmering? The Milky Way is flowing. Ah, tonight is the Star Festival. Are the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl crossing the bridge of magpies to meet? It would be nice if I could wet my knees in the river of stars and go with my skirts tucked up. I don't have the luxury of repapering the shoji in my own home, but poverty isn't so bad on an evening like this. I can watch the love of the stars while lying in bed. Issa's elegance in peering at the galaxy through a hole in the shoji could be called an embodied fantasy.
Thus, a small haiku takes flight from the width of one's body into the vast universe.
(From 'Final Chapter: Water, Calling to Each Other' to 'II: The Smile of the Forked Radish / Together with the Sideways Daruma')
The spirit of 'mitate' (likening) that transforms things laughs away all distinctions between sacred and profane, wise and foolish. Because it was frequently used in the wit of the Teimon and Danrin schools in the early Edo period, modern haiku seems to think it should be dismissed. However, I want to return to the source. In poetry, it is a technique connected to 'honkadori' (allusive variation), and since the early modern period, it has deepened further to create the beauty of 'yatsushi' (disguise/humility). It has roots in a rich spirit that relates to the philosophy of picture scrolls and to 'xing' (the six principles of poetry), deepening the 'kire' (cutting) of the margins. In the Japanese language, which hardly requires a subject, these are the soil of empathy where persons can be swapped and subjects can be replaced.
Its background lies far away in the philosophy of 'wandering' in 'Zhuangzi' and the equality of all things. The philosophy of horizontalism and equality that declares the 'Dao' is 'in excrement and urine' (Zhuangzi, Outer Chapters, 'Knowledge Wandered North') leads directly to Zen, which says 'The Buddha is a shit-wiping stick' (The Gateless Barrier, Case 21, Yunmen's Shit-Wiping Stick).
For us who do not look up to a Creator, there is no goal. What exists is the eternal 'in-between.' Japanese culture is about enduring the loneliness of being on the way and turning that 'loneliness into the master.' The endless road, like Sesshu's 'Huike Offering His Arm,' is always in the present progressive tense. There is not a moment of slackness there.
Roger Caillois said, 'Play produces nothing. It produces neither wealth nor works. It is essentially sterile' (Man, Play and Games, translated by Michitaro Tada and Mikio Tsukazaki, Kodansha Academic Library, 1990). Let us play with the infinity of body and mind. Play produces everything unknown. Freedom always comes from one's own innocent heart. Jakuchu also lived in innocent play. That forked radish, too, while smiling and saying 'doing everything that needs to be done,' how innocent it is.
We are inhabitants of the stars who replace and change places with mushrooms, radishes, snakes and scorpions, falling flowers, and even people on the other side of the earth.