Extraordinary In Ordinary

Japanese poem Haiku is the smallest poetry form in the world but one of the most penetrating. The word haiku means ‘the beginning’. The Haiku poets say: We only begin, we never end. The poet begins, the listener has to complete it. If a poem is complete with the poet, then nothing is left for the listener who will remain a mere spectator. Then the act is not creative. Basho was a mystic poet who has written amazing Haikus: “When I look carefully,/ I see the nazunia blooming/ By the hedge!” Now, this might not seem like great poetry. Let’s go into it with more sympathy, because Basho is being translated; in his own language it has a totally different texture and flavour. The nazunia is a very common flower. To see a nazunia carefully, a meditator is needed, a delicate consciousness is needed, otherwise you will bypass it. Unless you penetrate it with a sympathetic heart you will miss it. The last syllable, ‘kana’ in Japanese means “I am amazed!” Basho is possessed by its beauty. It is not really the nazunia, it is Basho’s insight, his open heart. The word ‘carefully’ has to be remembered in all its meanings, but the root meaning is meditatively. It means without mind, no clouds of thought in the sky of your consciousness, no memories passing by, no desires... utter emptiness. When in such a state of nomind you look, even a nazunia is transported into another world. It becomes a lotus of the paradise; the extraordinary has been found in the ordinary.

Source: Economic Times, 11/02/2019