The Heart of Haiku

by Jane Hirshfield

summer grasses: what’s left of warriors’ dreams

Zen is less the study of doctrine than a set of tools for discovering what can be known when the world is looked at with open eyes.

An idea often linked to sabi, and equally important to Bashō’s work, wabi conveys the beauty of the most ordinary circumstances and objects. A hemp farmer’s jacket, a plain fired-clay cup, the steam rising from a boiling teapot— these are wabi’s essence. A gold-and-cloisonné bowl or ornate silk clothes are its opposite. In the spirit of wabi, then, this poem mulls the deep satisfaction of a life stripped almost bare.

“Do not follow the ancient masters, seek what they sought.”

It reminds of the story of a Zen master who, finding his hut has been robbed, goes running after the thief with a last pot in his hand: “Thief, stop! You forgot this!”