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Barn's burnt down

by Masahide
(1657? - 1723) Timeline

English version by
Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

Original Language
Japanese

Buddhist : Zen / Chan
17th Century

Barn's burnt down --
now
I can see the moon.

 

 

-- from Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto

Amazon.com

 


/ Photo by Aunt Owwee /

Themes

  Fire
  Moon
 
 
 


Recommended Books


Japanese Death Poems, Translated by Yoel Hoffman
Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto

 

| More Poems by Masahide | Next Poem >>

Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

I love this haiku. Using so few words, it still manages to say so much.

The moon, as I've pointed out before, represents Buddha-mind, awakened awareness. The burnt barn can represent worldly calamity and loss which can suddenly open us to the radical, serene truth that surrounds us everywhere. Or the barn can represent our own self-enclosing thoughts, "burned" down by spiritual practice and the ecstatic psychic spaciousness that can result.

So read that haiku again. Line-by-line:

The old structure, the barn has burnt down; it's collapsed, been cleared away.

Now. Now-- The shock has brought us, stunned, into the present moment.

The psychic field cleared, finally we can see the luminous moon, the light of enlightenment.

 

 


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