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Toki-no-Ge (Satori Poem) by Muso Soseki (1275 - 1351) Timeline English version by W. S. Merwin Original Language Japanese Buddhist : Zen / Chan 14th Century Year after year      I dug in the earth           looking for the blue of heaven only to feel      the pile of dirt           choking me until once in the dead of night      I tripped on a broken brick           and kicked it into the air and saw that without a thought      I had smashed the bones           of the empty sky     -- from Sun at Midnight: Muso Soseki - Poems and Sermons, Translated by W. S. Merwin / Translated by Soiku Shigematsu Amazon.com	Themes   Death   Night   Sky     Recommended Books East Window: Poems from Asia, Translated by W. S. Merwin Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader, Edited by Nelson Foster / Edited by Josh Shoemaker Sun at Midnight: Muso Soseki - Poems and Sermons, Translated by W. S. Merwin / Translated by Soiku Shigematsu
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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

Don't you like the way this short Zen poem says so much? The spiritual quest is first seen as some sort of construction project, but he doesn't really know what to build or what he's doing so he just digs deeper into the earth -- worldly, material existence -- until he's choked by the experience. It's as if he begins to recognize he's only been digging his own grave, yet even then he doesn't know what else to do.

But insight, that moment of satori or enlightenment, comes almost by accident. "In the dead of night" -- the dark night of the soul when he feels most hopeless and drained, he stumbles and falls. Yet in falling on his back for the first time he is face up and sees the sky. He's stunned and even thought falls away. The sky itself shatters. He pierces through the false sky, which is a construction of his mind -- his thoughts about sky, his concepts and assumptions of all that encompasses his world -- and finally sees clearly sky as it is -- the living, empty spaciousness that overarches and permeates everything.

Earnest seekers labor hard, but the masters seek that strategic stumbling and so see the sky.

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
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