Dec 19 2025
Issa – Buddha’s body
Buddha’s body
by Kobayashi Issa
English version by David G. Lanoue
Buddha’s body
accepts it…
winter rain
— from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger
/ Image by piddy77 /
On this winter day with rain falling outside, I found myself speaking this poem aloud with appreciation…
I could just live on the nourishment of haiku every day. A few lines, so short they’re almost incoherent… the way they teeter on the edge of meaning and occasionally slip into the void… Something about that desperate line dares the mind to burst open with insight.
This haiku, for example — I don’t read it as being about enduring uncomfortable weather. There is more than that here. There is acceptance, a quiet contentment, even a welcoming. It is about the recognition of the rightness of things in their season. And that touches the eternal. The Buddha is simply here, always here, always present, and we feel the winter rain is simply passing by for its short moment. The rain touches the Buddha’s face, and then moves on. So too the wind, the sun, the rising of grasses, the blooming of flowers. They come. The Buddha sits, smiles, accepts. And the world moves along again in its cycles of life, becoming and unbecoming, while the Buddha remains.
And what is the Buddha’s body but us, our very nature? The body arises, the seasons of the self blossom and turn inward again, and through it all there is a still point within us quietly watching, and accepting, and smiling.
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I recently recorded a dialog with Dr. Laurel Trujillo of The Yoga Hour podcast
May we all discover light even in dark times!
Recommended Books: Kobayashi Issa
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Kobayashi Issa
Japan (1763 – 1828) Timeline |
Kobayashi Issa, or simply Issa, is one of Japan’s best known and appreciated haiku poets.
Issa was born in Kashiwabara, in what is now part of the Nagano Prefecture in Japan. His father was a farmer. Issa’s mother died when the boy was very young and his father soon remarried. Issa’s stepmother mistreated him and, when he was fourteen, Issa was sent to Edo (Tokyo) where he studied haiku.
Although he gained some notoriety for his poetry early on, he struggled to get by financially and had to travel and work hard until he was in his fifties.
Though Issa’s life was filled with struggles — the death of his mother at an early age, the conflicts with his stepmother, his poverty, and the death of his own children — his haiku tend to celebrate the serene joys and simple spiritual moments of life.
Short and lovely put. It’s raining here as well, sloshing the snow away. Something that I find difficult to accept is the frustration of not being understood.
This happens often when I try to speak Arabic with others who do not speak dareejah, the Moroccan dialect which is the only one I know.
As I was taking my Mom to work today, we discussed how Moroccans are the only Arabs to refer to “rain” as “winter falling” because it only rains in the winter; you will never hear rain called “rain” in Morocco.
I visited Marrakech in February, family celebrated my arrival as auspicious when the skies washed away a long drought.
Thank you for small, simple, serene joys; may the coming year increase our awareness of these delights that abound.