meditation and haiku was Re: Chikuzan

From: Ralf Muhlberger (ralf@muhlberger.com)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 18:15:33 PDT


> Regarding the 5-7-5 "rule," you've all shown that it can certainly be
> done in English, but I was reading some translations of Issa and they
> didn't follow the rule at all.

The difference is that in English 17 syllables carry more
information than they would in Japanese. Thus to be closer
to the brevity of concepts it is normal to write around
12 syllables in a short/longer/short style for English
haiku. 5-7-5 certainly has that very distinct haiku sound
to it though, and following the rule doesn't hurt. :-)

For some shakuhachi related content, I wonder how many
of you use shakuhachi for meditation with groups? I had
the great comment from someone recently that they could
not meditate until they came to a group where I started
breath meditation with 5 minutes of shakuhachi, letting
it fade out into the stillness that then followed. He
finally recognised what the peace of calmness felt like,
and now can grasp it at will easily.

I'd love to hear other insights into our instruments of
bamboo, breath and silence.

Ralf

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