Encounter with Zen Books by Lucien Stryk
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THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY Encounter with Zen Books by Lucien Stryk Taproot The Trespasser Zen: Poems, Prayers, Sermons, Anecdotes, Interviews (co-author) Notes for a Guidebook (New Poetry Series) Heartland: Poets of the Midwest (I and II) (editor) World of the Buddha (editor) The Pit and Other Poems Afterimages: Zen Poems of Shinkichi Takahashi (co-translator) Twelve Death Poems of the Chinese Zen Masters (co-translator) Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane’s Bill (co-translator) Awakening Three Zen Poems Selected Poems Haiku of the Japanese Masters (co-translator) The Duckweed Way: Haiku of Issa (co-translator) The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry (co-translator) The Duckpond Prairie Voices: Poets of Illinois (editor) Zen Poems Encounter with Zen: Writings on Poetry and Zen Encounter with Zen Writings on Poetry and Zen Lucien Stryk Swallow Press Ohio University Press Chicago Athens, Ohio London mi Copyright © 1981 by Lucien Stryk All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Swallow Press Books are published by Ohio University Press Athens, Ohio Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stryk, Lucien. Encounter with Zen. 1. Zen Buddhism—Japan. 2. Priests, Zen—Japan. 3. Zen Buddhists—Japan. 4. Zen poetry—History and criticism. I. Title. BQ9262.9.J3S84 294.3'927 81-9611 ISBN 0-8040-0405-6 (cl.) AACR2 ISBN 0-8040-0406-4 (pbk.) Acknowledgments The writing of much of this book was made possible by a Ful- bright Travel/Research Grant and was partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. For permis¬ sion to use material previously printed in periodicals, thanks are due the editors of American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Chicago Review, The Georgia Review, Malahat Review, Michi¬ gan Quarterly Review, The Mountain Path, New Letters, The North American Review, Ohio Review, The Spirit That Moves Us, and TriQuarterly. For permission to use material previously printed in books, thanks are due the following publishers: “Mak¬ ing Poems,” from American Poets in 1976, © 1976 by Bobbs- Merrill Co., Inc.; “Poetry and Zen,” from Zen Poems of China and Japan: The Crane’s Bill, © 1973 by Lucien Stryk, Takashi Ikemoto and Taigan Takayama, Anchor Press/Doubleday & Co., Inc.; “Buddhism and Modern Man,” from World of the Buddha, © 1968 by Lucien Stryk, Doubleday & Co., Inc.; “Zen Poetry,” from The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry, © 1977 by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto, Swallow Press, Inc. I owe thanks to Morton Weisman, president, and Donna Ip- polito, editor, of Swallow Press, for suggesting that I do this book and for encouragement and invaluable advice at every state of its making. Book design by Ann Smeltzer Japanese characters by Fujiko Oguri Cover: Scroll of Eggplants, typical of tea ceremony scrolls, by Isuruzawa Tanzan (1655-1729). Eggplants are symbolic of good luck. The painter was the first of Kano Tan-yu’s four great disciples. The border and backing signify that it was made for a lord of the Tokugawa Period (1600-1867). {V fk To Lucy and Leslie Cp with affection and gratitude ?/ 6 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/encounterwithzenOOOOstry Contents Foreword ix Introduction 1 PART I ESSAYS Beginnings, Ends 9 Making Poems 21 Shinkichi Takahashi: Contemporary Zen Poet 37 Poetry and Zen 31 Buddhism and Modern Man 67 Zen Poetry 89 PART II ENCOUNTERS Rinzai Zen Master—Satori 109 Rinzai Zen Master—Wabi 117 Rinzai Zen Master—Teacher 127 Painter and Poet 135 Noh Actor 147 Potter and Poet 155 Student 165 Potter 175 Teacher of Aesthetics 183 Scholar 193 Calendar Maker 201 Wood Carver 209 Obaku Zen Master 219 Priest 227 Haiku Poet 237 Contemporary Poet 247 Foreword The essays and encounters selected for this volume are concerned chiefly with poetry and Zen. Japanese Zenists have a saying, zenshi ichimi—poetry and Zen are one— something, as essays in the book suggest, I had to discover for myself. Whether commenting on my poetry, as in “Making Poems,” or on the work of Zen poets, I have drawn on ideals and principles centered in my experience of Zen. Therefore, I hope the reader will find it possible to tolerate repetitions, and accept, for the most part, the es¬ says as autonomous. When being interviewed about my own work over the years, I often found myself able to speak more directly and concisely about the things which most concern me. Thus, when in Japan for the fourth time, and able to meet with eminent Zenists, I chose to record those encounters, albeit in a most impressionistic way. While the essays included in this book are self-explanatory, the encounters may be less so. Since they mean so much to me, and to this col¬ lection, I should like, in the introduction which follows, to speak of the reason for them and the manner in which they were experienced. Introduction I sit at a window overlooking snow-heavy pines in DeKalb, Illinois. Juncos, sparrows, bluejays dart to and from the bird-feeder on this bitterly cold day, a new year begun. It seems only yesterday I sailed to Japan for the fourth time. Before boarding the freighter in Seattle, I visited the Art Museum’s superb collection of Oriental art. Two Chinese works of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) were particularly impressive: a supremely delicate scroll of flowering plum by Yang Hui, and an anonymous piece which seemed almost prophetic, a nearly life-size representation in polychromed wood called “Monk at Moment of Enlightenment.” Overwhelmed, I thought of the Japa¬ nese master Daito’s awakening poem, written in the same period: At last I’ve broken Unmon’s barrier! There’s exit everywhere—east, west; north, south. In at morning, out at evening; neither host nor guest. My every step stirs up a little breeze. Often when translating Zen poems, I had touched such an ex¬ perience; yet, though poems of enlightenment like Daito’s gave its essence, this work shuddered with release. I stood before the figure for some time, then grasped the source of my fascination: the monk’s face was familiar, that of a Zen priest in the mountains near Niigata, the first enlightened Zenist I had met, so many years before. 2 Encounter With Zen Now I was going back to question how life and art of such men are affected by the philosophy, the quest intriguing. Since having tried, as they, to shape my life and poetry according to Zen principles, having translated and commented on some of its great literature, I sometimes wondered whether insights gained might be substantiated through encounters with serious practitioners, whether Zen’s truth still lived. To know seemed necessary. My plan to collaborate once again with Professor Takashi Ikemoto of Japan, who had taken part in earlier encounters, was not to be, for I found him too ill to contem¬ plate such work. Hiroshi Takaoka, once my student in Niigata, help¬ ed arrange most of the meetings. I am always indebted to these good friends. I would have liked to meet with more Zenists, had it been pos¬ sible to convince them that they were worthy of being heard. Among those who would have proved to be fine subjects was Hachiro, a waste collector and very happy man, who once told me: As a child I played in temple gardens—thought, why, here’s the life! I watched disciples at their daily tasks, scrubbing, raking, steaming rice pots, chanting and, especially, just sitting! Here’s the life for me, I thought. Only when it came to it, 1 found you have to learn all sorts of things, study hard. That’s not for me, I thought, remembering how last time I saw the inside of a schoolroom, the teacher, foaming at the mouth, chased me out the door and down the path. They tried to make me go back in—I never did. Since then I’ve collected ‘honey’ in my wagon. The farmers pay well for it! Still, the life of those Zenists appeals to me. I learned some of the poems, like all children—they’re so brief and clear and helpful. I make my own zendo in my head! Take it everywhere with me. For awhile I lived like a traveling monk, begging a bowl here and there. Some may consider my collecting of dung a common task—to me it’s noble. What could be closer to the essence of things? Why, I forewarn of a sickness before the first symptoms hit them, and imagine—what the world reviles as waste, I put to work, to grow, marveling at the rebirth as I push my cart by all the fertile fields each day. It hum¬ bles me to know I have a hand in it! Zen? I’m a Zenist, yes, but that’s all I can tell you. My hope on setting out was to talk with others like Hachiro— fishermen, farmers, factory workers, Zen nuns—but it was impossible to get them to describe their feelings. Thus, I had to turn for the most part to Zen masters, artists, craftsmen, and poets, willing, or near will- Introduction 3 ing, to articulate. If, therefore, my selection seems limited, the talk, I feel, is not. Once underway, my subjects spoke frankly, often with great warmth. Zenists value mondo (exchanges) and other forms of discussion highly; there are numerous Zen anecdotes based on dia¬ logue of great sophistication, some which read quite like poems. The following are sharp examples. When Ninagawa-Shinzaemon, linked-verse poet and Zen de¬ votee, heard that Ikkyu (1394-1481), abbot of the famous Daito- kuji in Murasakino (violet field) of Kyoto, was a remarkable master, he desired to become his disciple.