A friend once described Ikkyu as “a little bit racy.” My response to her was that life is a little bit racy; the point being that this 15th century Japanese Zen master and poet exemplifies the life of moment-to-moment awakening in all of its wildly naked, touching, sad and joyful rawness. If we blush a bit, as did his contemporaries, then that is our “problem”, not Ikkyu’s. His wonderful, lived example of “crazy wisdom” has provided solace and inspiration for me and countless others and reaches out over the centuries to continue to invite us to “lock eyebrows” with not only him, but with the very guts of being truly alive right where we are.
What is included here are a number of selections from the translations of John Stevens’ “Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu (White Pine Press, 2003) and Stephen Berg’s “Crow With No Mouth” (Copper Canyon Press, 1989). I first thought of adding some brief comments of my own, but it is always a dangerous venture to try and add to something that stands alone and complete by itself; sometimes referred to as putting another head on top of the one you already have! Mostly I just want to share with you this wonderful teacher who saw literally every single event in daily life as a true dharma gate to complete freedom and full and vibrant life and challengingly invites us all to enter fully into our own life with the same daring and vigor. He speaks to the entire human condition; the broken hearted lover, the hungry child, the lonely wife, the defeated and desperate husband, the “accomplished one” who suddenly finds him or herself face down in the muck of failure wondering how or even if he should get up again. He speaks also to those moments when we know completely that Life makes no mistakes, when we find ourselves perfectly complete changing diapers, watching squirrels run across snow or seeing the old man on the corner lighting his cigarette. Ikkyu represents life lived with absolutely nothing held back.
The selections here do not include Ikkyu’s more “racy” endeavors. For those of you who are more than a little adventuresome, you can consult Stevens and Berg. In any case, I hope you enjoy this little taste of a truly great awakened being and draw inspiration from his complete commitment to the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows of our everyday life as human beings.
Translations by John Stevens:
One short pause between
The leaky-road here and
The never-leaking Way there:
If it rains, let it rain!
If it storms, let it storm!
–
Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
And rain, the snow and moon.
–
Studying texts and stiff meditation can make
You lose our Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be
An invaluable treasure.
–
Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in
And out of clouds;
Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs
Night after night.
–
My real dwelling
Has no pillars
And no roof either
So rain cannot soak it
And wind cannot blow it down!
–
Coming alone,
Departing alone,
Both are delusion:
Let me teach you how
Not to come, not to go!
–
I’d like to
Offer something
To help you
But in the Zen School
We don’t have a single thing!
–
The world before my eyes is wan and wasted,
Just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the
Grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.
–
Typhoons and floods make everyone suffer
And tonight there will be no singing and
Dancing.
The Dharma flourishes and decays, ages come
And go:
So right yet so sad---the bright moon sets
Behind the Western Pavilion.
–
Lots of arms, just like Kannon the Goddess;
Sacrificed for me, garnished with citron, I
Revere it so!
The taste of the sea, just divine!
Sorry, Buddha, this is another precept I just
Cannot keep.
–
A wonder autumn night, fresh and bright;
Over the echo of music and drums from a
Distant village
The single clear tone of a shakuhachi brings a
Flood of tears—
Startling me from a deep, melancholy dream.
Versions by Stephen Berg:
If there’s nowhere to rest at the end
How can I get lost on the way?
–
Nobody told the flowers to come up nobody
Will ask them to leave when spring’s gone
–
I won’t die I won’t go away I’ll always be here
No good asking me I won’t speak
–
I’m in it everywhere.
What a miracle trees lakes clouds even dust
–
My mind can’t answer when you call
If it did I’d be stealing your life from you
–
Pleasure pain are equal in a clear heart
No mountain hides the moon
–
I try to be a good man but all that comes
Of trying is I feel more guilty
–
Don’t worry please please how many times do I have to say it
There’s no way not to be who you are and where.
–
It’s logical: if you’re not going anywhere
Any road is the right one
–
Suddenly nothing but grief
So I put on my father’s old ripped raincoat
–
I’m up here in the hills starving myself
But I’ll come down for you
–
It takes horseshit to grow bamboo
And it too longs forever weeps begs to the wind
–
Something in us always wants to cry out
Someone we love knows she hears
–
Watching my four-year-old daughter dance
I can’t break free of her
–
I think of your death I think of our touching
My head quiet in your lap
–
This hungry monk chanting by lamplight is Buddha
And he still thinks of you
–
Nobody understands why we do what we do
This cup of sake does
–
Age eighty weak
I shit and offer it to Buddha
–
This donkey stumbles blind over stones into walls, ditches
No words for grief or joy no words for his ruined heart
–
No words sitting alone night in my hut eyes closed hands open
Wisps of an unknown face
–
Rain drips from the roof lip
Loneliness sounds like that
–
No masters only you the master is you.
Wonderful, no?
–
Only one koan matters
You