Meditations: Kenko and Dillard by Linda Munson Peth
Poets have
long sought to capture the beauty of nature with the power of words. They seek to convey the essence of experience with
the exhilaration of wonder.
Sometimes
it is easy to see the similarity between the ideas of two poets. In "Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas, the poet expresses
the unique joy of his boyhood excursions outdoors: "And honored among foxes and pheasants by the gay house/ Under the
new made clouds and happy as the heart was long".
Gerard
Manley Hopkins writes of nature's rapturous beauty in "Hurrahing In Harvest". He writes: "Summer ends now; now barbarous
in beauty, the stooks rise/ Around; up above, what wind-walks! What lovely behavior of silk-sack clouds!"
Both poets
exclaim an individual appreciation for the creation. In other cases, the similarity of depth and marvel between two writers
takes more careful study.
Such is
the case of two writers who lived more than six centuries apart in time. One lived on the isolated island
of Japan, and the other in the busy twentieth century. One was a
Buddhist monk and one was a Christian. Yet, both enjoyed escape from their temporal world by means of their wanderings
in and contemplation of nature in rustic settings, and both sought understanding of the Divine in those surroundings.
They write
from different places in time and culture but are equally successful in finding the real and the beautiful.
They gain
access to the mystery of creation by mediation and reflection.
2.
How does one reconcile such seemingly disparate elements as Zen
Buddhism in Kenko's essays and the Christianity of Annie Dillard?
Kenko came from a culture where uncertainty was an admired feature
in life and literature. Restraint in word and emotion as well as the use of irregular form was the standard. Impermanance
was celebrated as the best explanation of life. Zen, that wordless moment of complete understanding and insight was the
ideal that permeated Kenko's writing.
Annie Dillard studied religion but her heart settled, finally, in
Christianity. She, from the Western culture, celebrated the concept of eternal truth, a knowable thing, the everlasting,
balance and symmetry, and the belief in a personal God.
How could these two embrace?
3.
The short
forms tanka and haiku are dominant forms in Japanese poetry.
Beginning
students of haiku are told that two seemingly unlike elements can be illuminated and joined in thought by the addition
of a third element acting as a link between them.
The third
element between Kenko and Dillard is meditation acting as catalyst, so that they both see the mystical illumination of
the Divine in nature.
4.
The Zen
practitioner spends time in solitude.
The moment
of Zen, that flash of cosmic fire, occurs when the mind understands truth which cannot really be understood by explanation
with words. It is like "seeing" for the first time.
Annie Dillard
writes about people who literally see for the first time after having corrective eye surgery. She is fascinated by the
concept of abrupt vision after having lived life through other senses than sight. Trying to understand how these people felt
after reading about their impressions, she recreates this experience in her imagination.
She gazes
at trees and grass and wills herself to see only blotches of color as they did. She practices seeing as a newborn might. She
has the sense of success when she is able to stand on the grass and describe it as "grass that is wholly fire".
Her descriptions
arising from this experience exceeds what she has previously experienced and add to her inner awareness. These mediations
add to her pool of the understanding of all life.
5.
The physics
of the universe testifies to the "connectedness" of all things:
"Then in 1915, Einstein completes the general Theory
of Relativity...What we feel as the 'force' of gravity is simply the sensation of following the shortest path we can through
curved four-dimensional space-time.
It is a
radical vision: ...space and time, matter and energy are, as Einstein proves, locked together in the most intimate embrace."
6.
Kenko
also finds the raw material in nature that evokes his poetic response. He places fragments of poetry in his essays. Wandering
at night, he observes cherry blossoms under the moonlight or, perhaps, the moon obscured by clouds.
When
he notices branches about to blossom he reflects that "It is the beginnings and ends that are interesting. Does love between
men and women refer only to the moments they are in each other's arms?" He asks this after contemplating the moon hidden
by clouds or seen through the tops of cedars in the mountains. His journey takes him to an outlying village and past
it to a secluded hut.
He
writes in Essay 11:
Not
a sound can be heard except for the dripping of a water pipe buried in fallen leaves. Sprays of chrysthanthemum and red maple
leaves have been carelessly arranged on the holy water shelf...Moved, I was thinking, One can live in such a place."
7.
Surely,
Kenko must have meant live in the deepest and most meaningful sense of the word.
8.
Both Kenko
and Dillard appreciate the continuing cycles of the natural world, although in Kenko's world the uncertain and unexpected
are celebrated. He also knows that the natural creation and the seasons express continual rebirth, a certainty.
Kenko knows
that the cherry blossoms that fade will appear again in the newness of the next spring. Though he may not be able to
see the moon this month, he knows that in the next month a new moon will be reborn.
The seasons
turn like Annie Dillard's prayer wheel. She writes about the solar system turning as a merry-go-round spins. In this universal
wheel, each rotation in time and space is a prayer rendered by the creation to the divine nature of things. Each
is as a pearl on a string of prayer beads or rosary. As hand passes from one bead to another, the echoed refrain of prayer
is heard with more than just the literal ears.
9.
The basic
form of haiku asks for a seasonal reference, and we find that Kenko gives us festivals, cherry-blossom-springs, the moon when
it waxes and wanes, and the chrysanthemums of autumn.
He gives
us the hymn of the moss covered path, while Dillard records the cycles of seasons in and around Tinker Creek. She ponders
that big turning sky and the time-keeping constellations.
10.
Inevitably,
both poets see that death awaits all creatures in the pool of life.
In each
variety of creation, Dillard sees the beautiful and poetic. She also sees that symbiotic relationships perpetuate the eternal
cycle of life but that death occurs even in the act of creating life.
That is
a part of Tinker Creek too.
11.
Kenko writes
in his essays: “If you pierce a tiny aperture in a large vessel filled with water, even though only a small amount
drips out, this constant leakage will empty the vessel...surely a day never passes without someone dying.”
12.
These meditations
and reflections by Kenko and Dillard enable man and woman to draw from Nature's lessons. They are living proverbs, kept
in reserve for all of us, so that we may draw from the reservoir of mystery around us.
These two
mine the gold of stardust, sifting for the golden illumination, the lightning flash that ignites intellectual fires. They
pass to us these fragments of knowledge, these sacred pieces of parchment preserved in a cavernous ocean of knowing, lovingly
pieced together like quilt squares, like a comforter to warm us in our cold and alone moments.
Whether
by an instant of insight or by long hours of study or mediation, both bring us their offerings of discovery.
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