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.

imgp8579.jpg

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.

"Master Ikkyu advised Zen students that before undertaking the intellectual study of Buddhist texts, they should first learn to read the love letters sent by the snow, the wind and the rain."

 

from EASY-TO-USE ZEN, Refresh and calm your mind, body and spirit with the wisdom of Zen, David Scott, Vega Limited, London, 2002, p 66

Muddy Road

"To understand this clearly one has to have just one eye.
Controlled or not controlled?
The same dice shows two faces.
 
Not controlled or controlled,
Both are a grevious error."
 
from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, compiled by Paul Reps, Shambhalla, Boston & London, 1994, p 169

I am listening to Istanbul by Orhan Veli

One Bows
rockcriesleaftears.jpg

pool2govsgarden.jpg

"How delightful it would be to converse intimately
with someone of the same mind,
sharing with him the pleasures
of uninhibited conversation on the amusing
and foolish things of this world,
but such friends are hard to find."
-- Kenko
Essays in Idleness