Lines from Kyoto: Recent Episodes
Preston Keido Houser
This is my final “Lines from Kyoto” podcast—one poem a week for a year, 52 in total. Volumes of my villanelles available via Amazon.com. Thanks for listening. Bows and blessings, Preston Keido Houser
When common sense and decency fail, writers sometimes resort to satire in order to point to a higher morality.
Photo: Guardian spirit (nio) of a Buddhist temple, one of a pair, a manifestation of the bodhisattva Vajrapani.
“Lest human voices wake us, and we drown”—stolen from T. S. Eliot, the last line of the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
Photo: Make Shrine, Sonobe, Kyoto.
“He’ll [Kent] shape his old course in a country new”—King Lear, 1.1.190.
Photo: “Suminoe no Niwa,” Fukusumi, Kyoto Prefecture.
Mt. Koya, located in Wakayama Prefecture, is headquarters of the Shingon Buddhist sect. Founded in 819 by the monk Kukai (aka Kobo Daishi), Koyasan was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.
Okunoin is a large cemetery (the largest in Japan) atop Mt. Koya. The mausoleum of Kukai is situated here, as well as the Tokugawa Family Tomb.
Photo: Okunoin, Koyasan
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Keep your community beautiful. Wear your mask!
Photo: shakuhachi-playing jizo at Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple, Kyoto.
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“Sages don’t reveal the Way because they keep it secret, but because it can’t be revealed. Thus their words are like footsteps that leave no tracks”—Ch’eng Chu.
Sutra: originally a “string or thread.”
Photo: the pagoda at Toji Temple, Kyoto.
Lots of Shakespeare echoes—Macbeth and Lear.
Hic et ubique: “Here and everywhere” (Hamlet 1.5).
According to Hindu mythology, apsaras are female flying cloud and water spirits.
“When now I think you can behold such sights”—Macbeth (3.4.113), referring to the ghost of Banquo.
“…false compare”—cf. William Shakespeare, sonnet 130.
“There‘a a special providence in the fall of a sparrow”—Hamlet (5.2.220). Shakespeare is referring to Matthew, chapter 10:29.
dharani: a Buddhist chant based on sound rather than scripture.
“So great a day as this is cheaply bought”—Macbeth (5.8.37).
“The Blessed Lord said: All the great warriors-Drona, Bhisma, Jayadratha, Karna-have already been killed by me. Simply fight, and you will vanquish your enemies.”—Bhagavad Gita 11.34.
Avarice ignorance anger—the “three poisons” that condemn sentient beings to cycles of rebirth.
Photo: a stupa on the grounds of Sanjusangendo, Kyoto.
29. “For the world is a sacred object. Nothing is to be done to it. To do anything to it is to damage it. To seize it is to lose it.” (Tao Te Ching, English version by Ursula Le Guin, 1998).
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In Japanese mythology, all souls must cross the Sanzu River in order to reach the afterlife.
“There is a Chinese proverb that if the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way”—Alan Watts.
(Photo: Kyoto Imperial Palace)
“The organizing principle of any society…is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers.” (JFK. Dir. Oliver Stone, 1991)
Thanatos, the Greek spirit (daimon) of death.
“Thanatocracy”: a society constructed on the capitalization of death.
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“The Tao moves the other way / the Tao works through weakness / the things of this world come from something / something comes from nothing.”
(Taoteching, trans: Red Pine, 2009)
en hommage a Lew Welch (1926-71?).
Poet Lew Welch (along with Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder) attended Reed College in Oregon. In 1971, he walked into the foothills of the California Sierra Nevada, never to be seen again. His collected poems is entitled “Ring of Bone,” where “ring is what a bell does.”
“Suchness” (Tathata), in contrast to “emptiness” (sunyata).
Photo: Lew Welch
2020 was the year of COVID-19. In 2021, vaccinations notwithstanding, the virus continues cripple the planet. Contrary to popular sentiment, we are not “all in this together”; the inevitable avarice and financial manipulations persist. Indeed, the accompanying evils and the prioritizing of profit over people appear to have worsened.
“Sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child”—so says King Lear at the start of his madness (1.4.198).
Photo: Anthony Hopkins and Florence Pugh as King Lear and Cordelia (2018).
The Buddha known as Amitabha or Amida, is the principle figure in Pure Land Buddhism and is considered a source of “boundless light.” Of course, the Pure Land (like the kingdom of heaven) is located within us and each individual is an example of infinite light.
Hamlet claims that “conscience makes cowards of us all” (3.1.83).
William Blake wrote that “energy is eternal delight” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).
Photo: Toji Temple, Kyoto.
“Hark!” Cretins, trolls, goblins, ogres—corporate components necessary to sustain rapacious growth, accessories after the fact.
The Greek word for sin is “hamartano” which means to miss the mark or to miss the point.
Photo taken at a construction site in, of all places, Hiroshima.
The impossible is limited to existence, predictions, and “natural law,” whereas in art everything is possible. In zen, Mind, with its unlimited capacity for conception, contains all solutions to alleviate, as well as create, suffering. Hence, the perceived creation anxiety of artist, media, and art (fisher, gourd, catfish).
satkayadristi: “separateness, a mistaken belief in the individual as distinct from the whole.”
Photo: “The Gourd and the Catfish” by Josetsu (c.1413)
“The bell is still yet the sound resonates in silence.”
Food, land, music, information—to engage with these elements requires a passage through delusions, an experience best managed with cautious respect.
Kannon, or Avalokiteshvara, is the bodhisattva of mercy who hears the cries of all sentient beings.
Hylozoism pervades the resurrection game / Suppressing the persistent glare of despair / Atman claims there’s no title to claim / “I call myself Self and no other name.”
Hylozoism: the belief that all matter is alive; Atman: Soul or Spirit, synonymous with breath.
One year ago my mother died. Writing, as is commonly known, is a way to explore, comprehend, manage, and accept grief.
In the first poem I use the word remains as both noun and verb in order to clarify and transcend the ambiguity of death.
The image is an enso circle that symbolizes universal unification.
In memory of my mother (1925-2020).
Zen practitioners eventually come to question the purpose of their practice and most conclude that zazen is pointless which does not seem to curtail their time on the zafu; paradoxically, purposeless or empty practice tends to deepen samadhi.
Harmic, charmic, disarmic—as for the silliness of the verse, I do not desire to exclude humor from poetry. Word play is an integral and a joyfully unavoidable aspect of literature.
Photo taken on the grounds of the Kameyama Castle ruins.
Protest is an active component in the artist-activist-religious paradigm. I deliberately avoid naming specific names, places, events as I consider they distract from the deeper patterns of political TPO (time-place-occasion). Readers can, I presume, supply relevant identification information that applies to individual communities and circumstances. Some references will be obvious, others perhaps not. Rather than name calling or assigning blame, I would prefer to offer a deeper view that reinforces an artistic-activist-religious perspective.
“Too much management” refers to the Epilogue to Henry V by William Shakespeare.
Photo: the Nio (“two kings”) or Kongorikishi are guardian deities stationed at the entrance gate of a Buddhist temple. Pilgrims demonstrate spiritual determination and courage by successfully passing by them.
The mind-body dualism has pestered western thought for centuries, whereas eastern philosophers consider mind/body as a singular, indivisible organism.
“Retiring to the forest” refers to the third stage of Hindu life, vanaprastha, “one who gives up worldly life, a forest dweller.”
“Tears of rage” is a literary nod to Bob Dylan.
Photo: Looking south from the north shore of Lake Biwa.
en hommage a George Harrison (1943-2001).
George Harrison has remained a constant source of inspiration. “Within You Without You,” “The Inner Light,” “My Sweet Lord”—songs that continue to touch the heart. I have lifted a couple lines from Harrison’s masterpiece “All Things Must Pass” (which is 50 years old this year).
Hari Krishna.
These days there is a lot of talk in spiritual circles about “mindfulness.” While fundamentally sound as a component of compassion, mindfulness tends to be more about behavior modification rather than enlightenment. By contrast, the Taoist notion of “mindlessness” (wu-wei) suggests that cognition itself can be an obstacle to true understanding. Using the model care/careful/careless/carefree, I offer the adjective “mindfree” as an alternative gesture of non-attachment.
The “gateless gate” (as a complement to a “pathless path”) refers to a 13th century collection of zen koans, The Mumonkan.
Photo: the east gate of Sanjusangendo, Kyoto, at sundown.
2021 is the year of the ox. A well known sequence of images that track meditational development, the Ten Ox Herding Pictures date from at least the twelve century, if not earlier. Given that consciousness cannot be the object of conscious concentration, the aka “Ten Bulls,” (along with the “Six Persimmons” by Muqi Fachang), is probably the next best representation. The visual sequence concludes with a circle (enso) that symbolizes spiritual apotheosis.
In spite of the suffering, or perhaps because of it, existence is sacred. Nevertheless, reincarnation should be avoided; liberation from the cycle of samsara is preferable. In this poem I use the word reincarnation to refer to the desire to return to a pre-pandemic “normalcy” which is not only impossible but undesirable. The nefarious among us will suffer reincarnation. May the rest experience liberation.
This is a villanelle from my first collection, Twenty Villanelles. I wrote this last year at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was thinking of the difficulties that young people will face in their future. The Way and Power refers to the Tao De Ching. The “pattern” refers to the yin-yang and manji symbols.