The Poet's Dreamingbody: Recent Episodes
Poetry, Nature, Heart-Mind
A 'dreaming-while-awake' journey exploring poetry, deeper reality, the inner life, Nature connection, contemplative practice, and some of the "practice-hints" offered to us by Wayfaring poets of old.
www.thepoetsdreamingbody.com
One of the most compelling figures in the Japanese branch of the Wayfaring lineage, Baisaō - “The Old Tea Seller” - is significant for his unique expression of “going his own way,” in the spiritual sense, but also his role as an innovator in the practice of Tea as a way-within-the-Way. Add to this his love of Nature, his embodiment of the Wayfaring life principle of simplicity, and the precision of his flowing brush in the realms of poetry and prose, and it made him a much beloved “rascal” to numerous artists, tea practitioners, and Zen-minded folk in 18th-century Kyoto.
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in memory of the beloved Wayfarer Timothy Duncan McCallum (1965-2023)
Greetings Good Travelers and Wayfarers,
I hope this note, posted in between Wayfaring Poet Profiles, finds you well and that your spirit is vital in these uncertain, perplexing, sweltering, and increasingly unhinged times.
On this end, I have had a very busy month but I did manage to squeeze in a few days away with family spent at higher elevations. In all honesty, I wish we could have stayed longer but even small sips from the Great Source of Nature can carry a Wayfarer’s soul for a while.
It is this topic of “sipping from the Great Source of Nature” that I want to briefly discuss. I want to discuss it in the context of being an exceedingly important antidote for the times we are living through, thus, a practice, and not just a fleeting pastime.
I’ve had many conversations over the last few months with people who’ve reported that they are struggling with feelings of being overwhelmed. Phrases I’ve heard include: “I’m burned out,” “I feel weighted down,” “I feel disconnected from something vital,” “I’ve lost my inspiration for my art,” “I have no energy,” “I’m beside myself,” “I need renewal.”
For some of these good “Travelers” (a term my late teacher used for anyone who is attempting to tend their inner life), the source of these sentiments is varied, ranging from internal shifts and experiences of an initiatory nature to the impact of personal losses and tragedies (grief).
Some are traversing the territory mentioned in the often quoted Dante line: Midway along the journey of life, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. Translation: The experiences of midlife, what Jungian author James Hollis calls “The Middle Passage.” What often gets left out when citing this quote is the end of the phrase: …But if I would show the good that came of it, I must talk about things other than the good. And, so, alongside the topic of “sipping from the Great Source of Nature,” I want to talk about the ‘other than good’ — though I also hold the view that some of our challenges can ultimately be good because they lead us to where we need to be.
In many of the instances previously mentioned — namely, people experiencing overwhelm — there has also been an additional dimension that people are reporting as a contributing factor and this is a general exhaustion of the soul from the conditions of modernity.
Some of these feelings stem from what has been called “eco-anxiety,” which the American Psychological Association defines as: “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of the next generation.” This is a phenomenon you won’t find in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition), but it is being reported more and more to therapists, chaplains, and spiritual companions around the world.
For others, it’s a combination of other factors: feeling spread thin from a high-velocity lifestyle, fear and unease generated from the media spin and barrage of bad news of the day, and — in addition to the climate of the planet — the current climate of culture, politics, and society. It can lead to intrapsychic conditions colored by feelings of futility, irritability, and some of the other symptoms mentioned above.
Drawing upon an ancient concept of the Wayfaring poets, I have begun to call this Red Dust Syndrome.
THE CONCEPT OF THE RED DUST
The term “red dust” comes down to us from early Tao (Dao)-oriented Wayfaring poets from thousands of years ago in China — tao/dao being a word that translates as “Way or Path” but which is nothing less than an ecologically-oriented ontology, a participatory spiritual cosmology.
The early Wayfarers used this imagery of the red dust to refer to the noisy, bustling life of worldly strife of the city and the many delusions and capacities for senseless destruction contained therein. In my path and way of seeing, I think of this as an “energy-residue” — a palpable psychospiritual state of strain brought on by overexposure to such conditions.
In contrast, the primal (meaning original) Wayfarers were classically drawn to the quiet, the slow, the peaceful, the natural, the rural, the realm of cultivated gardens, and the wilderness of forests and mountains. They were always contemplating the inner-pattern of life and gauging whether they were living in true accord with it. They were always attempting to cultivate a sense of harmony with self, other, Nature, Cosmos. Being deeply influenced by this Tao (Dao) concept / cosmology / experience, the same calling, or orientation of consciousness, led Wayfarers in Korea and Japan to seek out their own mountains, forests, tea houses, and gardens of contemplation as well. Intuitively, the loose confederation of scholar-warriors, artist-philosophers, mountain priests, and cloud-wandering poets that make up the Wayfaring lineage knew that Nature is the ultimate antidote to the consciousness-fracturing dis-ease of any time.
In our own case, we’re talking about the here and now, of course; our own conditions of strife and strain that are unique to our modern age, our particular culture(s). But there were sources of strife and strain in earlier ages, and in the case of the early Wayfarers, who took up this path of Nature-seeking and Nature-connecting in ancient days, it goes back even earlier than the year 400 CE (the era of the poet Master of the Five Willows a.k.a. T’ao Yuan-ming) to the Axial Age Daoists (Lao Tzu in the 6th-century BCE).
If we look at the translation of the concept “red dust” from the Chinese language we are given insight into the way of seeing of early Wayfarers. “Red Dust” in Chinese is 红尘, hongchen, and also translates as “the world of mortals.” In contrast, the word for one who “sloughs off the world of red dust” is “immortal” and that is 神仙, shénxiān in Chinese, which combines two characters shén 神 which can translate as “deity” / “soul” / “spirit” (and which is the same character used in Japanese for kami, by the way) + xiān 仙 which combines the radicals for ‘person’ and ‘mountain’, which — depending upon who you talk to — has numerous translations as well including “wizard”, “mountain man” (or mountain woman), or “hermit” (a person who enjoins with a mountain).
In effect, a shénxiān (or sen in Japanese) is one who sidesteps or minimizes participation in the red dust world (again, characterized by frenetic greed, materialism, extravagant, boisterous pleasure-seeking, frivolous mind-numbing “entertainment,” and the like) and, instead, is a person who enters the mountains for purposes of communing with the spirits of Nature, Tao/Dao, or the gods. Eventually, in classic Chinese culture, such a person ended up becoming viewed by others as a god-like immortal. This, of course, is not unique to Chinese culture.
Isho (that’s Jesus of Nazareth’s name in his native Aramaic) is known to have headed into the mountains at various times — such as the Mount of Olives above the Garden of Gethsemane and Jebel Quruntul above the town of Jericho — to fast, meditate, pray, and commune with God (Great Source). Moses did the same on Mount Sinai. The prophet Muhammad traveled up to Jabal al-Nour, the Mountain of the Light, in present-day Saudi Arabia, and — just like Daruma, or Bodhidharma of the Ch’an and Zen tradition — installed himself in a cave (a cave called Hira, where it is said he received his first revelations).
In the Taoist and Ch’an traditions of China, which eventually became Zen in Japan and the West, mountains have always been considered teachers in and of themselves. Even the process of ascending and descending a mountain is considered a teacher to a group of ascetic mountain priests (and priestesses) in Japan called the yamabushi (a name that means ‘one who bows down to the mountain.’). These brothers and sisters in the traditions of Shugendō-at-large, such as Yamabushidō, consider Nature the greatest teacher, healer, and restorer of harmony there is. Similarly, in indigenous traditions all over the world, and some expressions of European earth-centered spirituality such as Druid spirituality, there are people who actively commune with Nature for spiritual purposes e.g. “going on the hill,” so to speak, to “cry for a vision” — what is known as hanbleceyapi in the Lakota language.
So, going into Nature to allow the “red dust” of the world to be washed off for a time is a near-universal human practice. Intuitively, there’s just something within us that knows that Great Nature can purify us and re-set us. We even encounter such sentiments in what may be a surprising source to some — C.G. Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, and innovator in the realm of depth psychology. Psychologist Meredith Sabini tells us in her book The Earth Has A Soul: C.G. Jung on Nature, Technology, and Modern Life:
The practical advice Jung gave for remedying the loss of contact with Nature, within and without, is not much different from what is widely available today: to live in small communities; to work a shorter day and week; to have a plot of land to cultivate so the instincts come back to life; and to make the sparest use of radio, television, newspapers, and technological gadgetry. The purpose of doing these things, however, is not to repair Nature, but rather to let Nature affect us. The reversal of the common attitude of domination makes Jung’s contribution unique. Time, money, and energy are now dedicated to repairing the damage done to Nature. However, a balanced interaction between human nature and Nature requires that we also invite — allow — Nature to heal us.
Quoting Jung directly, we see that he shared the same sentiments as the Wayfarers:
“People got dirty through too much civilization.
Whenever we touch Nature, we get clean.”
C.G. Jung
This is something that Wayfarers have always known and we can see it in many of their poems.
In a poem entitled “Autumn Moon” by Song Dynasty poet Chéng Hào (1032-1085), we hear:
…with the red dust kept thirty miles away,
the white clouds and red leaves float leisurely.
Now, at first reading of this, we might be tempted to think he is only talking about clouds and leaves, but this would only be partially correct. He’s also talking about the quality of his own heart-mind and soul in relationship to landscape by stepping away from the world of red dust.
Sesson Yūbai (1290-1347) was a Japanese Zen man who was both a priest and a poet. He started off studying with a Chinese Ch’an monk named Yishan Yining (1247-1317) who had moved to Japan. Inspired by Yishan’s example and stories, Yūbai left Japan and spent twenty-three years in China studying calligraphy, painting, poetry, and Ch’an meditation. One of his famous poems reads:
thatched hut hidden in clouds
footprints washed clean of red dust
if you ask this monk’s plans for life, there are few
outside the window — flowing waters
beside my pillow — a stack of books
An excerpt from another red dust poem comes to us from the infamous 9th-century mountain hermit Hanshan (Cold Mountain) via the translation work of Kazuaki Tanahashi and Eihei Peter Levitt from their wonderful book, The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan:
I’ve wandered thousands of miles —
from rivers that merge with the grasslands
to the frontier where red dust appears…
…Today I return to Cold Mountain,
where the stream is my pillow,
cleansing my ears.
Another excerpt comes from a Red Pine translation of Hanshan (from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain) and it expresses a similar sentiment:
I left the world of red dust behind
All I do now is wander and read.
In addition to an obvious deep affection for good books, we see in the lives of the Wayfarers this theme of drawing close to Nature to wash off the accumulated residue of the world over and over again — even when the specific concept of the red dust isn’t overtly invoked.
Now, I imagine most listeners and readers of The Poet’s Dreamingbody are the kind of people who “see through the red dust” of our current age; we aren’t swept up by delusional conspiracy theories or the glimmer and glamor of the modern cult of frenzied materialism or celebrity and fame-seeking. Yet, we can still get the red dust on us and almost none of us can leave the red dust world behind in any permanent sense. It’s certainly always an option, of course, but, realistically, if we were to attempt to be like the ancient recluses or the dozens of modern-day hermits who live up in the Zhongnan Mountains of China today (documented in Bill Porter’s book, Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits) — it’s a one-way trip…and a hard life awaits.
Quote for Contemplation:
The small hermit lives on a mountain.
The great hermit lives in town.
- ancient Chinese saying -
So, technically, most of us will be more like those Wayfarers of old who were what we might call “Red Dusters” — folks that lived down in the town, in the trenches and mire, the churn and burn and goings-on of life in the lowlands and cities; and, if this is our chosen lot (for all the very good reasons there may be), naturally, we are going to accumulate some “red dust” on our feet, our shoulders, our eyelids, our lips, in our ears, and the crowns of our heads.
A brief sidenote: Don’t take me literally here in terms of actual red dust (one person has before). But, by all means, take me literally in terms of what is meant here by “red dust”.
When too much of the “red dust world” gets onto us we may not feel we are walking in our truth, even cowering from who we could be. We may feel we are carrying undue weight on our shoulders (some of which may belong to our ancestors and not to us). We may feel that we have lost our connection to the “inner pattern”. We may cease to see the joy in living due to a blinding scurry of gray days and routine. We may say things that don’t actually reflect the true depth of our souls (in an attempt to “off-gas” some of the negativity we have unconsciously taken on). We may cease to hear the beauty of birdsong, late-summer rain, or the precious human speech of those we love who will one day be gone. We may even cease to think clearly in terms of the watercourse way of the path of our life — and some choose to self-medicate themselves into a stupor so as not to have to feel the intensity and weight of the red dust that has settled upon them.
What are we to do, then? How can we practice good “Psychic Hygiene” so that we don’t live our lives perpetually saturated in the energy of the red-dust world? How can our souls and heart-minds thrive and not just survive? Some of the Wayfarers who were fellow “Red Dusters” offer us a formula through the example of their lives.
Meng Hao-jan (689-740) frequently engaged in Nature-connection expeditions, away from city centers, where he could allow his spirit to unfurl. Today, we call this: shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing”) — a poetic term first coined in Japan in the 1980s to refer to the practice of entering and absorbing the forest atmosphere for its verified physical and mental health benefits.
The poet Bai Juyi (a.k.a. Po Chü-i, a.k.a. Haku Rakuten, 772-846), lived down in the town, where he held a series of jobs in public service for decades, but he frequently spent time in meditation gardens and wandered up into the hills outside of town to practice his dao-ch’an-sitting. Likewise, a few times a year he would embark on spiritual retreats at mountain monasteries as a lay practitioner during the warmer months.
Other Wayfarers, such as Grandmother Lotus Moon (Ōtagaki Rengetsu, 1791-1875), a Kyoto urban hermit, poet, painter, and potter, had a small tea house and miniature garden adjacent to her humble home — bringing Nature close at hand so she could “wash off the red dust” as an ongoing practice as a townie.
It should also be noted that in studying the lives of the “Red Dusters” — those city-dwelling and edge-of-city-dwelling Wayfarers, we glean another way they washed their heart-minds clean of the strain and red dust stain of the world and this was through connecting with other Wayfarers, sometimes across great distances — comparing notes, reporting struggles, and sharing poetry through letters, and sometimes in actual meet-ups — hillwalking together, sipping rice wine or saké in the moonlight, and processing their own feelings and experiences of their unfolding paths. We also see evidence of this in the many poems written by Wayfarers memorializing the send-off of another Wayfarer after these meet-ups had occurred i.e. poems about friends parting as they headed back home, back on a journey, and back onto their own solitary path of practice.
We have numerous examples of these path-crossings in the lives of the Wayfarers such as Li Bai (701-762) and Du Fu (712-770), Li Bai (701-762) and Meng Hao-jan (689-907), Bai Juyi (772-846) and Yuan Zhen (779–831), Ryōkan (1758-1831) and the Zen Buddhist nun Teishin (1798-1873), Rengetsu (1791-1875) and various figures like Gankai Ajari (1823-1874) and Hara Tanzan (1819-1892).
It all makes sense. After all, if we accept the cosmological premise of the Wayfaring tradition — that we, too, are the Cosmos, we, too, are Nature…(Cosmos-and-Nature awakening to itself, hearing itself, thinking and feeling itself — as scholar-translator-poet David Hinton puts it)…then we can become washed clean of the red dust of the world by connecting with others who are also active expressions of Cosmos-and-Nature, embodiments of Path, Way, Tao (Dao).
In the words of David Hinton, from his riveting work Awakened Cosmos: The Mind of Classical Chinese Poetry:
It is a majestic and nurturing Cosmos, but also a refugee Cosmos: all change and transformation, each of the ten thousand things in perpetual flight, always on its way somewhere else. The abiding aspiration of spiritual and artistic practice [in ancient China] was to cultivate consciousness as that existence-tissue Cosmos open to itself, awakened to itself…made possible by the individuality of each particular person. This is consciousness in the open, wild and woven into the generative Cosmos: wholesale belonging.
Last year sometime, when I first began The Poet’s Dreamingbody, I had some playful banter with a reader who asked me what I thought the old Wayfarers offer us for our day and age. If I recall correctly, their question was something like: “What’s the point of studying a bunch of old dead poets?” I took this as a call to clarify what I was doing here with the Wayfaring Poet Profiles. As I have sat with this question more deeply over the last year, however, I’ve come to take it as a call to decipher more fully what the Wayfaring tradition offers us in the way of “antidotes” — antidotes to the red dust of the world.
I hope I’ve answered at least a bit of this in this reflection. But, perhaps, in conclusion, I could offer a couple of final thoughts in the form of poems — first, one of mine, and then some thoughts from one of my very favorite Wayfarers.
“Red Dust Ailments and Their Wayfaring Antidotes”
— an ode to the Slow-Culture of the Wayfarers and “Red Dusters”
We speak of the strain of high-velocity living.
Bai Juyi says: Balance it out with sacred idleness.
We discuss the strain of chasing wealth — addictive consumerism.
Stonehouse says: Fill that hole in your soul with enough tea and forest-sitting
and a season of pole beans will be more than enough satisfaction.
We speak of the strain of mental exhaustion — TV, news, foaming-at-the-mouth punditry, scrolling screens, floating world pop culture.
Wang Wei implores: Unplug to connect again to Great Source; within ch’an-rooted stillness, wind through the trees brings the only news we need.
We speak of the clamoring strain of climbing the ladder of fame.
Cold Mountain asks: The self is an illusion…what exactly are you promoting?
We talk of weary heart-mind, beleaguered souls in the red dust world.
Lotus Moon replies: Step away from the world’s turmoil; become one with Spring mist.
And, I’ll close with a compilation of thoughts, stitched together from Grandmother Lotus Moon (Ōtagaki Rengetsu), who — like all of the Wayfaring poets in time before us — offers us one of the thousands of “scent trails” for practice and contemplation.
Take your first steps on the long path of the Way.
Please do not dream your precious lives away.
Walk on to the end.
Reside in a living landscape and the two of you become one.
Feeling reborn, my heart renewed.
Freed from the world of sorrow
by the sight of blossoms at daybreak.
(John Stevens translations, Rengetsu: Life and Poetry of Lotus Moon)
SOUNDWORLD
Robert Rich / Travelers’ Cloth (inspired by David Hinton’s translations of Tu Fu)
© 2023 / Frank Inzan Owen / The Poet’s Dreamingbody
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In this Wayfaring Poet Profile, we explore the life and a few of the verses of Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694). We discuss a range of topics in this episode including haiku poetry, haibun travel writing, the influence of Taoism, Shinto animism, and Zen on his path, the inspiration he drew from certain Wayfarers that preceded him, and some of his unique experiences that hint at the phenomenon of the dreambody — a concept first coined by Jungian-trained consciousness explorer Arnold Mindell.
With gratitude to all of the translators who have brought forth their own unique perspectives and understandings of Bashō.
BOOKS
The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa, edited by Robert Hass
Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings, translated by Sam Hamill
Basho: The Complete Haiku, translated, annotated and introduction by Jane Reichhold
The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa
A Zen Wave: Basho’s Haiku and Zen, by Robert Aitken
The Essential Basho, translated by Sam Hamill
Basho’s Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho, translated by David Landis Barnhill
The Master Haiku Poet: Matsuo Basho, translated with commentary by Makoto Ueda
The Art of Haiku: Its History Through Poems and Paintings, by Stephen Addiss
On Haiku, by Hiroaki Sato
The Essential Chuang Tzu, translated by Sam Hamill and J.P. Seaton
HAIKU: The Last Poetry of Richard Wright, introduction by Julia Wright
Descended From A Travel-Worn Satchel: Haiku and Haibun, by Chris La Tray
SOUNDSCAPES
Emergence / Bushido (Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos and Nori Akagi)
Mesmer / Roy Mattson
Music of the Smoky Rainbow / Roy Mattson
Watching Sunlight Fall Through Crowns of Trees / Lougi Verona
Tactile Ground / Robert Rich
Shingetsu / “Namu Amida Butsu” / Bronwyn Kirkpatrick
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Greetings Good Travelers and Wayfarers.
There are so many Wayfarers of the past that deserve a mention on The Poet’s Dreamingbody, whose paths were undoubtedly oriented to the Wayfaring Life, but who aren’t slotted to become a stand-alone Wayfaring Poet Profile in this first phase of the podcast. One of these is Zeami Motokiyo (世阿弥 元清).
Motokiyo was an innovator of Noh (a classical form of dance-drama-storytelling in Japan — often with distinctive masks — that inspired such Western poets as Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats).
He was a prolific and celebrated playwright who wrote over 50 plays. He was a lay Zen monk, and a scholar-practitioner who cultivated a deep life-embodiment of various aesthetic principles inseparable from most of the Wayfarers such as wabi (rustic, solitary living in nature, remote from society, with full comprehension of the transience of life) and sabi (lean, minimalism, voluntary simplicity).
Another one of these core aesthetic principles that guided Motokiyo’s life is yūgen (幽玄), which sometimes translates as “mysterious”, “deep”, “awe-inspiring”, “non-obvious”, or “grace and subtlety” — a quality that pervades many of the Japanese arts.
If we look at the actual kanji of this term yūgen, we get a bit more insight into the term:(幽 - secluded, confined to a room, deep, profound tranquility, calm; and, 玄 - mysterious). In essence, yūgen could be said to be a state of consciousness or even a practice — one of withdrawing from the mundane world and entering the ineffable.
Yūgen is sometimes said to be ‘that which is felt but cannot be said’. In a sense, this term yūgen points to the ever-present Taoist, Zen, and poetic conundrum:
We have a profound experience — deep, mysterious, awe-inspiring. However, human language and artistic expression fall short of expressing the fullness or totality of the profundity of the experience.
The opening line of the Tao Te Ching (a root text of the Taoist tradition that shaped so much of Zen) even says: “The Tao (Way or Path) that can be expressed is not the Eternal Tao (Way or Path).”
Yet, in the words of the late Sōtō Zen master Dainin Katagiri (1928-1990), “You have to say something.”
So, Zeami Motokiyo is one of these Wayfarers of the past who experienced the profundity of Nature, poetry, artistry, the interconnectedness of humanity, and heart-mind embedded within The Created, and — knowing full well the inherent limitations of expression…expressed nonetheless. Here is but one of his many quotes:
If you’d like to learn more about the life and writings of Zeami Motokiyo, I highly recommend William Scott Wilson’s translation of The Spirit of Noh: A New Translation of the Classic Noh Treatise, the Fushikaden on Shambhala Publications.
To explore the soundworld in the background of this post, visit Roy Mattson’s album MESMER
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In this episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, we explore the iconoclastic Wayfarer Ikkyū Sōjun (1394-1491), a.k.a. “Crazy Cloud”
BOOKS MENTIONED
Zen Radicals, Rebels, and Reformers, by Perle Besserman and Manfred Steger
Zen Masters: A Maverick, a Master of Masters, and a Wandering Poet (Profiles of Ikkyu, Hakuin, Ryokan), by John Stevens
Unraveling Zen’s Red Thread: Ikkyu’s Controversial Way, by Dr. Jon Carter Covell and Abbot Sobin Yamada
Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu, translated by John Stevens
SOUNDSCAPE
The Eagle and the Ocean / Riley Lee
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In this episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, we explore a Wayfarer from early Japan, Kamo no Chōmei (1155-1216), a townsman-turned-Buddhist hermit-poet, who eventually became a mountain recluse. In addition to his own poetry published as Kamo no Chōmei-shu, and two other texts, the Mumyōshō (a treatise on poetry) and Hosshinshū (a collection of tales about wandering holy people and hermits), Chōmei is the author of the famous Hōjōki: Record of a Ten Foot Square Hut.
BOOKS MENTIONED
Hōjōki: Visions of a Torn World, translated by Yosubiko Moriguchi and David Jenkins
Hōjōki: A Hermit’s Hut As Metaphor, translated and annotated by Matthew Stravos
Kenkō and Chōmei: Essays in Idleness and Hōjōki, translated by Meredith McKinney
SOUNDSCAPES
Sacred Mountains, Louigi Verona
Shingetsu, Bronwyn Kirkpatrick
Kitsune, Jarguna and Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos
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In this podcast episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, I explore three Shinto concepts that are at the root of Japanese spirituality and poetry: tama (soul, spiritual presence), kokoro (heart, heart-mind, or translated as “mindful-heart” by scholar Thomas Kasulis, author of Shinto: The Way Home), and kotodama (“word-soul”, “word-spirit”, or the spiritual presence within words) — a term that influences not only the wide array of expressions of Shinto spirituality but also Shingon Buddhism and the formation of the martial art of Aikido.
Additionally, I share a few poems of early Japanese Wayfarers, both known and unknown.
SOUNDSCAPES FOR EPISODE
“Kokoro” / from Tenkawa: Pilgrimage of the Sacred Sound 1 by Hiroki Okano
Forest Yearning / Bronwyn Kirkpatrick
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Greetings Good Travelers and Wayfarers:
In this month’s podcast episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, we explore one of my favorite poets in the Chinese branch of the Wayfaring poet tradition: Shiwu (石屋), or Stonehouse (1272–1352), a Chan (Zen) monk who abandoned the monastic path to embark on over forty years of solitary hermit practice in the mountains of China.
According to the writings of Stonehouse himself, we might not have any of his poems if it weren’t for a group of Chan monks:
Here in the woods, I have lots of free time. When I don’t spend it sleeping, I enjoy composing poems. But with paper and ink so scarce, I haven’t thought about writing them down. Now some Zen monks have asked me to record what I find of interest on this mountain. I have sat here quietly and let my brush fly. Suddenly this volume is full. I close it and send it back down with admonition not to try singing these poems. Only if you sit on them will they do you any good. — Stonehouse, from The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse, translation and commentary by Red Pine
We also wouldn’t have any of Stonehouse’s poems here in the West if it weren’t for the tireless work of Master Red Pine, a prolific translator of Chinese poetry (including The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain), a number of Buddhist sutras including The Diamond Sutra, The Lankavatara Sutra, two Pure Land sutras (in Why Not Paradise: The Pure Land of Amitahba Buddha), and his own translation of the classic Taoist text, the Tao Te Ching. He is also the author of Road To Heaven: Encounter with Chinese Hermits and Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets of the Past under his birth name, Bill Porter.
This podcast episode is dedicated to Red Pine.
If you are interested in diving deeper into the Red Pine translations of Stonehouse (which include voluminous insightful notes on all of the poems, stories, and teachings) look up:
The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a 14th-Century Chinese Hermit, translated by Red Pine
and
The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse, translation and commentary by Red Pine
SOUNDWORLD OF EPISODE
Sherry Finzer / The Beginning / Heart Dance Records
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Greetings Good Travelers and Wayfarers: In this month’s transmission of The Poet’s Dreamingbody Podcast, I explore some of the renowned women Wayfaring poets of China.
Note: Apologies in advance for any mispronunciations of Chinese names. I’m much more accustomed to Japanese. Deep Peace, Frank Inzan Owen (Hidden Mountain)
SOUNDWORLD FOR EPISODE
Ghosts / Peter Phippen / Projekt Records
BOOKS MENTIONED
Jade Mirror: Women Poets of China, edited by Michael Farman, White Pine Press
Yin Mountain: Immortal Poetry of Three Daoist Women Peter Levitt/Rebecca Nie
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In this episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, we explore two Wayfaring poets who span the bridge between two Chinese dynasties - the mid-to-late T’ang and the Song: Chia Tao, sometimes rendered Jia Dao (779-843) and Su Shi (1037-1101) whose Wayfaring art name is rendered as both Tung-p’o and Dongpo (translation: “Eastern Slope”).
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China, edited by Red Pine and Mike O’Connor
Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China, translated by David Hinton
Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Selected Poems of Su Tung-p’o, translated by Burton Watson
SOUND MAP
Lixue Lin-Siedler, Guzheng: Traditional Chinese Music
Robert Rich, Neurogenesis
Roy Mattson, Tone, Timbre & Texture
Bronwyn Kirkpatrick, TSUKI
Forrest Fang, Gongland
Louigi Verona, Evening Chirping Community
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In this episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody podcast, we explore Bai Juyi (772-846 CE), one of the great Wayfaring poets.
SOUND MAP
The Long Night / Steve Roach & Kelly David
Compilation Vi An / Vi An Diep
Melancholy Moon / Roy Mattson
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“Do You Know the Way to Cold Mountain?" — Red Pine
Greetings Good Travelers and Wayfarers:
In this Wayfaring Poet Profile, we’ll be exploring some very different Wayfarers from the others we have looked at thus far. In this episode, we explore Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Shih-te (Pick Up) and Feng-kan (Big Stick) — all mysterious figures in the wider “lineage of Wayfaring Heart-Mind.”
Where the previous seven Wayfaring poets we explored were mostly government officials, associated with the courtly life of ancient China, whose Taoist-Chan meditation practice augmented their lives as artist-intellectuals, here we encounter our first true religious hermits (not just individuals who liked a little solitude now and then, but people who headed up into the wild regions of the world to live and practice).
The Tiantai Trio consists of a lay Buddhist monk (Shih-Te - Pick Up, who worked in a monastery kitchen), a Chan monk (Feng-kan - Big Stick, who was the elder of the three and, apparently, enjoyed riding tigers), and a cave-dwelling “wild man” who was equally a student of Tao and Dharma (Hanshan - Cold Mountain).
The latter is said to have brushed some of his poems on paper and some of his poems on rocks. Actually, he says this himself in one of his poems. Only 300 poems survive of our beloved Cold Mountain. Sometimes — over a cup of organic Lapsang Souchang tea — I sit and ponder what poems may have been “lost” on the cave walls of those Tiantai Mountains.
Then I take a sip and hear Cold Mountain say, “Don’t worry little brother. All poems we don’t catch in our nets travel back down into the simmering dark of the underground spring and wait to be caught on another day.”
Frank Inzan Owen
For a compelling video profile of the poet Cold Mountain, explore the documentary below, which also features poet-translators Red Pine (Bill Porter), Chofu (Gary Snyder), Jim Lenfestey, and Burton Watson:
SOUND MAP OF EPISODE
“Surface: Rainforest Suite 4” / Rainforest / Robert Rich
Guzheng / Lixue Lin-Siedler
BOOKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, translated by Red Pine
The Poetry of Zen, translated and edited by Sam Hamill and J.P. Seaton, Shambhala Publications
The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan, translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt, Shambhala Publications
Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China, translated by David Hinton, New Directions Books
Cold Mountain (a graphic novel), written by Sean Michael Wilson, illustrated by Akiko Shimojima, Shambhala Publications
Also, if Cold Mountain interests you, also look for Jim Lenfestey’s book, Searching For The Cave: A Pilgrimage To Cold Mountain
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In this episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, I address a question about names and naming that have come in, in a few different ways, since the summer — not only about my own Wayfaring name given to me by my late teacher but also about the Wayfaring poets in general; namely, “Why do some poets have different names or more than one name?” Then, we explore the next poet in the Wayfaring Poet Profile Series, Wei Ying-wu (737-791).
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
In Such Hard Times: The Poetry of Wei Ying-wu, Red Pine
Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China, David Hinton
The Complete Cold Mountain Poems, Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt
SOUND MAP FOR THE EPISODE
Endless River, Roy Mattson
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In this episode of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, we explore the Wayfaring Poet Profile of T’ang Dynasty poet-meditator Du Fu (712-770). We also explore four modes of dreamingbody awareness that anyone can utilize in landscape practice and creative practice: the visual map, the sound map, the fragrance map, and the kinesthetic map. In addition to curated poems from various collections of Du Fu, there is also mention of an upcoming book release by Peter Levitt and Rebecca Nie featuring three Daoist women and their poetry (due out December 2022), Yin Mountain.
Got a question for me? Drop a note at: hiddenmountainstudio@gmail.com
UPCOMING BOOK RELEASE MENTIONED IN EPISODE
Yin Mountain: The Immortal Poetry of Three Daoist Women, translated by Peter Levitt and Rebecca Nie
The introduction of women poets from ancient China to Western audiences is itself an epoch-making endeavor. The brilliance of the translations in Yin Mountain and the elucidation of the background material are breathtaking. —Kazuaki Tanahashi
SOUND MAP OF EPISODE
excerpt from Forrest Fang’s upcoming release: The Lost Seasons of Amorphia
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SOUND MAP
COMPILATION / VI AN
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SOUND MAP OF EPISODE
Gongland / Forrest Fang
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Brief Warning: The audio on this post describes some of my fragmented memories from the morning of the 9/11 attacks on September 11, 2001. I was living in Washington DC at the time and working downtown, three blocks from The White House. I mention certain things in this post that I cannot verify or fact-check (such as the appearance of an unmarked plane flying over the city). Other things I relate are completely from memory or things I overheard later (such as rumors about people reporting the sound of explosions really being the echoes of other sounds). This is a personal account and is not intended to be news or journalism. If anything mentioned is factually incorrect or out of order in sequence, I can only attribute this to a faulty memory, the strain and anxiety of the day, or the potent impressions of things encountered in the week following the attacks. In addition to my experiences from that day, I also discuss the dreamingbody, trauma, and I offer a “part two” response to a question that came in last week about the value of studying the Wayfaring poets. Lastly, I share a few poems from one of the much-beloved old poets of the Japanese branch of the tradition, Ryōkan (1758-1831).
SOUND MAP OF POST
Fissures / Robert Rich + Alio Die
Light Fantastic / Steve Roach
Tsuki / Bronwyn Kirkpartick
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In advance of the 2022 Harvest Moon (10 Sept 2022), I offer a few contemplations: about the moon itself, about two old Wayfaring poets who often contemplated the moon in their poetry, and I address a listener/reader question that came in “over the wire” - “What is the value in studying a bunch of old dead poets?”
SOUND MAP FOR EPISIODE
Stillpoint / Steve Roach
Tsuki (Moon): Shakuhachi / Bronwyn Kirkpatrick
Rainforest / Robert Rich
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SOUND MAP FOR EPISODE
Landmass / Steve Roach
Guzheng: Traditional Chinese Music / Lixue Lin-Siedler
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In this episode, I discuss an array of topics that relate to the Wayfaring Poet Path including Nature meditation and differences between orthodox labels and the syncretism of paths and practice. Running beneath this exploration is my late teacher’s “formula” for practice: Nature + Meditation + Art = Wayfaring
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
CHINA ROOT: Taoism, Chan, and Original Zen, David Hinton
The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse, translation and commentary by Red Pine
The Zen Works of Stonehouse, translated by Red Pine
LOTUS MOON: The Poetry of the Buddhist Nun Rengetsu, translated by John Stevens
RENGETSU: Life and Poetry of Lotus Moon, translation and biography by John Stevens
SOUND MAP OF EPISODE
Tactile Ground / Robert Rich
Tsuki / Bronwyn Kirkpatrick
A FEW SOURCES FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN SHUGENDŌ
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SOUND MAP FOR EPISODE
Inner Meditations Vol. II / “A Steadfast Path” / Byron Metcalf - Erik Wøllo - Peter Phippen
BOOKS MENTIONED
The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye / translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Shōbōgenzō: The Treasure House of the Eye of the True Teaching (audio)
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Thank you for reading The Poet's Dreamingbody. This post is public so feel free to share it.
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In this final podcast episode for the inaugural week of The Poet’s Dreamingbody, I use the morning of my own date of birth to reflect upon the themes of midlife, sojourns, and — drawing inspiration from the imagery within a particular sutra my late teacher often taught from (the Avatamsaka, or Flower Garland, Sutra) — I contemplate our interconnectedness and shared journeying through these windswept times of challenge and change. I then share a few poems from two of my books of poetry, all of which explore “disconnection” and “interconnectedness” in one way or another.
note: The final poem read in the broadcast, entitled “The Old Code of Good Travelers,” makes reference to the topic of “depression.” Just for clarity’s sake, the depression referred to within the poem is not to be confused with biologically-based depression or clinical depression, but rather is in reference to those challenging states of heart-mind that are a normal part of the artistic and spiritual path (sometimes referred to as “spiritual emergency,” a term coined by Stanislav Grof in his work around “spiritual emergence.”).
SOUND MAP FOR EPISODE
Flora and Fauna / “Arboreal Bodies” / Roy Mattson
Vi An Compilation / “Forest” / Vi An
Tactile Ground / “The Sentience of Touch” / Robert Rich
In the Wind / “Aeolian Zephyr” / Roy Mattson
Filaments / “Lanaikea” / Robert Rich
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
Stirrup of the Sun & Moon
The School of Soft-Attention: Poems
Get full access to The Poet's Dreamingbody at www.thepoetsdreamingbody.com/subscribe
*all listings below are hyperlinks directly to the artists and books mentioned
SOUND MAP FOR THE EPISODE:
Folklore / “The Bridge of Chan-Chou I: “Crossing the River” / Forrest Fang
Guzheng: Traditional Chinese Music / “Small Bamboo Raft” / Lixue Lin-Siedler
Guzheng: Traditional Chinese Music / “Fisherman’s Song” / Lixue Lin-Siedler
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China, David Hinton
The Art of Haiku: Its History Through Poems and Paintings By Japanese Masters, Stephen Addis
Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death, Yoel Hoffman
This Very Moment: Teaching, Thinking, Dancing, Barbara Dilley
Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice, Mary Overlie
Zen & the Art of Photography, Douglas Beasley
The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life, John Daido Loori
The Book of Hermits: A History of Hermits from Antiquity to the Present, Robert Rodriguez
The Ecological Era & Classical Chinese Naturalism: A Case Study of Tao Yuanming, Shuyuan Lu
The Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien, translated by David Hinton
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Greetings Good Travelers and Wayfarers,
A brief meditation quote for your consideration from The Poet’s Dreamingbody.
It comes to us from the Chinese-American Taoist author, artist and teacher, Sifu Deng Ming-Dao. (note: Sifu is the Chinese equivalent of the Japanese word sensei, which means teacher).
Sifu Deng is the author of 365 Tao, The Lunar Tao: Meditations in Harmony with the Seasons, Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony, and Scholar Warrior: Introduction to the Tao in Everyday Life.
The quote reads:
If you are best in the morning, cultivate Tao in the morning.
If you are best in the evening, cultivate Tao in the evening.
If you aren't familiar with this term Tao (sometimes spelled with a ‘T’ and sometimes with a ‘D’), it originates in Chinese spiritual culture and is used by Taoists, Confucianists, Chan (or Zen) Buddhists, even by some Christians such as the late Thomas Merton and C.S. Lewis,...and by Winnie the Pooh.
The word Tao is often translated as Way, Path, or route, and can also mean practice; and, embedded within all of these terms is the understanding that Tao is the natural order of the universe as a cosmic principle.
Tao can also mean way in the sense of an art, and this is on clear display in Japanese culture where the Chinese word Tao becomes Dō, which also means Way, Path, Practice, Principle, Teaching, or Art, and as a suffix is attached to dozens of different arts and practices such as
Chadō - the Way of Tea
Kendō - the Way of the Sword
Kadō - the Way of Flowers (or flower-arranging)
Shodō - the Way of the Brush (calligraphy)
Aikidō - a martial art whose name means the Way of Harmonizing Life-Force
and
Shijindō - the Way of the Poet
Each of these arts are ways that lead the practitioner into greater depths of intuitive understanding of the Way, Tao or Dō. One way of thinking of this is that these martial and artistic disciplines help us to harmonize our own energy with the cosmic energy of the Tao.
We all have our own natural rhythms and one of the aspects of any contemplative path, including the contemplative arts, is that cultivating our relationship to Nature, heart-mind, and our own natural rhythms is a standing invitation from the Cosmos.
But, how many of us accept that invitation?
With full knowledge of the meaning of Tao and Dō, my late teacher Kuma-sensei, used to say:
“There is never a time when you are not on the Path.
The only difference is whether you are neglecting it
or cultivating it.”
And, so, it's good to stop every now and then, to take stock, and assess our relationship to ourselves, our path, our natural rhythms, our environment (including our living spaces), and our connection with the larger reality within which we have our being.
A few questions I pose to myself with some frequency, which I offer you to make your own or to tweak and edit as you see fit:
Am I neglecting or cultivating heart-mind?
Am I neglecting or cultivating my body?
Am I neglecting or cultivating my diet?
Am I neglecting or cultivating my imagination?
Am I neglecting or cultivating my art?
Am I neglecting or cultivating my spirit?
Am I neglecting or cultivating my living space?
and for the past two years:
Am I neglecting or cultivating the many green
and growing things in the garden?
One of Kuma-sensei’s favorite things to say, often with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, was: “You already know. At all times, you already know whether you’re working for yourself or working against yourself.”
In other words, we know at all times whether we are neglecting or cultivating. We already know.
And yet, we're human, and it's not realistic to overburden ourselves with heavy expectations, shaming, or weighty shoulds.
Heaviness and ferocity is not a sign of being in the flow with one’s own dao (way, path), or the Cosmic Way.
And yet, let's be honest. We all slip into laziness, numb out, disconnect, become misaligned from our own natural rhythms, and sometimes we have to be reminded to reboot, reset ourselves, return to the trailhead of the Great Way, and to renew our commitment to what is spirit-lifting and life-giving rather than staying hooked-in with what depletes us, withers us, and siphons off our life-force, our chi, our ki.
This is where some of my late teacher’s word-play comes in.
One of the words she tried to get us to think differently about was discipline.
O, we don't like that word!
Discipline. It sounds tough. It sounds harsh. We even associate it with punishment.
But she used discipline as one of the many synonyms for Dao and Dō, and directed our attention to notice that if we look at the word discipline, the first six letters are also found in the word disciple.
So, for Kuma-sensei, discipline (and a discipline, like a practice or art) was not only something that can bring us closer to the Way, the Dao (Tao), it is also a way for us to become disciples of our higher selves, our more cultivated selves, our more refined selves, our more disciplined selves, in the sense of conscious enlightened warriorship and artistry.
And so this is why I like this quote from Sifu Deng.
It's human and down-to-earth.
It’s realistic – we can't be our best at all times, especially if we are run-down, sick, or burned out.
But, it also doesn't let us off the hook because it implies that, at some point, cultivation is necessary, and it puts the whole situation into our own hands. Cultivation is up to us. No one is going to hold our hand, as Buddhist teacher Pema Chödron puts it. No one else can make the journey up the mountain for us.
This is why we need to become disciples of our possible selves.
This is why we need a discipline—a gate to step through and a path to walk and stick to.
And, if we cultivate Tao when we have the time and energy to do so (which might be our art, our connection to Nature, our heart-mind through meditation, or cultivating our body), then we strengthen our energy and our connection to our natural rhythm, which, in the end, we come to realize is the Tao itself.
The Poet's Dreamingbody is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
SOUND MAP FOR EPISODE:
Guzheng: Traditional Chinese Music / “High Mountain and Running Water“ / Lixue Lin-Siedler
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Every day is a journey,
and the journey itself is home.
Matsuo Bashō(1644-1694)
In this debut episode, I talk about my background, some early dreams and memories, aspects of my journey of creativity and spirituality, and the influence that the Japanese sage-poet Matsuo Bashō has had on my path. I also talk about my late teacher, Darion Kuma Gracen, along with the concepts of “art fathers and mothers,” the dreambody/dreamingbody, and the lineage stream of Wayfaring poets.
(Listening Time: 57:25)
SOUND MAP FOR EPISODE:
The Poet’s Dreamingbody Theme Song: Roy Mattson / MESMER / Mesmerized
Other albums featured in Episode 1: “The Journey Begins…” (used with permission from the artists)
Robert Rich / Echo of Small Things
Roy Mattson / Tone, Timbre, & Texture
Roy Mattson / In the Wind
Louigi Verona / In the Last Beams of Sundown
Louigi Verona / The Great Void
Roy Mattson / Melancholy Moon
Louigi Verona / Evening Chirping Community
Byron Metcalf (featuring Erik Wollo and Peter Phippen / Inner Meditations II
BOOKS MENTIONED WITHIN THE EPISODE:
Man and His Symbols, edited by C.G. Jung
The I Ching, Richard Wilhelm translation
Painting Peace: Art in a Time of Global Crisis, Kazuaki Tanahashi
This Very Moment: Teaching, Thinking, Dancing, Barbara Dilley
Working with the Dreambody, Arnold Mindell
Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings, Sam Hamill
Keywords: Matsuo Basho, dreambody, dreamingbody, C.G. Jung, Zen, ancestors, Wayfaring, Daoism, Shinto, Shingon, Buddhism, Rudolf Otto, the numinous, dreams, haiku, haibun, Taiji, left-facing swastika, I Ching, Synchronicity, Shunryu Suzuki, D.T. Suzuki, Tao Te Ching, poetry, Naropa University, Shugendo, Dharma art, Kazuaki Tanahashi, Morihei Ueshiba, Stonehouse, Cold Mountain, Rengetsu, Santoka, Ryokan, Ikkyu, yamabushi, Saigyo, Barbara Dilley, art fathers and mothers, Arnold and Amy Mindell, Process-Oriented Psychology, Jungian Psychology, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings, Sam Hamill,
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