The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
Reincarnation is not something that occurs at death; it is something that takes place at every moment. Death and rebirth are occurring every second.
Frederick Lenz
Basho wrote both of these two stanzas in succession:
Jostled in temple gateway for nembutsu pantomimes - An east wind the fumes of nightsoil wafting about
門で押さるる / 壬生の念仏 東風に / 糞のいきれを / 吹きまわし
Mon de osaruru / Mibu no nembutsu Kochi kaze ni / koe no ikire o / fuki-mawashi
At Mibu Temple in Kyoto, since the year 1300, men in elaborate costumes and masks have performed nembutsu kyogen pantomimes, accompanied by bells, flutes, and drums; because loudspeakers did not exist, this was the most efficient way to introduce Buddhism to large numbers of people.
(In modern times, these Mibu Kyogen have drifted away from their original religious purpose and become comic entertainment.)
Basho begins his second stanza with “east wind,” a wind from the east, suggesting the influence of Eastern ideas, such as reincarnation, on Western minds. He then shifts from hordes of people all around to hordes of molecules of fumes all around. He uses not the Chinese character 肥, which would be manure from animals, but rather 糞, night soil from people.
Western books on pre-modern Japan often note disparagingly that human wastes were used as fertilizer, however few mention that the feces were separated from the urine and stored in a koedame, night soil jar, dug into the ground, for at least one month, producing fermentation at temperatures up to 160 degrees F (70 degrees C) in which complex molecules, including germs and parasites, decomposed. So the night soil was sterilized before being put into the rice paddies for young women planters to walk barefoot it. These people were not such idiots that would cause their young women to die from infection. Fermentation destroyed the germs and parasites, however increased the smell.
The Complete Anthology of Japanese Literature says:
Because this is a renku composed by only two poets, and here Basho forms a link
with his own stanza, we must especially look at the transition he creates.
To counter “nembutsu” with ‘night soil’ is truly a joke of great daring.
So what is Basho saying with this significant, humorous, and plucky link? When Buddhists chant the nembutsu, they call on the boddhisatva Amida to bring them, and all of us, out from the endless cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation, straight to the Pure Land. Reincarnation, from the Latin for “entering the flesh again,” is the spirit of the dead returning to new life. Basho sees night soil as a form of reincarnation: feces containing a person’s spirit part from this body to enter the ground, and that spirit “enters the flesh” of growing plants which humans eat to live. Our shit does not go to the Pure Land; it returns to Earth to give new life, death, and reincarnation.
I plead for your help in finding a person or group to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material, to edit and improve the presentation, to receive all royalties from sales, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide and preserve for future generations.
The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
