haiku koan

in high school a few of us convinced a world history teacher to lead a japanese language class. mr. wilson was a wonderful teacher, full of stories of his time in japan and anecdotes that made learning the language more fun. he also pushed us well. he has since gone on to become a well published japanese translator. his translation of the way of the samurai seems to be the standard now at bookstores i’ve visited. i am very grateful to him.

during that class, he gave us one traditional haiku as a lesson in how older forms versus newer forms of japanese words were used to convey additional meaning. the haiku read in japanese:

furu ike ya
kawazu tobi komu
mizu no oto

translating this into english loses the nuance, but it would roughly render:

ancient pond
a frog jumps in
the sound of water

so why is this poem so famous? it’s not the nuance, i suspect. like the use of the older form of frog or pond to convey an unspoiled scene deep in a forest. i’ve always wondered why this haiku was such a big deal.

well investigating sense perceptions and the nature of mind this week had me thinking about it again. i’d invite you to contemplate this in the form of a question, “when a thought jumps into your mind, where does the sound of the thought come from?”

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