Contradictions
Maidens’ hands wearily
transplant rice
in a mountain field.
Even their singing
sounds sad.
Ryokan (1828)
We seem to experience life as full of contradictions. Let alone hands, what of the backs at the end of a day’s work? But the women make the scene attractive; in life there is no separation between sore backs and beauty. The problem is simple, but the consequences dire. It is simple to see that it is the work of our minds to seek
noncontradiction
On the making of this unity world which we all experience.
between the elements entertained, (the world, independently of humans, has no such constraints or qualms). It is dire when mental contradictions are supposedly expunged by feint to leave what we take to be a single truth. Single truths attract us as social animals, we rally to them, and sadly allow
following others
The constituents of social orderliness.
to trump all else. Bad backs do not alter the beauty to be found in a scene, any more than the beauty can re-set a bad back: whatever
histories
Umbrellas under which the particulars of our lives coalesce.
we weave to paper over
contradictions,
Reason and argument rest on a narrow base.
the loss felt at one death is not altered, let alone healed, by another death.
This translation of the poem by Ryokan (aka The Great Fool) is in the collection entitled SKY ABOVE, GREAT WIND The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan, translated and introduced by Kauaki Tanahashi, published by Shambhala in 2012.
Everywhere, in Vietnam, at or soon after the Tết (Lunar New Year) celebrations, paddy is planted out into the fields; this illustration, of that backbreaking work, is from Thanh Hóa Province in the northern part of the country.
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Saturday 12th October 2024
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