The Haiku of Bugbee vs Basho's Meditations on Death and the Sublime - Essay Example

Theology and Religion Basho was a perfect crafter of haiku poems. He was born near Kyoto in Iga-ueno in 1644. His youthful life was spent with a local lord and that is when he got to learn writing the verse of seventeen-syllable. In his composition of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he demystifies the natural world meticulously. His writing of this book was largely influenced by Zen Buddhism. He set off on several travels meant to deal away with the material world trappings and bring out the enlightenment of spiritual nature. He wrote about how seasons change, how the rain smells, the moon’s brightness, and the waterfall’s beauty. From these, he had senses of the universe’s mysteries. These writings bring out the integration of life as a journey in search of meaning, religion and insight. This paper will discuss these aspects in relation to the books of Basho and Bugbee. Having studied under the guidance of a priest, it is unclear to whether Basho ever got enlightenment. His poetry writing required object and subject according to a Japanese Zen scholar who thought Basho did not integrate these in his poetry writing. Before starting his journey, Bsho cast away his universe attachments, bit by bit, and later he ran out of things to cast away but himself. Basho travelled to a far North province while rented his hut to a certain family. In his journey, he went to a temple and found the General Yoshitsune sword and the Zen Master altar (Aitken, 16). Basho was able to see the juxtaposition that was basically Japanese till the whole state realized the Japan’s giving in as the World War II was coming to an end. Basho and his friend Sora went up a mountain’s slope and found a well known waterfall called the Rear View Falls. This name came from the fact that one could slip behind the waterfall and view the universe via the falling water (Aitken, 17). This means that the seclusion of summer in monasteries had started. Thus, behind the water falls, there seems to be a good place for Basho’s solidarity to be acknowledged with his brothers from Zen. The fact that Basho knew that his master of Zen had lived a recluse life in Nikko for some time, he resorted to finding the remains of the hut. He thought he could get them from the temple of Ungan. He asked for the way to the temple and he strived to climb the mountain behind the temple where he saw a little lean-to built in a natural cave’s rock. Here, Basho left his verse and then left. This explains why people went to the mountain to worship even years later. While Basho was a poet, he lived a reclusive life and studied nature. He was prompted by viewing the tree to compose his work. He expressed his feeling by thinking that people who did not have the monk’s insight also lacked their sensitivity to the beauty of nature. He did not view himself as a worldly individual at all. His dressing was like that of a Zen Buddhist monk (Aitken, 19). This brings out the distinction between clerical and lay which is different between Basho’s era and that of the Western Zen centers. Aitken (27) holds, “it is almost blasphemy to blow one’s nose with one’s hand in the presence of the sacred cherry blossoms.” Basho’s experience symbolizes his life brevity which the Buddhism religion emphasizes. Given that during those times, travelling was dangerous, Basho was determined to be a wandering poetic ideal. In fact Basho believed that religious association had its own place and that nothing was bad or good and it is only through thinking that the good or bad can be brought about (Aitken, 27). In sum, Basho’s life was basically a travel life and he associated every spot he stopped at with his poetic works. Such stops included the Tokugawa shrine, the islands of Hiraizumi, Kisakata, Matsushima and Sakata among others. He parted ways with his travelling partner Sora at Yamanaka and met up with other followers later whom he parted way with again. In that way, he lived a departing life. In short, his works in the notes of The Narrow Road to the Deep North is like studying forever and he set up against time flow. All in all, his adventure was worth it because of his poetic successes. The Inward Morning This book integrated both the West and the East, culture and nature as well as the universal and the personal. Bugbee Henry is largely recognized as a true existentialist in America and a philosopher whose ideas are original and an inspiration to the later philosophers. In The Inward Morning, one can understand the spacious worlds external to the literal philosophy that Bugbee claimed as reality touchstones. The journal depicts the intensity, lyricism and bredth of his fully grown thesis (Mooney, 43). According to Mooney (44), the Inward Morning progressed, one can see that Bugbee employed his sense of music into the arena of his philosophical thoughts. There are times when Bugbee outlines the story of death and life, annihilation and beauty, searing stories of the attacks of suicide coming down from the Pacific sky- but unclear and unimaginable. This brings out his confiding nature when he tells that he witnessed suicide planes, the perishing lives and the ongoing business. Additionally, just like Basho, Bugbee was courageous and an adventurer. His brevity is expressed in his habit of walking late at night in the streets of Manhattan and going hitching in great freights. His writings in The Inward Morning bring out the attribute of keen listening. He tells of the sea routines or the rivers’ innocence, the trees’ serenity, the frightening fire from the sky and the graceful flow of the snow (Mooney, 45). By these, he demystifies the characteristics of life which include serenity, confusion, wonder, and disasters. The most important feature in this book is that it is far from being morbid. Although Bugbee is aware of death, he does not talk about it so much. This implies that he believed in life more than in death. ‘Many of his exquisite narratives give us an uncanny closeness to death’s dance with life- and life’s, with death,’ contends Mooney (50). By this he displays the interplay of life and death through examining nature; how fish leap up high and get caught, kamikaze are killed and so forth. Furthermore, The Inward Morning’s recollections are therapeutic and healing as they retell about the terrifying events that need restoration when it comes to interpretation. Given that, traumatic acknowledgement does not sum up all loopholes for a sense that is powerful of the emergence of the sublime. It can fill up a plane image in the sky and establish a connection of it with the pilot and chief. Based on his suicide narration, he explains that he witnessed the suicide planes and hears death responsibility. He cannot imagine being part of such tragedy. In any case, he becomes realistic and understands that their death cannot be reversed, forgotten or erased. He thus brings out the idea of tragic recognition. He pictures himself that if he were in those planes he would utter word such as ‘I don’t deserve to die’. From this, matters of morality come into play. He gives himself great importance and depicts that death has no right to take his self-importance and egoism. Conclusion In sum, Bugbee’s realm of life in an obscure wilderness can be interpreted as moral perfectionism. It entails the fact that something that is undone will always exist, yet still there is more to be done. In any case, a crisis or disaster sets the baseline of life threat and also a renewal opening. Someone said that the finishing line is the beginning of a new race. While people are at risk, a voice of renewal will always be present calling people to vocation (Mooney, 59). The book is thus crucial in bringing out the comprehensive nature of morality, life and death. Works Cited Aitken Robert, Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa and Masaoka Shiki. The River of Heaven: The Haiku of Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press. 2011. Print. Mooney, E. Meditations on Death and the Sublime: Henry Bugbee’s in Demonstration of the Spirit. Retrieved 15th December 2014 from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8p54laCRE3EJ:www.jcrt.org/ar chives/10.1/Mooney.pdf+Theology+and+Religion:+Inward+Morning,+Bugbee+9780820 320717&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk 2009. Read More