I can't exactly put words on it. Maybe ache-urge-shame-wonder-awe comes close. It's what wells up when I read something like these lines from Baisaō:
Is that so very much to ask?
I still feel like I'm looking at the water afraid to get wet. I see Baisaō in the waves. I see Ryōkan in the waves. I see Saigyō in the waves. I see Mahākāśyapa in the waves. "Come in," they call, "the water's fine."
"But what about my stuff?" I call back.
"Just leave it. You won't miss it once you're in here."
And I both believe and don't believe them. So I shout out, "I'll be in in a little bit," and I wait on the shore feeling that same ol' ache-urge-shame-wonder-awe for yet a while longer.
Pain and povertyHere's the thing, though: I don't want just to read about it. I want to see that very same moon with that very same mind. I want know exactly what Baisaō knew (and, yes, I read the first two lines of the poem, too, and, yes, I realize just how überinflated, übercomfortable and überpadded my own life still is).
poverty and pain
life stripped to the bone
absolute nothingness
only one thing left
a bright cold moon
in the midnight window
illuminating a Zen mind
on its homeward way
Is that so very much to ask?
I still feel like I'm looking at the water afraid to get wet. I see Baisaō in the waves. I see Ryōkan in the waves. I see Saigyō in the waves. I see Mahākāśyapa in the waves. "Come in," they call, "the water's fine."
"But what about my stuff?" I call back.
"Just leave it. You won't miss it once you're in here."
And I both believe and don't believe them. So I shout out, "I'll be in in a little bit," and I wait on the shore feeling that same ol' ache-urge-shame-wonder-awe for yet a while longer.
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