SOURCE: In an introduction to Mountain Tasting: Zen Haiku by Santoka Taneda, translated by John Stevens, Weatherhill, 1980, pp. 9-29.

[In the following excerpt, Stevens discusses Santoka's poetry, life, and worldview.]

Recently, a remarkable interest in the life and poetry of the mendicant Zen priest Santoka Taneda (1882-1940) has developed in Japan. Collections of Santoka's haiku and accounts of his life are being published regularly. At present, more books on Santoka are available than perhaps on any other Japanese poet, ancient or modern. In addition, he is considered to be a great Zen master much like Ikkyu, Hakuin, and Ryokan. How is it that such an eccentric, drink-loving haiku poet came to be so highly regarded?

From a literary standpoint, Santoka's poems are generally admired for their unadorned style, representative of the "new haiku movement," but this does not explain his great popularity with all types of people, not only poets and scholars. Whatever the literary merit of his work, far more important are the special Zen qualities of simplicity (wabi), solitude (sabi), and impermanence (mujo) conveyed in a modern setting by his haiku. Poetry has often been nothing more than a pastime for many in China and Japan, so that portrayals of "poverty," "solitude," "meditation," and so on were mere conventions. In Santoka's case, however, such themes were absolute; no one was poorer, more alone, or more anguished. Hence his poems are alive, cutting to the marrow of existence. There is no dichotomy between poetry and poet, life and emotion.

Santoka's life embodies the Zen spirit in three ways. First, since his life and poetry were one, he represents the ideal of "no duplicity." In any art or discipline it is essential to unify thought, speech, and action. Second, he did not mimic anyone else. This is rare in any society. In Japan, the life of a wandering poet is considered the most impermanent, irregular, and individualistic of all occupations. It is a life of freedom from everything: material possessions, mental concepts, social norms. Third is Santoka's simplicity of expression. In his verses there is nothing extra, no pretense, no artificiality. They can be understood at once without analysis. Sharp and direct, Santoka's haiku epitomize Zen writing: pure experience, free of intellectual coloring.

Santoka's appeal is not limited to Japan. Haiku and Zen practice are established throughout the world. As a man of the twentieth century, Santoka is close to us in thought and temperament. Fortunately, his haiku lose little in translation, so with the publication of this collection of his poems, people of all countries will now be able to share in his unique "journey into the depths of the human heart."

SANTOKA'S LIFE

Shoichi Taneda—now better known as Santoka—was born in the village of Sabare in the Hofu district of Yamaguchi Prefecture on December 3, 1882. His father, a large and impressive figure, was a landowner and active in local politics but not very good at running his business or personal affairs. Shoichi was the second child, first boy, and one more sister and two more brothers were born in the next few years.

Shoichi was good at his studies and displayed an interest in literature as early as elementary school. Unfortunately, his father was a dissolute womanizer who carried on with several mistresses at a time. When he wasn't playing with the ladies he was politicking, so he was rarely home. While he was vacationing in the mountains with one of his mistresses, his wife committed suicide by throwing herself into a well on the family property. She was thirty-three years old. Shoichi, just eleven at the time, never completely recovered from the shock of seeing his mother's lifeless body being lifted from the well, and this tragic event affected him throughout his life. Afterwards he was raised by his grandmother.

In 1896 he entered middle school and began to write traditional-style haiku. In 1902 he enrolled in the literature department of Waseda University in Tokyo. There, following the custom, he took a pen name; from then on he called himself Santoka ("Burning Mountain Peak"). He began to drink heavily, suffered a nervous breakdown, and was unable to complete the first-year requirements. In addition, his father was in financial straits and could no longer afford the tuition, so Santoka had to return home.

Santoka arrived in his home town in July 1904 at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. His father sold off some of the family land and purchased a sake brewery that he opened with Santoka in 1907. Two years later, at the insistence of his father, who thought a wife might help cut down Santoka's drinking, an arranged marriage took place with Sakino Sato, a pretty girl from a neigh-boring village. However, the union was troubled right from the beginning, and Santoka never adjusted to married life. The following year their only child, Ken, was born.

In 1911 Santoka came under the influence of Seisensui Ogiwara (1884-1976), the founder of the jiyuritsu, or free-style, school of haiku. Following the death of Shiki (1867-1903), who had revitalized and revolutionized the world of haiku, there were two main streams in the haiku world: one working in a more or less traditional form using modern themes, and the other, the shinkeiko, or new-development, movement, which abandoned the standard 5-7-5 syllable pattern and the obligatory use of a word to indicate the season, or kigo. In April 1911 Seisensui established the magazine Soun to expound the theory that it is necessary for a poet to express what is in his heart in his own language without regard to any fixed form. Seisensui felt that haiku should be an impression of one's inner experiences; individual symbolism is most important. Seisensui stressed jiyu (freedom), jiko (self), and shizen (nature), together with the elements of chikara (strength) and hikari (brightness), for his new haiku. Seisensui was influenced by European literature, especially Goethe and Schiller, and his poetry was essentially a combination of Japanese sensitivity and Western expressionism. However, it was neither agnostic nor scientific like much of the other new haiku. Haiku is a "way" rather than mere literature or art. Such a highly individualistic and subjective theory was criticized by many traditionalists, but it greatly appealed to Santoka. Beginning in 1913, Santoka became one of the main contributors to Soun and the free-style school.

Seven of Santoka's verses were printed in 1913, and the following year Santoka met Seisensui for the first time at a poetry meeting. Santoka was active composing poetry and essays for the next few years and became an editor of Soun in 1916. In the meantime, however, the sakè brewery was turning into a disaster. The father continued to run around with women, and the son kept drinking up what little profit they occasionally made. More and more family property was sold off to prop up the brewery. In 1915 the entire stock spoiled, and in April the next year the brewery went bankrupt and the Taneda family lost everything. The father fled one night with one of his mistresses, while Santoka and his family moved to Kumamoto City, where one of his friends offered to help him.

Santoka originally planned to open a secondhand bookstore, but that failed to work out, so his wife took over and started a store specializing in picture frames. Santoka continued his heavy drinking, and the marriage deteriorated. In 1918 his younger brother Jiro committed suicide (his other brother had died in infancy), another shock for the high-strung poet.

Santoka and his wife drifted apart, and in 1919 he decided to go to Tokyo to seek work. His first job was a part-time position with a cement firm. Later he found a temporary position as a clerk in the Hitotsubashi municipal library. Santoka and his wife were legally divorced in 1920. Sakino continued to operate the store and raise their son. The following year Santoka's father died. Santoka was offered a permanent position at the library and he accepted. Unfortunately, he proved no better at this job than at making sakè. He suffered another nervous breakdown and was forced to retire a year and a half after he began. On September 1, 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck Tokyo and destroyed much of the city. Santoka escaped injury, but his boardinghouse was reduced to rubble. He decided to return to Kumamoto, where he helped his former wife with the store.

Near the end of December 1924, Santoka, drunk and apparently intent on committing suicide, stood in the middle of some railroad tracks facing an oncoming train. The train screeched to a halt just in time, and Santoka was pulled out of the way. He was taken to a nearby Zen temple called Hoon-ji. The head priest there, Gian Mochizuki Osho, did not reprimand or question Santoka: he didn't even ask his name. The monk fed Santoka and told him he could stay at the temple as long as he wished.

Santoka had long been interested in Zen. He had attended several lectures of the famous Zen master Kodo Sawaki Roshi in Kumamoto and had spent most of his spare time at the library in Tokyo reading books on Buddhism. Under Gian's direction Santoka sat in Zen meditation, chanted sutras, and worked around the temple. In 1925, at the age of forty-two, Santoka was ordained a Zen priest under the name Koho after a Chinese Zen priest also named Taneda (Chung-t'ien in Chinese pronunciation) who was famous for cultivating a small rice field to raise enough food to support himself. Gian explained that Koho Taneda is one who plows and cultivates the field of his heart.

Santoka's ex-wife Sakino joined the Methodist Church and became an active member soon after Santoka entered the temple. She never remarried, and Santoka continued to visit her and help with the store from time to time for the rest of his life.

After Santoka was ordained, Gian arranged for him to stay at Mitori Kannon-do, a small temple on the outskirts of Kumamoto. Santoka supported himself by begging in the neighborhood, occasionally making longer trips to visit his friends in nearby towns. After a year of living alone in the temple, Santoka decided to make a pilgrimage. His first intention was to train at Eihei-ji, the head temple of the Soto Zen school, but he apparently realized it would be difficult for him as a forty-three-year-old man to practice with a group of priests in their early twenties, most of whom were putting in the required time in order to someday inherit their family temples. Santoka's monastery turned out to be the back roads and mountain paths of the countryside.

In April 1926 he started out on his first pilgrimage. His only possessions were his black priest's robe, his begging bowl, and his kasa, a large woven straw hat worn by traveling monks to shield them from the sun and rain. For the next four years Santoka was on a continual journey throughout southern Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku. He prayed at innumerable shrines and temples, visited famous sites, met with his friends, and attended poetry meetings. After a lapse of almost five years his poems began to appear in Soun again.

In December 1930 he returned to Kumamoto and rented a small room. With the help of some friends who were publishers, he put out three issues of a little magazine called Sambaku, named after his boardinghouse. Six months after moving into Sambakukyo he was taken into custody for public drunkenness. (This requires some effort, since Japanese are very tolerant of drunkards.) He stayed at the picture-frame shop for a few months and then began another series of trips. In 1932, his friends found a small cottage for him in the mountain village of Ogori in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Santoka called it Gochuan after a verse in the Lotus Sutra. [This verse refers to one member of a large group telling the others to call on the name of Kanzeon Bosatsu, the goddess of compassion; then all will be saved from calamities.] The cottage was rather dilapidated yet spacious, with three rooms, a well, and a tiny field surrounded by many fruit trees. He posted this sign:

To All Visitors

—If you bring your favorite sweet or sour food
  with you
—And dance and sing unreservedly with the
  gentleness of the spring wind and autumn
  streams
—Without putting on airs or being downhearted,
  all will share great happiness.

This year also marked the publication of his first collection of haiku, Hachi no ko (The Begging Bowl), produced by a friend's small publishing house.

From 1932 to 1938 Santoka divided his time between Gochu-an and traveling. He made trips to Hiroshima, Kobe, Kyoto, and Nagoya. In 1934 he fell ill and returned to his hermitage, Gochu-an. Sick and penniless, he contemplated suicide for a time but abandoned the idea after regaining his health, and began an eight-month journey to northern Honshu, retracing much of the route taken by the famous haiku-poet Basho (1644-94) as described in Oku no hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North). During this period he published more issues of his journal Sambaku, in addition to putting out four more collections of his poetry: Somokuto (Grass and Tree Stupa, 1933), Sangyo suigyo (Flowing with Mountains and Rivers, 1935), Zasso fukei (Weedscapes, 1936), and Kaki no ha (Persimmon Leaves, 1938).

When he was staying at Gochu-an, he often had visitors from all parts of the country. Occasionally poetry meetings were held there. However, in 1938 Gochu-an literally collapsed and Santoka moved to a small hut in Yuda Hot Springs about eight miles away. He remained there a few months, set out on another trip, returned briefly, and then was off again. In December 1939 he settled down in Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture, in a little cottage that he named Isso-an, One Blade of Grass Hut.

In 1940 an expanded version of Somokuto was published containing selections from his previous works, including a sixth collection entitled Kokan (Isolation) and published in 1939. His seventh and final collection, Karasu (Crows), was brought out in 1940 a few months after Somokuto.

Early in October 1940 a poetry meeting was held at Isso-an. The members of the group gathered at Isso-an, but found Santoka quite intoxicated, so they moved to a nearby member's house. They looked in on Santoka before they left and found him sleeping soundly. Uneasy, the wife of one of his friends went to see Santoka the next morning and discovered that he had departed on his final journey during the early morning hours of October 11, 1940.

THE WANDERING BEGGAR

Santoka is said to have walked more than twenty-eight thousand miles during his travels as a wandering monk. His initial trips, especially the first one to Shikoku to visit the eighty-eight shrines and temples associated with the Buddhist saint Kobo Daishi (Kukai; 774-835), were pilgrimages to pray for the repose of his mother's troubled spirit. Later on, however, many of his trips were made without any particular destination.

Sate dochira e iko kaze ga fuku
  Well, which way should I go?
  The wind blows.

Renouncing the world, drifting here and there, living close to nature, settling now and then in a hermitage, and dying alone is a type of spirituality especially appreciated by the Japanese. Many of their favorite poets, priests, and artists were wanderers—Saigyo, Ippen Shonin, Basho, Sesshu, Enku, to name a few. A life of travel is an abandoning of all that seems permanent or stable; life is reduced to absolute essentials, in the present moment, free of ordinary restrictions or constraints.

Whenever Santoka attempted to settle down, he was unable to do so for more than a few months. He wrote: "Too much contact with people brings conflict, hatred, and attachment. To rid myself of inner conflicts and hatred I must walk."

Nigoreru mizu no nagaretsutsu sumu
      As muddy water flows
    It becomes clear.

Walking through the mountains and along the seacoast accompanied by butterflies and dragonflies, he had a rhythm in his stride that made poetry writing easier—one breath, one step, one verse. In another sense, traveling is a continuous search for our real home, the furusato Santoka so often speaks of in his poems.

Santoka was seeking freedom: "To do what I want, and not to do what I don't—this is why I entered such a life." Japan was gearing toward the tragedy of World War II , and the government demanded conformity from all its citizens. Santoka passively resisted by letting his body and mind wander freely.

Once a reporter was interviewing one of Santoka's poet friends when Santoka happened to arrive unannounced. The reporter told Santoka: "I f everyone lived like you, society would be in big trouble." Santoka smiled and said: "I' m one of society's warts, it's true. A big black wart on the face is hideous, but a small one is no problem. Sometimes people even have affection for their little blemishes. Please think of me like that."

Like Basho, Santoka noted that "when you travel you truly come to understand human beings, poetry, and nature." Santoka was more extreme than Basho, completely giving himself to mujo (impermanence) and sabi (solitude). Santoka was a beggar-monk who always traveled alone, flowing with the clouds and water.

He would generally beg for about three hours every day. Stopping to chant in front of a house, more often than not he would be chased away and verbally, and sometimes physically, abused. Usually he had to visit from fifteen to twenty homes (as the depression deepened he had to make thirty or more stops) before he had received enough for a day. As soon as he had received just enough rice and money for one day's food and lodging, he would stop immediately and go to the cheapest inn he could find. He never provided for the next day. "How can you be a beggar if you have extra money?" he asked.

Santoka would gratefully accept whatever was placed in his bowl, regardless of the quantity or quality. "Begging with a heart full of gratitude and respect, I hope to find the world of unlimited life and light. My pilgrimage is into the depths of the human heart. Begging is mutual gratitude and charity, the basis of society." Once an old woman mistakenly put a five-sen coin, a fairly large amount in those days, in Santoka's bowl. Later, after leaving the village, Santoka discovered the error; he walked back to the village, found the old woman, and returned the coin.

However, Santoka's begging was rather different from that of Ryokan Osho (1758-1831), the famous beggar-monk-poet of Echigo, who frequently left his begging bowl by the side of the road while he tossed a ball with the village children, played marbles with the local geishas, or picked flowers. When someone mentioned this contrast to Santoka, he replied: "M y passions are too deep to do such a thing. If I don't have a begging bowl, I can't live. Therefore, I never forget my bowl."

It is rather remarkable that Santoka never fell seriously ill during his begging trips. When he did get sick, he recovered in one of two ways. Once when he developed a high fever, he was forced to lie down on the ground. An old woman came over to him and said: "I'll give you an offering if you recite the Shushogi (excerpts from the writings of Dogen Zenji) and the Kannon Sutra." Santoka staggered to his feet and began chanting. Totally absorbed in the words, he forgot about the old woman, his sickness, and the offering. After finishing forty minutes later, he felt completely recovered from his fever.

Another time in freezing weather he drank a great deal of sakè to keep warm and suddenly became violently ill, suffering from liver trouble. He was taken to a hospital and placed on a strict regimen of bitter medicine and no sake. Santoka did not care for that, so he escaped from the hospital, went to the nearest shop, drank two cups of sake, ate some yudofu (boiled soybean cake), and was restored.

On his trips Santoka rose at 4:30, bathed, chanted the morning service, ate a tiny breakfast, and started out on a begging trip. When he had received enough, he would either return to the inn or move on to the next place, depending on his mood. He might even stay as long as a month if he liked the area and if the food and lodging were cheap.

Santoka usually received about thirty-five sen from his begging. The charge for a room at an inn ranged from twenty-five to thirty-five sen. Anything extra went for sakè, small amounts of tobacco, or post cards to send to his friends. He often shared his meager take with other beggars. Santoka described one of his favorite places like this: "The food is very cheap here, the salvation of this old hobo. Raw fish is five sen a plate, tempura five sen, yudofu two sen. Even a drunkard like me can become a Buddha in this very body for thirty sen." He described his greatest happiness as "one room, one person, one light, one desk, one bath, and one cup of sakè."

Every evening he recorded in his journal the name of the inn, die sights he had seen, the money received from begging, his expenses for that day, and then the haiku he had written, together with his reflections. His journal was his self-portrait. In his travels he "touched this and that and recorded the mind's changing impressions." He poured his life into his haiku and journals, writing down his most intimate thoughts and arguing with himself. Occasionally he felt too attached to his journals; then he would burn them or throw them away. (Similarly, before he left Gochu-an he burned the few possessions he had accumulated.)

In his last journals we find these two entries that sum up his life: "This is the path I must follow—there is no other road for me to walk on. It is a path containing both pleasure and pain. It is far off yet definite. It is very narrow and steep. However, it is also a white path [of purity], full of amazing and wonderful things. It is not a cold and lifeless way.

"I am nothing other than a beggar-monk. There is nothing you can say about me except that I am a foolish pilgrim who spent his entire life wandering, like the drifting water plants that float from shore to shore. It appears pitiful, but I find happiness in this destitute, quiet life. Water flows, clouds move, never stopping or settling down. When the wind blows, die leaves fall. Like the fish swimming or the birds flying, I walk and walk, going on and on."

The day before his death Santoka went to visit a friend and told him: "After the poetry meeting tomorrow I'll be starting out on a journey. I want to throw myself into nature one last time. I haven't got long to live, and I want to be like the sparrows or wild elephants who die alone quietly in the fields."

SAKÈ, ZEN, AND HAIKU

Days I don't enjoy:
Any day I don't walk.
Any day I don't drink sakè.
Any day I don't compose haiku.

Sakè, Zen, and haiku were the three main elements of Santoka's life; they were always present together, often interchangeable and sometimes indistinguishable.

Santoka's Zen was not the sitting Zen {zazen) of Dogen or the koan Zen of Rinzai. It was "walking Zen." Santoka was very much like the Chinese monks of old who practiced walking rather than sitting meditation, gaining realization through contact with nature on long pilgrimages from one mountain temple to another. Such monks were solitary figures, attached to no institution or master. Walking was their zazen:

Without anger, without speaking,
Without covetousness,
Walk slowly, walk steadily!

while begging was the discipline of killing selfish desires:

Pierce the poverty of the poorest man,
Throw yourself into the most foolish foolishness.
Rather than imitate anyone else
Use the nature you were born with.

In his travels Santoka attempted to accept everything that came his way without clinging to ideas of self and others, true or false, good or bad, life or death. This was not easy. "Adherence to things material and spiritual prevents me from being as free as me wind or flowing water."

Sutekirenai nimotsu no omosa mae ushiro
    Baggage I cannot throw off,
    So heavy front and back.

Although Gian was a priest of the Soto Zen school, which emphasizes zazen and careful attention to detail, he understood Santoka's character and did not try to direct him into any established routine or practice. He gave Santoka a copy of the Mumonkan, a collection of koans from Chinese Zen masters, to study on his travels. As it turned out, Santoka did meet many people (including the old woman that made him chant surras when he was ill) who confronted him with various questions about Buddhism. One such dialogue went:

"Where is the Way?" a fellow traveler demanded. "Under your feet. Straight ahead.

You are standing on it right now," Santoka replied.

"Where is the mind?"

"Everyday mind is the Way. When tea is offered, drink it; when rice is served, eat it. Respect your parents and look after your children. Mind is not inside or outside."

Santoka made the following list, which might be entitled "My Religion":

My Three Precepts:
Do not waste anything.
Do not get angry.
Do not complain.

My Three Vows:
Do not attempt the impossible.
Do not feel regret for the past.
Do not berate oneself.

My Three Joys:
Study.
Contemplation.
Haiku.

The one traditional Zen practice that Santoka was very careful about was being satisfied with any amount and not wasting anything. There are two well-known stories about Santoka living by this precept told by Sumita Oyama, Santoka's close friend, editor, and biographer.

The first time Oyama saw some of Santoka's poems in Soun he immediately wanted to meet him. However, Oyama knew that Santoka was continually on the road and difficult to contact. When Oyama heard that Santoka was staying at Gochu-an, he wrote to him and arranged for a visit.

Soon after Oyama arrived at Gochu-an, Santoka said to him: "You must be hungry. Here, I've made some lunch for you." He gave Oyama a bowl of boiled rice and one hot pepper for seasoning. Santoka told Oyama to please begin eating. When Oyama suggested they eat together, Santoka said: "I have only one bowl."

After Oyama finished his meal, Santoka took the bowl and ate the remainder of the rice and hot pepper. He then rinsed out the bowl in a bucket of water, took the water to wash off the floor and entranceway, and then went out to the garden with the remaining water. He called out: "Onions! Spinach! It's been a long time since you had some good food. Here's some special fertilizer for you."

Another time Oyama had to spend the night at Gochu-an. There was naturally only one sleeping quilt, and Santoka insisted: "You are my guest. You use the quilt. I'll stay up." The quilt was little more than a ragged piece of cloth that would barely cover a child, let alone a full-grown man. As the winter wind blew in through the many holes in the walls and ceilings, Oyama became colder and colder and was unable to sleep. Santoka put his priest's robe, his summer kimono, and several other pieces of cloth on top of Oyama, but he was still cold. Finally, Santoka piled all his old magazines and even his little desk on top of his shivering friend. The next morning when Oyama awoke, Santoka was still sitting in zazen.

Santoka was used to sharing anything he had. One night, as Santoka prepared for another dinnerless evening, a large dog came to his door carrying a big rice cake in its mouth. Santoka had no idea where the dog or the rice cake had come from. He took the rice cake, split it in two and gave half to the dog, who then ran off into the darkness. As soon as the dog was gone a little cat came up to Santoka and begged for some of the rice cake. Santoka split it again.

Aki no yo ya inu kara morattari neko ni ataetari
      Autumn night—
     I received it from the dog
    And gave it to the cat.

These two gathas (Buddhist poems written in Chinese) describe Santoka's Zen:

Spring wind, autumn rain;
Flowers bloom, grass withers.
Self-nature is self-foolishness.
Walking on and on in the Buddha Land.

Intoxication has come as I lie on a stone pillow;
The sound of the valley stream never ceases.
Everything within the sakè, completely used up:
No self, no Buddha!

Sakè was Santoka's koan. He said that "to comprehend the true taste of sakè will give me satori." He attempted to completely efface himself through drinking, a practice not unknown among certain types of Zen monks. Sitting for hours in zazen in a monastery is difficult but perhaps not as difficult as wandering through distant villages without money or food. Casting off body and mind through sitting and solving koans is arduous training but so is truly using up everything within the sakè "When I drink sake I do so with all my heart. I throw myself recklessly into sake drinking."

There is no point in romanticizing Santoka's alcoholism, however. He himself struggled with this problem for many years and never solved his greatest koan. On several occasions he was even arrested for public drunkenness and vagrancy. He owed all of his friends money. Yet despite this and all his other weaknesses, we still can find a profundity and clarity in his poems that speak of a certain measure of enlightenment. He had little self-pride, the last and greatest obstacle to satori.

Santoka admitted that he could do only three things: walk, drink sake, and make haiku. Sake and haiku were almost identical:

Sakè for the body, haiku for the heart;
Sakè is the haiku of the body,
Haiku is the sakè of the heart.

Furthermore, haiku for Santoka was written Zen—spontaneous, sharp, clear, simple, direct. There must be nothing extra, no artifice, no straining. Haiku is like a kiai, the sudden resonant shout of a swordsman. ["When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breadth separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter feeling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy."—Basho] Since haiku flows from the depths of one's being, how can we be overly concerned with predetermined structure or theme? The most important element in Santoka's haiku is self-expression: "Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life. In poetry we constantly examine life, occasionally shouting but never groaning. Sometimes tears fall, other times sweat flows; at all times we must savor each experience and move on without being obstructed by circumstances.

"Real haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one's heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your era, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations—there you'll find the essence of true art, religion, and science."

We can see from the above that while others maintained haiku to be literature or art, Santoka felt that haiku was life itself. He carved himself into each verse; creating haiku was his samadhi, a transcendent state of total absorption in his surroundings. "Sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy. Clear or cloudy I compose each verse in a state of body and mind cast off (shinjindatsuraku)."

Just before his death he wrote: "Every day I find myself in great difficulty. I don't know if I'll eat today or not. Death is approaching. The only thing I am able to do is to make poetry. Even if I don't eat or drink I cannot stop writing haiku.… For me, to live is to make haiku. Haiku is my life."

WATER, WEEDS, MOUNTAINS

More than ten percent of Santoka's haiku concern water—being drenched with it, flowing with it, bathing in it, listening to it, drinking it. Japan is a wet, humid country surrounded by the sea and full of hot springs. Rain is the constant companion of Japanese travelers. Many of Santoka's verses describe the various possibilities of being soaked. Snowfall is rare in southern Japan, where Santoka spent most of his life, but winter rain is perhaps more chilling.

The water (in those days) was pure, good tasting, and abundant. Santoka's greatest joy was drinking cold water at the end of a day's journey and warm sakè at night. For a time he thought he even preferred water to sakè. His diet—water, rice, sakè, umeboshi (pickled plum), takuan (pickled radish), yudofu—consisted of the simplest, most common, and least expensive Japanese foods; yet when properly savored they are the most delicious and nourishing foods there are.

Water was a symbol of his life and poetry—ever-flowing, plain, simple, uncomplicated.

Hyohyo to shite mizu o ajiwau
    Aimlessly, buoyantly,
     Drifting here and there,
    Tasting the pure water.

Santoka's next favorite theme was weeds and wild grasses. He often compared himself (and human beings in general) to weeds. "Sprouting, growing, blooming, seeding, and withering, just as weeds, nothing more—that is good." Weeds are everywhere, uncultivated, living with all their might, until they wither away, die, and are reborn again the following spring.

Shinde shimaeba zasso ame furu
    When I die:
    Weeds, falling rain.

If weeds represent human existence, mountains are the world of Buddha—vast, remote, sublime. Water and weeds are close to us, touchable, comprehensible; mountains appear mysterious, difficult to grasp.

Wake itte mo wake itte mo aoi yama
    Going deeper
   And still deeper—
  The green mountains.

Although mountains seem to be impenetrably high and wide, Santoka threw himself into their depth. "Westerners like to conquer mountains; Orientals like to contemplate them. As for me, I like to taste the mountains."

FOOD FROM HEAVEN

"Today my path was wonderful. I wanted to shout out to the mountains, the sea, and the sky. The sound of the waves, the birds, the pure water—I'm grateful for everything. The sun shone brightly and the number of pilgrims increases daily. The memorials, the bridges, the shrines, and the cliffs were so beautiful. My rice was like food from heaven."

Santoka centered his life on the things directly in front of him. "Truth is seeing the new in the ordinary. Settle in this world. There are hidden treasures in the present moment." In his poetry he concerned himself with the simplest and most commonplace materials, for he understood that while "rice won't make you drunk, the essence of the rice will."

For Santoka any subject was suitable for poetry. Consequently, we find poems on almost every conceivable theme—nature, society, life and death, weeds, sex, the human body and its functions, the taste of water, sakè, and rice. Everything but history: "D o not be attached to the past or wait for the future. Be grateful for each day, that is enough. I do not believe in a future world. I deny the past. I believe entirely in the present. Employ your entire body and mind in the eternal now."