Poems of Zen Master Ikkyu
Ikkyu was a zen master who has written many poems
and each poem is a unique expression or truth.
Osho on Ikkyu poems : Religion is non-philosophic,
anti-philosophic, and Zen is the purest form of religion. Zen is the
very essence of religion. Hence it is irrational, it is absurd. If you
try to understand it logically you will be bewildered. It can only be
understood illogically. It has to be approached in deep sympathy and
love. YOU CANNOT approach Zen through empirical, scientific, objective
concepts. They all have to be dropped.
It is a heart phenomenon. You have to feel it rather than think it.
You have to BE it to know it. Being is knowing. And there is no other
knowing. That's why religion has to choose a different kind of language.
Religion has to talk in parables, in poetry, in metaphors, in myth.
Those are indirect ways of hinting at the truth -- only hinting at the
truth, no direct pointing; just whispering, not shouting. It comes to
you in a deep rapport.
These small poems of the Zen master, Ikkyu, are of immense
importance. They are not great poetry, remember, because that is not
the concern. The poetry has been used as a device, so that yom heart can
be stirred. The poetry is not the goal. Ikkyu is not concerned with
creating great poetry; he is not really a poet, he is a mystic. But
rather than speaking prose, he speaks in poetry -- for a certain reason.
The reason is: poetry has an indirect way of hinting at things.
Poetry is feminine. Prose is masculine. Prose, the very structure of it,
is logical; poetry is basically illogical. Prose has to be clear-cut;
poetry has to be vague -- that's its beauty, its quality. Prose simply
says what it says; poetry says many things. Prose is needed in the
day-to-day world, in the marketplace. But whenever something of the
heart has to be said, prose is always found inadequate -- one has to
fall back to poetry.
There are two languages in language. Each language consists of two
languages: one is prose, the other is poetry. Prose has become very
predominant because it is utilitarian. Poetry has disappeared by and by,
because it has no utility. It is needed only when you are in love. It is
needed only when you are talking of love, death, prayer, truth, God --
but they are not commodities. They are not sold in the marketplace, they
are not purchased either.
Our world, slowly slowly, has become linear. The other language, the
deeper language, has lost its meaning for us. And because of the
disappearance of the second language, the language of poetry, man has
become very poor -- because ALL richness is of the heart. Mind is very
poor, mind is a beggar. Mind lives through trivia. The heart is an
opening to the profundities of life, to the depths of existence, to the
mysteries of cosmos.
Remember this there are tWo languages in language, two ways of
speaking, two levels of linguistic usage. There is a language of clear
truths, concepts and formulas, the language of pure logic, objective
information, exact science. But that is not the language of the heart,
and that is not the language of love, and that is not the language of
religion.
Science and religion are diametrically opposite. They belong to
different dimensions of existence. They don't overlap each other's
grounds, each other's fields. They simply never meet! They don't criss-cross.
And the modern mind has been trained for science, hence religion has
become almost out of date, of the past.
Source - Osho Book "Take it Easy, Vol 1" |
