Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise.
Seek what they sought. 
Basho¹

At the deepest level, Nature is silent.  The trees, rocks, rivers, and meadows do not speak.  Or, do they?

A respected Zen teacher, Zenkei Shibayama, declared that “a flower does not talk”.² The Buddha, after his enlightenment, met with a large gathering of followers on Vulture Peak in India in what has come to be called the Flower Sermon, where he silently held up a lotus flower. No one stirred for some time. Then, soundlessly, one monk, Mahakashyapa, among those in attendance, simply smiled. This ostensibly wordless transmission of prajna (wisdom) took place between Buddha and Mahakashyapa.  After a while, Buddha spoke:

I have the all-pervading eye of the True Dharma, the Secret Heart of incomparable Nirvana, the True Aspect of Formless Form.
It does not rely on letters and is transmitted outside the sutras. 
I now hand it on to Mahakashyapa.³

I have no interest in or desire to debate either Buddha or Shibayama. Far from it. Yet, I wonder if Nature does, in actuality, speak to each and every one of us who cares enough to listen closely and observe. When a harp listens, it responds with the sound of music. You can call this a poetic perspective, if you like.

Let me pause here and say that I wish to weave into this essay reflections by Basho, the father of Japanese haiku. Although his timeless poetry may be disparaged as “normative” and hence passé by those clamouring for innovation and experimentation, Basho embodies a depth of insight that I have not found anywhere in the writings of gendai poets. In doing so, I am happy to make my “bias” plain and transparent. For me, Basho’s wisdom is as fresh and relevant today as it was several hundred years ago.

Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.

Haiku poets are human harps. This attunement and subsequent output are silently audible, but unadorned. Though oxymoronic, the fruit of this poetic attunement, I suspect, is what prompted Alan Watts to characterise haiku as wordless in his classic book, The Way of Zen (1957).  He did not only mean to suggest that haiku is a form of poetry with an economy of words.  While true, I don’t believe this alone would be especially notable. But a form of truth or revelation that communicates through a whisper, and stirring both heart and mind? Well, this would be quite exceptional, even precious . . . as in sacred.

No less special is the wisdom, likewise unadorned, which glistens in the deepest of poetic revelations.  Basho did not “invent” wisdom but, because he was so earnest and so deeply attentive, bequeathed a treasure trove of wisdom in his poetry and prose. So did Issa and many others down through the ages. Even today, in our jaded and fragmented world, there are still haiku poets who impart wisdom arising out of their love of life, humanity, and the world. I, for one, feel inspired, blessed and immensely grateful for these priceless jewels, for that is exactly what they are.

Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine,
or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo.
And, in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself.
Otherwise, you impose yourself on the object and you do not learn.

Wisdom, Understood
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary wisdom is defined as “the quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgment”.  While this definition suffices for everyday use, it does not come close to conveying a poetic understanding of wisdom’s significance. Wisdom has everything to do with a passionate dedication to lifelong, here-and-now learning. Learning begins with not knowing. Not knowing is unrelated to ignorance; rather, it is the very foundation of intelligence.

To learn, to discover, calls for curiosity, as well as a desire to understand.

No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless
you bring your deepest devotion to it.

Wisdom, then, may be said to be curiosity fulfilled via insight and meaning⁴ . . .  up to a limit.  What does this mean?  The wise are fully conscious that there are limitations to human understanding; there is always more to be comprehended and, in the end, the mystery at the centre of everything remains boundless, infinite. In short, wisdom is interwoven with humility, which points to a transcendence of the small self or ego; that is, the thinking mind. Such self-transcendence is inextricably connected to love. Love? Yes, love. But I am not referring here to the romantic version depicted by Hollywood.

By love, I mean Loving Intelligence. Wisdom is a manifestation of Loving Intelligence and this I will not dishonour by trying to define the term for, as the ancient Taoist sage, Lao Tzu, understood, it cannot be named or captured like a butterfly in a net. We can, however, catch glimpses of Loving Intelligence, as well as the wisdom to which it gives rise, in haiku poetry.

Wisdom is composed of several functions which interact fluidly with one another. In regards to the haiku poet, the passionate desire to learn activates interest, curiosity and a quality of open-hearted observation.  While walking in the forest, along the beach or even in one’s own neighbourhood, the poet engages all of his or her senses.

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 felling a huge tree
or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.

There is a sense of relaxed alertness or what Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, referred to as “evenly hovering attention”.  The latter is a quality of noticing that is allowing without judgment or bias. One is simply receptive to what is. Observing what is, in turn, opens a channel to one’s powers of discernment which distinguish truth from distortion.

What I call the haiku mind is also capable of recognising that which matters most. R. H. Blyth, the 20th century British Zen scholar and author of several classic books on haiku, emphasises the central importance of significance in haiku poetry.⁵ He observes in Haiku: Eastern Culture, (1949) V 1:

Haiku does not, like waka, aim at beauty. Like the music of Bach, it aims at significance,
and some special kind of beauty is hovering near.⁶

And, this astute reflection by Blyth is no less worth quoting:

Haiku shows us what we knew all the time, but did not know we knew:
it shows us that we are poets in so far as we live at all.⁷

What is important is to keep our mind high in the world of true understanding,
and returning to the world of our daily experience to seek therein the truth of beauty.

Understood in this light, wisdom may be thought of as the dynamic registry of significance, which puts one in touch with the Infinite or Immeasurable, thereby enriching not only the individual’s experience of being but that of humanity, as well.

With the help of an extraordinarily sensitive writer, Kathleen Dean Moore, I have come to appreciate that wisdom and wonder are related, intimately so. Without a sense of wonder, wisdom is that much more remote, elusive. Listen to what Moore discovers, writing with the subtlety of a poet in Wild Comfort (2010):

 . . . what if I could see the familiar world as if I had never seen it before, even if I see it every day –
with that wonderment and surprise? Or see it as if I would never see it again? Then imagine the glory.
I’m thinking of a paltry sense of wonder that requires something new every day.
I confess: Wonder is easy when you travel to desert islands in search of experiences
you have never imagined, in search of something you have never seen before,
in search of wonder, the shock of surprise. It’s easy, and maybe it’s cheap. It’s not what the world asks of us.⁸

I wish to pause here to allow the reader to take in what Moore has written, to ponder what she ponders.  She continues:

To be worthy of the astonishing world, a sense of wonder will be a way of life,
in every place and time, no matter how familiar: to listen in the dark of every night,
to praise the mystery of every returning day,to be astonished again and again,
to be grateful with an intensity that cannot be distinguished from joy.⁹

Yes, yes, yes! This is precisely what I want to say, what I passionately wish to get across.  Wisdom is wonder, recovered and wholeheartedly embodied, breath by breath by breath. It can be, and most often is, subtly audible, simple and not in the least abstruse or convoluted like fresh, cool spring water cupped in both hands. There is plenty of wisdom where there is boundless wonder, if only we drop our small, self-centered minds and stop, look, listen and love.  Deeply.

Substituting Artifice for Naturalness
In recent years, a lot of attention has been brought to the use of abstruse techniques, including: perceptual disjunction; misreading as meaning; overturning semantic expectations; chimeric fusions; displaced mythic resonance; elemental animism and others.¹⁰ Disjunction, in particular, reflects a superficial understanding, in my view.

Consider the ancient Taoist symbol of the circle containing yin and yang figures in black and white.  Are these figures “disjunctive” with respect to one another? Superficially, perhaps. But the deeper understanding is that yin and yang complement one another; indeed, they are two parts of a whole like figure and ground, which Gestalt psychologists call a gestalt, meaning whole. In other words, yin and yang are integral parts of a unified whole; they go together. More importantly, there is no trace of artifice in this symbol that I discern. The circle and fish imagery is naturally occurring in the world.

The same can be said about male and female. These two are no more disjunctive than the aforementioned Taoist symbols of yin and yang.

In this connection, is disjunction a skilful means for communicating revelations discovered through contact with Nature, broadly conceived, via haiku poetry? I think not. It strikes me as self-evident that wisdom is rooted fundamentally and spiritually in harmony, not disjunction.

Juxtaposition of images that appear disparate might lead one to mistakenly believe that disjunction is a compelling technique but this would, in actuality, be a misguided conclusion.  Juxtaposition serves harmony and hence wisdom. Tao, or the Way of Nature, points to wholeness, not fragmentation, discord, or disharmony. In fact, Nature is vast enough to include the latter and Basho and his contemporaries, through their studies of Taoism and Zen and their reliance on meditative awareness, understood this.¹¹

When your consciousness has become ripe in true zazen –
pure like clear water, like a serene mountain lake, not moved by any wind –
then anything may serve as a medium for realisation.

To take a couple of other examples: up and down, open and closed, appear to be “opposites”. While this seems to be true, superficially speaking, these and many other so-called opposites are in reality complementary; that is to say, once again, they go together. There is nothing whatsoever disjunctive about them. To deny this is neither accurate nor wise.

Thus, the gendai preference for disjunction in haiku poetry flies in the face of wisdom and perpetuates confusion and a poetry that is utterly incongruent with the origins of the form. What is haiku poetry’s essential literary function? To disseminate love and wisdom through a deeper understanding of Nature – our own and that of the world to which we belong.

The use of disjunction along with other abstruse literary devices – artifice, in short – lead both poet and reader astray. More than this, the disturbing effect of gendai poetry is estrangement rather than unity or harmony with one’s self, others and the world around us.  Such estrangement is antithetical to what Basho, Buson, Issa and others sought, unless the goal is fomenting opposition, alienation, rebellion. It is the collective desire for wisdom, not estrangement, which draws people together, fostering compassion, collaboration and connection.

Contemporary literary critics clamouring for “innovation and experimentation” in haiku, who invoke Basho for support ignore a key fact about the father of Japanese haiku: Basho was steeped in, and guided by, Taoist and Zen Buddhist teachings. His focus on innovation was directed toward rescuing haikai from artifice, triviality and banality – qualities that some in contemporary English-language haiku poetry are currently overindulging in. Basho and his followers drew inspiration, insight and wisdom from a close and sedulous study of Nature precisely because the latter offered precious guidance with respect to what matters most to people then and now. Wisdom withers away on the glittering bracelet of indecipherable and self-centred linguistic baubles.

Severing the roots of haiku from its spiritual origins in Nature and substituting garbled surrealistic jargon in the name of innovation constitutes an evisceration that imperils the very heart and soul of this vital poetic form. Onitsura, a younger contemporary of Basho, gave voice to the very same concern several hundred years ago. His words echo through the corridors of time:

There are many cases of people who, even though they were born with a frank character,
have acquired the habit of deceit in their poetry.
There are many people who, although they started out observing conventions of form,
choose to write in extremely contorted ways.
They give only the most careless consideration to what sort of profit they may derive from haikai,
they do not think about things, they have an unreasonably high opinion of their own abilities,
they rely on mere glibness – this kind of behaviour is a result of not understanding at all the Way of haikai.¹²

The Escape Room of Novelty
I know a young adult whose family enjoys spending an afternoon every so often at an escape room. It is an adventure that is suspenseful and intellectually challenging. Each family member contributes whatever skills and abilities he or she possesses in the service of decoding the multiplicity of esoteric clues that enable them to “escape” the room they pay good money to lock themselves in for 2 hours.

The adventure is literally and figuratively a form of escape that draws the family together. It is both novel and stimulating. That said, the 2 hours the family invests in the undertaking is essentially entertainment. While the experience may turn out to be memorable, it can hardly be construed as significant or substantive in any meaningful way. This is not a criticism or a judgment, but simply descriptive.

I mention the escape room experience, because it reminds me of the escape room of avant-garde haiku poetics. The gendai experiment is alluring by virtue of its “disruptive” techniques like disjunction and a host of others, as mentioned above. Part of the allure, I am sure, may be due to the pride the poet and/or reader takes in his or her facility for deciphering the indecipherable. He or she may even feel superior to those “stuck” in the cliche mode of so-called normative haiku reading and writing that is grounded in nature-based poetry, which appears humdrum to the innovative brigade.

But the pleasure associated with escape rooms and gendai haiku is fleeting at best. Why do I say this? Because in both cases, the “experience” is devoid of any enduring meaning or significance. Divorced from the ground of being, which proximity to Nature enriches, the illusory sense of self as centre of the universe is magnified.  There is no call to self-transcendence, and no yearning to merge with Nature or the universe. The perennial questions posed by generations from time immemorial – Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Do human beings have a soul? What happens to us after death? – are passed over in favour of word games and mind-bending enigmas which yield transient pleasure, at most.

Those promoting innovation and experimentation invoke Basho for support, often citing the following quote: “One should never, even for a moment, lick the dregs of the ancients.  Like the endless change of seasons, all things must change.  The same is true of haikai.”

According to Michele Root-Bernstein, the quote above is attributed to Basho.¹³ But, the latter part of Basho’s assertion is either glossed over or sidelined, because the advocates for innovation have little understanding of or appreciation for the spiritual foundation of Basho’s haiku poetics. That is to say, Nature was all and, in the universe of true haiku, Nature is still all.  In referring to the seasons, anyone past the age of 5 is old enough to know that the innovation of spring yields to the innovation of summer and so on beyond the confines of conventional time. To put it another way, the spring of 2024 was not replaced by a surreal spring of 2025 and the latter will not be replaced by a titillating avant-garde spring in 2026. Manufacturing change through artifice is not Nature’s way; and Basho was fully cognisant of this as evidenced by the following quote:

The basis of art is change in the universe.

Not only Basho, but every contemporary nature-based haiku poet/lover understands this, too.

The moon and sun are travellers through eternity. Even the stars wander on.
Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse,
each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

Fixation and Denial
The gendai focus on innovation and experimentation comes across as a fixation, if not denial.  A fixation is an inflexible preoccupation, which obscures recognition of other relevant factors. The most conspicuous among these is the existential fact of impermanence or transience.  Everything arises and passes away, as the Buddha taught. This means that change is always and forever happening. Basho and his contemporaries understood this sacred truth and their haiku poetry reflected the precious reality of everlasting change.

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things –
mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity –
and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering of leaves.

Unless one is in denial about impermanence, it is readily apparent that contemporary haiku poets situate their poems in the present moment, which is inherently fleeting. (Even the composition of poems about the past and/or future occur in the here-and-now.) What this means is that no two poems about the moon by the same haijin or by 100 poets will ever be the same. The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, astutely declared: “No man [or woman] ever steps into the same river twice.” Thus, the gendai call for innovation ignores the readily observable fact that all haiku poetry is invariably innovative insofar as each and every poem is unique by virtue of the universal experience of transience.  From my vantage point, this should render the gendai clamouring for innovation moot and redundant.

The contingent of poets calling for innovation has been loud and vociferous. But it is not just innovation that these proponents are looking for; they appear to be intent on stripping haiku of its heart and soul, as I suggested earlier. Behind the calls for innovation lies nullification, it seems to me, which is why the editors of the Haiku 21 anthology series refer to the poems in their collections as “ku”. What is left is a faint resemblance to haiku poetry, a hint of the form but devoid of any true substance. For this reason, I would like to see their “new” form be renamed something more descriptive – unku or undoku – to clearly distinguish these poems from nature-based haiku.

If Nature, broadly conceived, has innovation built-in by virtue of invariable change, then artifice is unnecessary and superfluous. The less connected one is to Nature, or the more internally focused a poet is, the more susceptible he or she may be to turn to artifice as a means of generating novel alternatives. What impact, if any, does naturalness as opposed to artifice have on the emergence of wisdom?

This is a significant question, I believe, with respect to haiku poetics and the future of haiku poetry. Without drawing any sweeping conclusions based on the non-random selection below, I suspect that the reader may nonetheless form some impressions of his/her own. Do nature-based poems offer more access to wisdom by virtue of their roots in the natural world; or do gendai poems, emphasising linguistic techniques, lead to wisdom of substantive and enduring value?  The answer to this query may very well determine what haiku poetry will look and sound like 50 or 100 years from now.

In searching for examples of innovative “ku”, I turned primarily to the now-defunct Roadrunner Haiku Journal (R’r for short), as it was home to some of the most outspoken and ardent proponents of gendai poetry. Originally, I planned to simply quote a number of gendai poems below and contrast them in a separate sampling of nature-based poems. However, I thought better of this and decided instead to intermingle the two forms of poetry while asking the reader to note which poems hint at any trace of wisdom.  To enable readers to focus their full attention on the poems themselves, I have relegated the poets’ names to the Footnotes.

mind
ful
minus ¹⁴

Simply trust:
Do not also the petals flutter down,
Just like that? ¹⁵

licking the cleft sweet aspirin after rain ¹⁶

barren subjunctive buys her a pony ¹⁷

answers appear questions the ocean’s cancer wing ¹⁸

starry night. . .
what’s left of my life
is enough ¹⁹

the
a
born in England ²⁰

learning to eat
around bruises
winter apples ²¹

acquaintance concern bible width ²²

Plum-blossoms here and there,
It is good to go north,
Good to go south. ²³

    t a l k a t i v e
harbours are where ²⁴

starfish the mathematical Bahamas ²⁵

isms with our clothes on ²⁶

lettuce your grandmother’s car ²⁷

Visiting the graves –
The old dog
Leads the way. ²⁸

Perverse

the ‘i’
in ‘subject’
is ‘j’. ²⁹

The beggar –
He has heaven and earth
For his summer clothes. ³⁰

 

archangel
arachnid
alabama ³¹

lunch with a friend
how so few words
hold me up ³²

The End
I have a trusted haiku friend who is untroubled by the so-called gendai movement, as this poet views it as little more than a passing fad. It should flame out in due course. I am inclined to agree but, on the outside chance that English-language haiku could be nearing a fateful crossroads, I want to be clear where I stand. I trust I have done so: The future of haiku depends on our undying faith in Nature and the infinite wisdom teachings it offers. Nature is capable of taking care of itself. It doesn’t need technological innovation or manipulation any more than haiku poetry needs the artificial and lifeless imposition of arcane and disjunctive linguistics.

In this light, I want to end with the voice of the poet I began this essay with; that is, the Zen-inspired and eternal wisdom of Basho:

Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.

Footnotes

1. This and all other quotes by Basho in the text were accessed on June 13, 2025 via the internet at www.quotefancy.com.
2. See Zenkei Shibayama, A Flower Does Not Talk.
3.  Accessed online at the Rochester Zen Center’s website:  www.rzc.org.
4. See Charles Trumbull’s illuminating essay, “Meaning in Haiku”.  Frogpond, 35:3, Autumn 2012.
5. While I understand the point that Blyth is making, I think he is overstating the case that haiku aims for significance, not beauty. Beauty, like truth, is significant. Truth, for example, is inherently beautiful; and even brutal truths are no less significant because they are brutal. I wish to invoke Basho here: “Real poetry is to lead a beautiful life.”  Note he emphasises beauty, not significance.
6. See R. H. Blyth, Haiku:  Eastern Culture, V. 1.  Hokuseido Press, 1949; p.x.
7. Ibid.
8. Kathleen Dean Moore, Wild Comfort:  The Solace of Nature.  Boston:  Shambhala, 2010; p. 36.
9. Ibid., p.36.
10. For a useful overview of avant-garde poetics and techniques, see Michelle Root-Bernstein, “Engaging with Avant-Garde Haiku:  A Study Group Approach to New Directions in Craft”.  Modern Haiku, 55.3, Autumn 2024.
11. For a meticulously researched study of the influence of Taoist teachings on Basho and his contemporaries, see Peipei Qiu, Basho and the Tao:  The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2005; and also: Peipei Qiu, “Reinventing the New through the Old:  The Essence of Haikai and the Zhuangzi”. Early Modern Japan, Spring 2001. For the influence of Zen on the development of Japanese haiku, see R. H. Blyth, Haiku:  Eastern Culture, Volume 1. N/P:  Hokoseido, 1949; as well as:  D. T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.
12. Onitsura, quoted in Cheryl Crowley, “Putting Makoto into Practice:  Onitsura’s Hitorigoto”.  Monumenta Niippoinica, 50:1, Spring, 1995; p.19.
13. Michele Root Bernstein, “Engaging with Avant-Garde Haiku: A Study Group Approach to New Directions in Craft.” Modern Haiku, 55.3, Autumn 2024, p.29.
14. Philip Rowland, R’r, 13.2, August 2013.
15. Issa, in Peter Washington, ed. Haiku.  New York, NY: Everyman’s Library, 2003.
16. Richard Gilbert, R’r, 13.2, August 2013.
17. Lee Gurga, R’r, 13.2, August 2013.
18. Scott Metz, R’r, 13.2, August 2013.
19. Ron C. Moss, First Place, Shiki Monthly Kukai, December 2006.
20. Jack Galmitz, R’r, 13.2, August 2013.
21. Debbi Antebi, The Heron’s Nest, 20, 2018.
22. Paul Pfleuger, Jr., R’r, 13.2, August 2013.
23. Buson, in Peter Washington, ed. Haiku. New York, NY: Everyman’s Library, 2003.
24. Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Otoliths, 10, 2013.
25. Mike Andrelezyk, R’r, 13.2, 2013.
26. Paul Pfleuger, Jr., a Zodiac, Winchester, WV, Red Moon Press, 2013.
27. Jim Westenhaver, Modern Haiku, 44.3, Autumn 2013.
28. Issa, in Peter Washington, ed. Haiku.  New York, NY:  Everyman’s Library, 2003.
29. Rob Stanton, Noon:  A Journal of the Short Poem, #8, January 2014.
30. Kikaku, in in Peter Washington, ed. Haiku. New York, NY: Everyman’s Library, 2003.
31. Richard Gilbert, R’r, 12.2, 2012.
32. Randy Brooks, Frogpond, 36:3, Autumn 2013.

Editor’s note: This essay has been written for Haiku NewZ. Robert Epstein is a licensed psychologist and published haiku poet who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has edited many anthologies of haiku with his latest publications being Sincerely Yours:: Haiku in Honor of Onitsura (2025), Memo to Warhol:: Art & Haiku in Color (2023), A Hummingbird Still: Haiku & Senryu in the Spirit of J. Krishnamurti (2021), and The Signature Haiku Anthology (2020). All are available on Amazon.