Take a Deep Breath - Softcover

Haiku Meditation

Old pond
a frog leaps in
water's sound

This is the classic haiku poem, written by the Japanese haiku master, Basho, a long time ago. It is about a moment -- just the experience of this moment -- "splash!" Every haiku is an attempt to reveal, in poetic form, such a moment, no more nor less. Often the first two lines set the scene, giving the reader a context. Then in the next line the poem opens to offer a moment of insight. True haiku are carefully created so as to lead to a "splash" that sets off ripples of thought in the reader.

This book is built around forty-four haiku, arranged by season. As you encounter each haiku, we recommend that you use it as a source of meditation. Begin by taking three deep breaths. Focus your attention on the experience of breathing in a natural rhythm. Stay with it for a while as you relax into a meditative state of mind. Then turn to the haiku and read it silently. Then read it again out loud. Read it yet again out loud. Then go back to the first two lines. Let yourself cross the threshold of awareness offered in those lines. Allow images, associations, feelings, memories to arise within you. Then move into the rest of the poem and allow yourself to be open to where it takes you. For the poet, it represents a particular moment of experience as well as his or her insight into that experience. Allow yourself to be open to your own experience, in response to the poem, and to your own insight.

Stay with it, and read the poem again. See what wider ripples it sets off in you. You may want to memorize it, and take it with you through the day to see what insights will arise.

As you read this book, you are invited to stop and give time to each haiku in this fashion, as a way of settling into your own awareness of what it evokes. Notice that just as the meditative exercise you've been practicing centers on what the body does naturally -- breathing in and out -- so the simple art of haiku is a measure of just one breath in poetic form. The breath breathes itself -- in and out. All we are doing is paying attention to it. The world of the haiku is there before us; all we have to do is open the door to it.

We offer our own responses to these forty-four haiku to give a sense of how you might approach them in your own meditation. At the end of the book, though, we provide a few more without any commentary as an opportunity for you to meditate on them on your own.