On the road from Palm Beach….
On this trip I’ve been sampling Kindle’s new short pieces of
writing and read Jane Hirschfield’s wonderful essay on “The Art of Haiku” and
Japanese haiku master, Basho.
Basho—poet, samurai, and Zen master—wrote and taught in the
1680’s. So when, in her essay, Hirschfield writes about his emotions struggles
caring for family I sat up and said, “Wow…even then caregiving was hard.”
In describing his later years when he was caring for an ill
nephew and was frequently sought out by more students and fellow poets for help
(haiku in its Basho perfected form is a kind of spiritual/psychological
process)…. Basho wrote:
“Crushed by other people’s needs, I can find no calmness of
mind.” This from a Zen master! After the nephew’s death Basho shut himself off
for a year to recoup his peace of mind and his own health.
Caregiver stress in the 1690’s. That helped me to see—again—that
it is a human phenomenon—not a personal weakness or a feature of modern
culture.
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