Japanese Death Poems

 I have decreed today to be a day of relaxation. Which means, I will only do the things that give me joy and peace. These past few weeks have been a bit sparse in such moments- too much time spent on things that I need to be doing, instead of wanting to do.

Japanese Death Poems is making me think of how death has been approached by different cultures since time immemorial. There was some science documentary on TV some months ago talking about the earliest evidences in human history when death became something to be commemorated-  a little handmade toy next to the grave of a child found in a cave, the site many thousands of years old, even before Homo sapiens became the predominant sub-species on earth.

I don't know much about Indian thinking of death, other than the well-known lines from the Gita speaking about the unchanging, divine soul changing bodies like it changes clothes. Of course, since reincarnation is something most of us believe in (what a reassuring thought to know that one has multiple chances at getting life right! Though of course, what is right or what is wrong?), death implicitly becomes a part of this cyclical nature of existence.

In the Japanese Death Poems book, I am learning about the Japanese (and a bit of Chinese, since there was such a lot of influence of the culture of latter on the former) thinking on life and death. Poems, apparently, are a very common feature of Japanese life, with everybody regardless of social or economic or even educational class expressing themselves in poetry featuring their every day lives, their love for nature, loyalty to emperor etc for thousands of years. Hard to imagine the manga-consuming stereotypes of Japanese shows as poets, no? But as per this book, they are! 

And death was something to be looked at in the eye- in fact, the norm is for the Japanese, at the time of their death, to write their final thoughts as a "death poem". In this book, the author has collected the death poems of everyday Japanese, monks, samurai warriors and others from over a thousand years and translated them. How amazing and surprising is that! 

Read this one by a Zen monk using the metaphor of archery to describe his impending death:

Inhale, exhale

Forward, back

Living, dying:

Arrows, let flown each to each

Meet midway and slice

The void in aimless flight-

Thus I return to the source.

- Gesshu Soko (died 1696)

Here is a poem by someone who was famously arrogant:

Till now I thought

that death befell

the untalented alone.

If those with talent, too, 

must die

surely they make 

a better manure?

- Kyoriku (1656-1715) 

There are poems mocking death poems, especially of those who wrote the poems and then instead of dying, recovered:

After recovery, he polishes
the style of his death poem

The mouth that has uttered
a death poem
now devours porridge

There is something very novel and attractive in the idea of penning something about death before one dies. I don't think I have ever heard the like in any other culture. My mom wouldn't have had the chance, but I wonder what might my grandmother or father or uncles have said before they passed away?