DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45392#0338
Buddha & the Gospel of Buddhism
are purely of the Zen tradition, though not perhaps its
most profound expression. That most profound intuition
is of the one Suchness that finds expression in the very
transcience of every passing moment: the same indivisible
being is ever coming to expression, and never expressed,
in the coming to be and passing away of man and of the
whole world moment by moment; it is the very heart of
‘culture’ and religion to recognize the eternal, not as
obscured, but as revealed by the transient, to see infinity
in the grain of sand, the same unborn in every birth, and
the same undying in every death. These thoughts find
constant expression in the poetry and art inspired by Zen
thought. The Morning Glory, for example, fading in
an hour, is a favourite theme of the Japanese poet and
painter. What are we to understand by the poem of
Matsunaga Teitoku ?
The morning glory blooms but an hour, and yet it differs
not at heart
From the giant pine that lives for a thousand years.
Are we to think of the morning glory as a type and symbol
of the tragic brevity of our life, as a memento mori, a re-
minder of impermanence, like the wagtail’s tail ? We may
do this without error: but there lies beyond this a deeper
meaning in the words of Matsunaga, something more than
a lamentation for the very constitution of our experience.
According to the commentary of Kinso:
“ He who has found the way in the morning may die at
peace in the evening. To bloom in the morning, to await
the heat of the sun, and then to perish, such is the lot
appointed to the morning glory by Providence. There
are pines, indeed, which have lived for a thousand years,
but the morning glory, who must die so soon, never for a
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are purely of the Zen tradition, though not perhaps its
most profound expression. That most profound intuition
is of the one Suchness that finds expression in the very
transcience of every passing moment: the same indivisible
being is ever coming to expression, and never expressed,
in the coming to be and passing away of man and of the
whole world moment by moment; it is the very heart of
‘culture’ and religion to recognize the eternal, not as
obscured, but as revealed by the transient, to see infinity
in the grain of sand, the same unborn in every birth, and
the same undying in every death. These thoughts find
constant expression in the poetry and art inspired by Zen
thought. The Morning Glory, for example, fading in
an hour, is a favourite theme of the Japanese poet and
painter. What are we to understand by the poem of
Matsunaga Teitoku ?
The morning glory blooms but an hour, and yet it differs
not at heart
From the giant pine that lives for a thousand years.
Are we to think of the morning glory as a type and symbol
of the tragic brevity of our life, as a memento mori, a re-
minder of impermanence, like the wagtail’s tail ? We may
do this without error: but there lies beyond this a deeper
meaning in the words of Matsunaga, something more than
a lamentation for the very constitution of our experience.
According to the commentary of Kinso:
“ He who has found the way in the morning may die at
peace in the evening. To bloom in the morning, to await
the heat of the sun, and then to perish, such is the lot
appointed to the morning glory by Providence. There
are pines, indeed, which have lived for a thousand years,
but the morning glory, who must die so soon, never for a
256