To be, or not to be -- a vegetarian, that is! This is an issue central to many people's lives. Many people will be surprised to learn that the Buddha himself was not a vegetarian, and according to the Pali Canon He specifically required His followers to eat whatever they were offered, without preference or discrimination.
Computers, for example, lend themselves to Haiku:
Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone
Cats lend themselves to haiku, as well:
I lie belly up
In the sunshine, happier than
You will ever be
Dogs, too:
I love my master
Thus I perfume myself with
This long dead squirrel
(Continued from page 18) Haiku
invoke Sabi - solitude or
detachment - and Wabi - the spirit of poverty.
In Zen, enlightenment may be described in different way - the great enlightenment of satori or the small, little flashes of
enlightenment which come to us in everyday moments, when we seem to connect us with a sense of awe, which are called kensho. Haiku are like poetic kensho -
little bursts of clarity in
condensed form. Haiku record a momentary experience. They
record the essence, rather than describe or react to the subject. Haiku simply happen - they catch life as it flows.
Of course, Haiku can be applied to the everyday in modern life.