Pain (itami)

World Kigo TOP . ]
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Pain (itami)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

How to deal with pain ?

We all experience it at some point in our life!
Medicine can help us on a physical level, but poetry can help us on a different level to cope with it.


Now there is a book "Listen to the Voice of Pain"
Pain and Literature
by Hoka Sumio, an anaesthesist

痛みの声を聴け　
文化や文学のなかの痛みを通して考える
外須美夫

©　www.kokuseido.co.jp


鵙鳴くや　痛みを神の　声と聞き
mozu naku ya itami o kami no koe to kiki

a gray shrike calls ...
I hear the voice of pain
as the voice of God

Masaki Kooichi 正木浩一

Koichi wrote this haiku shortly before his death from cancer.
He came from a family of haiku poets and used to write to make the pain more bearable.
His sister is teaching haiku at NHK HAIKU in 2007/2008.
quote from mukago3


Mozu, the shrike, butcher-bird


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


蚤虱 馬の 尿 する枕もと
nomi shirami uma no bari suru makuramoto

fleas and lice
and a horse pissing
next to my pillow

Matsuo Basho
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

Most translators of this haiku interpolate some feeling of disgust.

That is not what Basho said or meant at all, for he was using that suffering; he was not used by it. Not a single syllable in his original words reflects self-pity. It was just Nip! Ouch! Pshhh!

How does one understand suffering?
Our practice in the Diamond Sutra is not easy. But if there are the tears of sincere pain, they carry precious virtue. Self-pity sullies this virtue, and when self-pity is projected, we have needless dissension in the sangha, the community. The virtue itself shines forth with incisive spirit that drives through the darkness. The pain itself is just that pain.

© Henro Tracks, a Basho Bash
Henro Tracks discusses pain in the haiku of Basho.

WKD: Fleas and Lice


The siluhette of Matsuo basho and this haiku !
Miyagi perfecture, Naruko Hot Spring, 2011
. Rice Field Art 田んぼアート　 tanbo aato .


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HAIKU

秋の蚊の痛み軽しと腕を見る
aki no ka no itami karushi to ude o miru

the little pain caused
by this mosquito in autumn -
I look at my hand

While Noji san was sitting at his computer, this mosquito swirrled around his head for a while and then landed on his right hand, which held the mouse. He looked at it for a while and then ... slap.
©　nojisan.no-blog.jp


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手のひらの痛み温みや鬼胡桃
te no hira no itami nukumi ya oni gurumi

the pain in my palm
feels warm now -
large walnuts

She was gripping these nuts in her hand firmly, until the pain changed into a pleasant warmth.
©　Tomiko とみ子

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Related words

***** Dead body, deceased person, corpse (hotoke) Japan
Death Poems, Death Haiku


***** Emotions and feelings expressed in haiku
... Loneliness, sadness, melancholy and other emotions
Sabishisa, kanashisa and more


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