#Issa

[bel-by-the-sea]

[oc] Issa

[wegotinsecure]

can’t change how nobody see me. ig

[darabellelove]

Daryl and Isabelle

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

not yet become a buddha, this ancient pine tree, dreaming.

~ kobayashi issa

(Ian Sanders)

[incorrect-belgariad]

Issa: Wow, I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years!

Polgara: You know that's called a coma, right?

Issa:

Issa: That sounds so refreshing, I could totally go for a light coma right now.

[cough-droplet]

More fansubbing procrastination~

Here's ISSA's performance of Justiφ's from this year's Cho Eiyuu Sai, with our new translation of the lyrics, 'cause I have an unhealthy obsession with this song

[judith-orshalimian]

Issa Spring/Summer 2015 Details!

[aemperatrix]

Kobayashi Issa (tr. Stephen Addiss, Fumiko and Akira Yamamoto)

[unes23]

Vlada Roslyakova at Issa SS09

[starrysola]

Practiced the hades style by putting my dnd character in the game! Would you make a deal with her? 👀🦋💖

[bel-by-the-sea]

[oc]

[wegotinsecure]

INSECURE S3 } ISSA & NATHAN

[eelhound]

"What would it be like to be truly content with what we have? You can understand that in regard to material things, of course, but I also mean it in regard to our life in total. What would it be like to walk down the street like that? Not imagining where you’re going or where you’re coming from but being content with whatever the street, the world, has to offer at exactly that moment in time.

Dogen said it would be like this: 'The mind and the externals are just thus. The gate of liberation is open.' What? Let me explain.

At the Zen center we have a few beautiful tea bowls made by a Japanese potter, all of which are chipped now, because people wash them and stack them in the metal rack, and they’re very fragile. When I talk to our community members about not putting them in the rack, they say, 'They’re too delicate to use. Why do we even have them?' Suzuki Roshi had the same problem with the teacups in his own Zen center. (It must be a Zen center epidemic.) A student complained to Suzuki about the cups. He smiled and said, 'You just don’t know how to handle them. You have to adjust yourself to the environment, not vice versa.'

This is what Dogen was saying, too. The gate of liberation is always open. Liberation from what? Liberation from walking around in a dream, like a zombie looking for contentment outside your immediate and precious life. If only you could actually recognize and receive what is here in front of you, rather than what you wish were here instead. Why is that so hard? I don’t know, but I do know that I certainly have a tendency to want to adjust my environment to myself, not the other way around. Instead, is it possible for us to constantly give thanks for whatever our life gives us? This is how to practice being truly content with what we have — even when it seems impossible.

One of my heroes of practicing this radical contentment is the 18th-century haiku master Issa, who is a beloved poet in Japan. He has a haiku that goes 'Everything I touch / with tenderness, alas, / pricks like a bramble.' Essentially, 'Everything I touch turns to shit.' He had his reasons for saying so. His mother died when he was 3, and he was raised in part by a loving grandmother, who died when he was 14. He was sent away from his home by his father and stepmother, not returning until he was 49. He then met his wife, Kiku. Their first child died in birth. Their second died as a toddler. Then a third child died, and finally, Kiku herself died. It was after their second child’s death that Issa wrote probably his most famous poem: 'This world— / Is a dewdrop world, / And yet, and yet . . .'

Issa was so interested in that 'and yet.' In a body of work inspired by incredible suffering and melancholy, there is also that incredible sweetness of the 'and yet,' which pervades his writing. It’s a sweetness that coexists with sorrow, and it reminds us that sweetness is always available to us, if we’re willing to fully enter our life, just as it is."

- Koshin Paley Ellison, from "Being Content with What We Have." Tricycle, June 2019.

[kaldwinsart]

Issa from @skyfellcomic Happy Birthday Foxx, you continue to inspire me every day.

[ftl-radio]

[georgenotfound-archive]

George on Issa's twitch stream 2024/02/26