This Jisei, or death poem by the 19th century Japanese poet Kiba captures so poignantly the ephemeral effervescence that is a human life. Life is so fleeting.
My old body:
a drop of dew grown
heavy at the leaf tip
Kiba, 1868
Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death
Yoel Hoffmann
We are born, and most of us cling so tightly to life. But in the end life slips from our grasp, and we die. The dew drop grows heavy, and heavier, and heavier still – until it cannot cling any more. It drops.
Life falls away, regardless of how tightly we cling to it. Regardless of how many face rejuvenating serums we applied, how many ’10 things to do to live longer’ we try, regardless of our efforts at being healthy.
Nothing against ‘eating healthy so we enhance our wellbeing so we can help our fellow living beings’. This is such a blessed thing. Absolutely beyond wonderful.
But one day the dew drops
When? We don’t know. We die
And we are gone. Gone with but memories in others’ minds. Maybe something in the world that we did persists? Maybe we made a dent.
But gone we are. In this vast universe – a tiny effervescence. A mote of dust.
No need to cling
We are not this apparent body. We aren’t this apparent mind, or any of its contents.
What we are is vast, open and so very far beyond clinging.
Find this vast empty luminosity. Rest there. Rest as this, from this, in this, of this.
Find that which is deathless
Then the dew drop can do what the dew drop will do. And you will feel the utter beauty of apparent death. From the deathless.
Original source: Tuttle Publishing
