October 12, 2010

Basho's haiku travels through time and spaces, Mabesoone says

Basho statue looking over Sumida river
Basho was a traveller and a time-traveller at the same time, Seegan Mabesoone says.

Mabesoone is a French haiku poet living in Japan, specializing in Matsuo Basho and Kobayashi Issa. Last weekend, he had a lecture at Basho Museum in Koto-ku, Tokyo.

In Basho's haiku or haikai, Mabesoone says, both passage of time and transition of spaces are often represented in one phrase. Basho walked through space to trace back through history.
There also are implications in his haiku that a travel eventually goes back to what it starts, he says.

According to Mabesoone, it's in contrast with Western culture, which thinks time is something straightforward. But he found a striking similarity in an Arabian Nights story. He says both imply reincarnations.

I know my explanation is not enough at all, but Mr. Mabesoone's lecture was very very interesting. I think his books are must-read for Basho fans.

Matsuo Basho (1644 - 1694) :  One of the most famous haiku or haikai poets in Japan, known for establishing haiku as a major literature genre. He travelled around Japan many times to make lots of great works.
We have a free English guided tour to Basho Museum and Basho statue.
Click here for detail.

Inside of Fukagawa Fudodo, 25th Sept 2010

We come into Fukagawa Fudodo temple. In bright and gleamy room we found many gold statues of Buddha.

October 11, 2010

In front of Inari, 25th Sept 2010

This is a photo took in front of Happy Fortune Inari... Cheese  !!

Inside of Fukagawa Fudodo, 25th Sept 2010

These are the statues of various forms of Buddha.

Fukagawa Fudodo, 25th Sept 2010

The weather was completely fine.
Now, we arrived at Fukagawa Fudodo temple !

After worship at Tomioka Hachiman gu, 25th Sept 2010

We explained the basic rule to worship at shrine. Somehow, it was hard to explain and show how to worship at shrine to the foreigners though, two participants enjoyed worshipping with the proper procedure. We took a photo in front of offertory box.

Tomioka Hachiman gu, 25th Sept 2010

The rain had stopped. Now we are going to go and worship the deity of Tomioka Hachiman gu shrine !

Happy Fortune Inari, 25th Sept 2010

Inari, sounding similar to “rice” in Japanese, is the deity for the harvest. 
The foxes are the guardian of this shrine. It is said that fox will exterminate the mice to protect harvest from being damaged by mice. For this reason, most Inari shrine put the statue of fox as the guardian of deity.
Nowadays, there are 20,000 Inari shrine all over Japan.

Statue of Oozeki, 25th Sept 2010

This is a photo we took in front of statue of Oozeki. Tomioka Hachiman gu is the famous for the birth place of sumo.
The tall statue at left shows how huge the sumo wrestlers at 18th century.
Participants were impressed the unbelievably huge size of antientl sumo wrestlers.

Statue of Tadataka Ino, 25th Sept 2010

25th Sept 2010 10:30 AM
Today, we have two participants for course A. 
Unfortunately, it has been raining in the morning, though it had stopped around 11:00 AM.
We started the tour from torii (entrance of shrine) at Tomioka Hachiman gu.
We took a photo in front of statue of Tadataka Ino, who is one of the most famous historical figures for completion of Japan map for the first time.