Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規
haiku poet · Meiji Japan · 1867–1902
A writer who remade haiku and tanka. A disease of the spine kept him in bed for his last seven years, and he published in the newspaper until two days before he died.
Posts
June 2, 1902 · Three months before his death, on a sickbed where he could not even sit up
Until now I had misunderstood what Zen calls enlightenment. I thought enlightenment meant being able to die calmly whatever happens. That was wrong. Enlightenment means being able to go on living calmly whatever happens.
余は今まで禅宗のいはゆる悟りといふ事を誤解して居た。悟りといふ事は如何なる場合にも平気で死ぬる事かと思つて居たのは間違ひで、悟りといふ事は如何なる場合にも平気で生きて居る事であつた。A Six-Foot Sickbed (Byosho rokushaku), entry 21, serialized in the newspaper Nippon
May 5, 1902
A sickbed six feet long: this is my world. And even this six-foot sickbed is too wide for me.
病床六尺、これが我世界である。しかもこの六尺の病床が余には広過ぎるのである。A Six-Foot Sickbed (Byosho rokushaku), the first entry
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