You may have noticed that our Summer Session posts look a little different. Instead of the usual written reflection before each meditation, we’re offering a haiku. A haiku? What’s a haiku? Great question.
A haiku is a short poem, typically written in three lines, with deep roots in Japanese literary tradition. In English, we often use a 5-7-5 syllable pattern: five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third.
But a haiku is more than a syllable count. At its heart, a haiku is a moment of awareness. It notices something simple and specific. It might be a sound, a color, a change in the weather, an animal crossing the path, a flash of insight, or a simple happenstance. It simply offers the moment, and lets the moment do what it does.
Meditation is a very close companion.
Meditation invites us to pause, notice, receive, and be with what is here. Haiku does the same, but with words. It asks us to pay attention to the world as it is appearing now, and to trust that something small may reveal something whole.
This summer, as we move through the Practice of Living Awareness, each meditation post will begin with a haiku. These poems aren’t meant to summarize the week’s meditation theme or explain the practice, they are meant to open a little doorway.
That freshness is the spirit of this Summer Session. Happy meditating… and enjoy this haiku!
sometimes Earl Grey tea
smells like fresh hay or a dog
just in from the rain