bLOGOS/HA HA: Ikkyu moon skull

David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.

31 July 2019

Ikkyu moon skull

so many paths go up from the foothills
but one moon grazes the peak

- Ikkyu (transl. Stephen Berg)

Netsuke depicting Ikkyu and his TAR prop skull

Theatre of the Actors of Regard

The Courtesan Jigoku-dayu and Priest Ikkyu, 1899,

by Mizuno Toshikata (1866-1908)

No One Sees It The Same

The mind flows like water through the four
mindfulnesses never the same.

Buddha realm, Mara's fortress the then and now.

Cold wind, wind-blown snow, moon among the
plum blossoms;

The drinker toys with his cup, the poet hums
a poem.

- Ikkyu (transl. Sonja Arntzen)

*the four mindfulnesses : this is a discipline of meditating on
the "body" to realise its impurity, on "sensation" to realise that the perception of things pleasant and unpleasant is the root of pain, on "thought" to realise its impermanence and on objects"
to realise their absence of self. p. 236 here