So what are the golden virtues that Garden Haiku wishes to revive? It is the wisdom found in Tao Te Ching(551BC), "one of the wonders of the world" by Lao Tzu (Stephen Mitchell*)
10.
...Can you love people and lead them
Without imposing your will?
...
Can you step back from your own mind
And thus understand all things?
...
...Giving birth and nourishing,
Having without possessing,
...
Leading and not trying to control:
This is the supreme virtue.
(Passage quoted in Garden Haiku: Raising your Child with Ancient Wisdom, xix)
The soul of Chinese literature is poetry: from oldest "Book of Odes" to TangShu (Tang poetry) to SongZu (Song dynasty poetry) to YungQu (Yung dynasty poetry) . Underneath this glorious landscape were Lao Tzu's influences running through gem-like poems by Wang Wei, Li Po, Mon Ho Jung(701-761) and reached the sea of the Haiku masters, Basho, Issa and Buson(1644-1694). The water of Zen flew into English literature through the talented hands of Blyth's (1898-1964)with his2 volumes of translated Haiku and rippled through and made impression on works by Williams Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and Richard Wright and many more. "The Sound of Water" returned to Taiwan in the form of Haiku and picked up by a local college girl who was studying English as a second language at that time. The discovery of Haiku was a delightful surprise. It's like seeing an old friend speaking English. But the powerful of three lines has made its lasting impact on me: three lines are easy enough for a foreign student to study English and three lines are very different than traditional popular Tang poems that are either 4 or 8 lines. Fifteen years later, I published my first book of poetry. I chose Haiku because of threefold reason. First, 3 lines are as far as I can go as a new parent. Second, I enjoy the challenge of conjuring up a poetic whole within tight context. But most importantly, a word "Haiku" has unity of English, Japanese and Chinese literature in it just as they are in me.
But Garden Haiku is beyond Haiku and three lines. It traces back to the source that gives marrows to Chinese poetry.The 81 verses in Tao Te Ching teaches wisdom in action.It is about serene living, but it also deeply cared about society. Tao Te Ching "teaches how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the way of life and applies equally to good government and to business, ecology and to child-raising." Timeless as the pages and wisdom, Tao Te Ching is still very alive today and it will nurture the soil in Haiku Garden which is a bridge that brings poetry to people, parents to children, eastern literature to western readers.
--Lily Wang(7/30/09 Copyright)
*Tao Te Ching has been brilliantly translated into English by eminent scholar and poet, Stephen Mitchell. This is the English version that is highly recommended by the poet. A copy of Dr. John Wu's is also important as it contains the original Tao Teh Ching in Chinese.
