160Haiku 俳句
古池や蛙飛び込む水の音
ふるいけやかわずとびこむみずのおとFuruike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
“Old pond — a frog leaps in, sound of water.”
The meaning
A tiny instant — a frog's plop — is enough to make a place's whole silence audible. The poem teaches how to listen to the world in its smallest events.
At the origin
Matsuo Bashō's most famous haiku (1686), and probably Japan's.
The characters
- 古池 furuikeold pond
- や yacutting word
- 蛙 kawazufrog
- 飛び込む
- 水
- の
- 音
やParticle“And” of an open list: among others. In a haiku it is the cut — a silence that parts the verse.
In practice
Pause on a tiny sound and let it give you back the silence.
Themes
Similar proverbs
- 205 蛙の面に水 Water on a frog's face.
- 109 ゆく河の流れは絶えずして、しかももとの水にあらず The river flows on and on, and yet the water is never the same.
- 165 朝顔に釣瓶とられてもらい水 A morning glory has claimed my well bucket — I beg water next door.
- 211 名月や池をめぐりて夜もすがら Harvest moon — all night long I paced around the pond.
- 233 夏嵐机上の白紙飛び尽す Summer gale — every blank page on the desk blown away.