Seeds from a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey

Here's how Strand, an ordained Zen Buddhist monk and director of the largest Zen Buddhist training center in New York City, explains the connection between writing haiku and the practice of Buddhist meditation: ""Haiku is the one poetic form in all of world literature that concerns itself primarily with nature, the one form that makes nature a spiritual path."" This cogent book explains the philosophy and composition of haiku, and the form's intrinsic meditative qualities, to the general reader and writer. The first of three sections, ""The Way of Haiku,"" strikes an inviting note when Strand suggests that readers gain self-awareness by taking walks in nature, carrying a notebook and learning to ""sketch""-with words-what they see. The second section, ""Haiku Mind,"" explores ways of looking at nature, using objects likes daisies and qualities like ""coolness"" as examples, and of meditating upon them to appreciate and later express their fundamental nature. The final section, ""The Narrow Road,"" examines the inward-focused, personal dimension of haiku. Readers interested in poetry and meditation will appreciate this soothing, practical volume, and its simple message: ""Seasonal, direct, and clear, the haiku form itself expresses the fundamental truth about human life."" (July)