Zen musings

Recently I read a book on Zen culture by Thomas Hoover.   I think it was an Amazon Kindle freebie, since it's not a subject that I would spend money on at the moment.   It seems to cover the subject quite well, in so far as I can judge.  It looks at the political context of the rise of Zen,and then examines the impact on architecture, poetry, pottery, etc.   According to that book, the following haiku is famous:

       An ancient pond
       A frog jumps in
       The sound of water.

Our old cat was not big, but was fearless and took no crap from anyone or anything.   A bit of a thug, if we're being honest.   He was one of a litter abandoned at the vet, last to get given away because he was the most ill.  With a combination of cat flu, and a chlamidial eye infection, his eyes were glued shut in the mornings, but this did not stop him from exploring the kitchen counter whilst being cleaned, until he fell off.

We had a small pond in our old house, it supported a small population of newts, frogs and goldfish, and would tend to get covered in water-weed from springtime onwards.  The first time we took the cat outside, he started exploring with speed and enthusiasm, until, since he had not yet learnt the implications of the different shade of the pond weed from the grass, there was a little 'splash' and he had to be fished out and dried off.

The combination of these random thoughts, whilst driving home the other day, led to the following haiku masterpiece:

     A recent pond
     A cat falls in
     The sound of anger.

Ithangyou.