![]() In this sense, for the haiku poet, “mindful presence” includes remembering aesthetic values, and also memories of experience. The third approach in apprehending the present is “mindful presence,” which Petranker calls “presence that remembers.” He points out that “the word translated into English as ‘mindfulness’ ( sati in Pali, smriti in Sanskrit) has ‘remembering’ as its fundamental meaning.” This remembering means to remember “what has value, what matters most,” a sort of priority-setting that serves as a context for present awareness and attention. practice of slowly, mindfully eating a raisin,” and writes that “It has been argued that this dimension of mindfulness meditation owes less to classical Buddhist teachings than to the unacknowledged elements of 19th century Romanticism that color modern Western Buddhist understanding.” He notes that joyful appreciation, or complete acceptance, is “now firmly embedded in modern Buddhist practice.” Here, again, he turns to the Epicureans, who he says “insisted that only in the present moment is happiness possible.” He quotes Pierre Hadot’s summation of Epicurean perspectives by saying that happiness comes “when we learn to accord infinite value to the slightest moment of existence.” Petranker also quotes Epicurean poet Horace, coiner of the phrase “Carpe diem,” or “Seize the day,” which he says is an adage that “can stand in for joyful presence, for that is how it is most understood.” Petranker defines it as cultivating a “full appreciation of the rich experience available in each moment.” He asks us to “Think of the. The second approach to the present is “joyful presence.” This seems to be most immediately the realm of haiku poetics. What do we mean by the present moment? Tricycle magazine has offered a Buddhist answer to this question in the context of what it called “today’s secularized mindfulness movement.” In an essay titled “The Present Moment” ( Tricycle, Winter 2014 ), Jack Petranker provides four distinct approaches to apprehending the present moment, designed to “get underneath the cliché,” a problem that he describes as “McMindfulness” or “a simplified, less nourishing version of dharma that turns meditation into a form of self-help.” To the extent that haiku, too, seeks to dwell in the present moment as a means of presenting an image, experience, and emotion that is happening here and now, these four approaches to the present moment have something to say to those who write haiku poetry. ![]() See also “Aha Moments and the Miracle of Haiku,” “A Moment in the Sun: When Is a Haiku, ” and especially “Defining Moments.” + Originally written from November 2014 to March 2015. The Rilke excerpt and the Kusatao haiku at the end are new additions. ![]() ![]() First published in Modern Haiku 47:1, Winter–Spring 2016, pages 54–60. ![]()
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