Takuan's Cat

Takuan Sōhō ( 1573- 1645) was a rōshi (teacher) of the Rinzai sect of Buddhism. He was born just as the Warring States period of Japanese history was coming to a close, and wrote his major work “The Unfettered Mind” as a Zen treatise on the art of the Japanese sword. He is also credited with inventing the pickled daikon radish, now called Takuan in his honour.

Takuan's Cat

Image credit: Mariusz Szmerdt,  http://sumi-e.pl/  

To let the mind travel

from navel to eye

from object to subject

and back to a place

            where it has never been
 is a slippery one

The cat is silly

it moves to and fro

playing tag with its tail

But the benevolent force of history pulls taut the copper string

tighter and tighter, until the cat is dragged in

            screaming

and finally tied

its green helpless eyes darting side to side

silent,

            fully

                        immobilized

It hates the tight string

and all itself,

But then,

            then

             An event still to be explained

the string uncoils like a reel fertile with fish

and the cat lives again,

and gives thanks for its freedom

with each arbitrary unit of time that passes

An Answer to Takuan

Feline tracks in fresh-fallen snow

where lies the place to where

your stray cat returns?

Jim Stein