Chan Buddhism (Zen Buddhism in Japan), which came to Japan from China, also influenced haiku poetry. Some haiku, which at first glance seem to describe only natural or everyday events, also reveal a religious meaning at second glance. A haiku by Ryōkan, for example, refers to Zen Buddhism in addition to the experience of a full moon night:
Blankets on the grass,
a night without a house -rich
only by the moon.
The moon (as a full moon) symbolically stands as an empty circle (Ensō) for Zen Buddhism and the dwelling without a house under the open sky indicates the so-called houseless state of a Buddhist monk. The influence of Wang Wei's poems, who had turned to Chan Buddhism, as a model for a haiku by Joseki is also clear.
I want to play it
now that the moon and I are all
alone.
By "her" is meant a large, thirteen-stringed Japanese zither called a koto. Here the moon is again a symbol of Zen Buddhism, where being alone is sitting in meditation (zazen). There is a very similar poem by Wang Wei with the same meaning:
Sitting lonely in the deep dark bamboo grove,Strumming
the zither with lilting song,
Around this deep forest men know not,
Only the full moon comes with its glow
Playing the zither has a meditative meaning for Chinese artists and offers a possibility of immersion and becoming one with the Dao.
Especially in the US haiku scene of the 1970s, haiku and Zen were often seen as inseparable. Richard Gilbert says about this in an interview with Udo Wenzel:
"I think the question of Zen in haiku, or meditation and poetry (and the arts) is a touchy one and slips into ethereal heights, losing its soul in the process. I don't think there is a 'Zen haiku' as such, only people who think it is what they are. Haiku exist that are directly related to the Zen experience, just as there are baseball haiku and tennis haiku. Nevertheless, there is a long and venerable history of Zen interpretation, or 'Zen reading' or 'Zen contemplation' of haiku, though generally not outside Zen institutions.
A somewhat similar interpretive approach can be found in R.H. Blyth, whose multi-volume work had a direct influence on the 'beat poets' (as described in Jack Kerouac's novel 'The Dharma Bums'.
Because of this interpretive focus, it seems that historically, at least in North America, a gesture resembling Zen has been overemphasized at times, to the point that the most important purpose, indeed, the grandeur of haiku as a literary art form has been suppressed and greatly misinterpreted. Blyth himself, regardless of his brilliance and knowledge of Zen, was not a Zen practitioner in the traditional Japanese sense, if by that we mean someone who practices meditation within a school and lineage, under the tutelage of a teacher who is generally recognized for having accomplished Zen practice. Neither do much of the Western commentators who applied Zen-like modes of interpretation to haiku."
