haiku - letter to the player

Haiqu Quartet Game - Letter to the player

Moshi Moshi Hello Hello

Dear player,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the author and co-designer of the Haiku Quartet Game.
Playing the game, my family and friends ask me sometimes to tell about the underlying thoughts and feelings of the haiku. Also the opposite happens...some players tell the other players about the haiku of their choice. My grandson Hraban smiled when he got the card in the set Experiences nr. 34, written in Ando Ryokan in Tokyo. Having lived in this r yokan, he hears again the sound of sandals on the wooden floor:

The floor of Ando
Tells stories about its guests
Their way of moving.

Haiku 34 leads us into the traditional Japanese house, temple or r yokan where due to the sliding doors and the tatami mats, the sound passes just as easily through the screens as the light through the windows. It reveals a lifestyle that differs from the modern house or hotel with insulated rooms, and social isolation. By describing the difference, I do not want to give a value-judgment, because such a judgment would miss the point I am tr ying to make.

“The floor of Ando” is a microcosm, evoking a way of life that millions of people recognize. It reminds me of the house of my grandparents, where the thin wooden walls of the guestroom told me stories about the sleeping habits of my grandparents. Such an environment stimulated my imagination as a child. The nightly sounds were a source of guessing and wondering about what was going on in the other rooms of the house.

Illumination
In seventeen syllables
Within the three lines

Haiku 1 carries a double meaning. It describes the form of a haiku, respectively 5 – 7 – 5 syllables. The minimalist form purifies the experience. A haiku cleans...a haiku is an act of ‘misogi’. The word ‘Illumination’ or ‘inner enlightenment’ suggests that a haiku may give a sudden insight that touches our heart and evokes compassion. A haiku is the here-and-now.

Accepting the way:
It is and is not and both
And not both, It is!

Haiku 23 evokes the sphere of being, the essence of all existence. It submerges the human being in deep water by confronting him with the simultaneity of being and non-being. The haiku contradicts the famous words: to be or not to be: that is the question of Hamlet (1600) in the tragedy by William Shakespeare.

Haiku 23 presumes a different assumption than Hamlet’s. It draws from another experience in which being and non-being are the two coins of the all embracing law of transformation.

Hamlet’s words testify of a different philosophical tradition, of which the origin goes back to the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Aristotle defined three logical principles: identity, contradiction and excluded third, respectively: A is A; not both A and non-A; either A or non-A. The word ‘logical’ means that these principles can be formulated by the human mind. Humans, if they wish, can perceive reality as if there were stable, unalterable identities from which are deducible their contradictions and excluded thirds. However, the question is whether such absolute identities exist outside the human mind. The answer is ‘no’.

The original sin of the Western mind is to step over the boundar y of logic into ontology, into a reality of contradictions and exclusions instead of oppositions and polarities, the yeast of all movements. The consequences are far reaching, as the speech of President G.W.Bush March 2007 testifies: “You ‘re either with us or against us.”

Time is the essence of being, and being the essence of time....they are one, and therefore eternal. ‘Accepting the way’ equals the joy of being.
I hope you will enjoy the Game...may the haiku inspire your mind and heart.