SABI IN HAIKU     


  by H.F. Noyes


The Japanese word sabi expresses a uniquely 
vital element in the haiku tradition. Though the 
concept, like much in Japanese art, is so elusively 
subtle as to afford no easy accessibility to Western 
minds, let us at the very least be willing to 
confront the mystery and paradox of the term.

We are told by R.H. Blyth that "what can be said is 
not sabi."1 That imposes no obstacle to a haijin who 
understands Zen "wordlessness" as an eloquent form 
of communion. Take, for instance, "Autumn dusk -- / 
without a cry/a jackdaw passes" (Kishu 2 ). The 
deepest truths are imageless; they emanate from the 
unexpressed, the wordless aspect of haiku – however 
essential each word may be:

             how silently
               the wave-tossed log is beached
                and snow-flaked
                     – Geraldine C. Little 3

The mystery of sabi intensifies when I quote from 
Basho: "Where there is no sabi, there will be 
sadness."4 Then sabi cannot encompass what we 
usually mean by sadness. Rather, it goes beyond 
happiness-sadness to the lonely quality which each 
thing has in its singular existence, when observed 
from a state of detachment. Sabi loneliness, 
according to Alan Watts, is in seeing things "as 
happening 'by themselves' in miraculous spontaneity."5 
He gives as example Buson's "Evening breeze –/water 
lapping against/the heron's legs." The great surprise 
is that when we immerse ourselves in nature, an 
isolated particularity becomes to us, for the moment, 
all things. Sabi loneliness is a state in which, 
having nothing, we have all. (Not the proximity in 
our language of aloneness to all-oneness. 
It is a state of which Blyth says we "do not pick and 
choose what we are to rejoice and weep with."6 It 
chooses us: "winter hill –/alone  together/with 
wind and stars" (H.F.Noyes 7 ).

In his haiku handbook, William Higginson describes 
sabi as "beauty with a sense of  loneliness in time."8  
A fine example is "Who can be awake/the lamp still 
burning –/cold rain at midnight" (Ryota 9 )

Despite undertones of melancholy in sabi, the more 
desolate aspects of our human condition are, 
traditionally, sublimated. The sadness of transience 
is transcended when we go unresisting with the flow 
of constant change. The loneliness that afflicts us 
all is not thus received, but at least for the moment, 
dissolved in interfusion with all around us. Tombo's 
unspoken sadness over the loss of her son is, in the 
following, overwhelmed by her sense of the delicate 
beauty of one transient phenomenon:10

           A hot summer wind – 
            shadows of the windmill blades
           flow over the grass 

In the depth and breadth of a true haijin spirit 
such as Basho's, life's suffering and its sublime 
moments of beauty and serenity are perfectly 
reconciled: "A rough sea! –/Stretched out over 
Sado/The Milky Way." 11

But sabi arises, above all, with the observation 
of the garden variety of "insignificant" detail 
that makes up our ordinary lives, where sabi is 
not in the beauty, but rather the beauty is in 
the sabi. Indeed sabi is often best expressed 
through the "lonesome" bareness of a "poverty-
stricken" style:

               Visiting the graves:   
             The old dog
               Leads the way.
                       – Issa 12

However much a consensus on the meaning of sabi 
may elude us, a humble viewpoint of selfless 
detachment seems to lead us into its realm of truth:

             Resting . . .
             the sagging fence
             goes on up the hill
                       – Foster Jewell 13


SOURCES:

1- R.H. Blyth, "Eastern Culture," HAIKU 
Vol. I, pg. 289

2- R.H. Blyth, HAIKU Vol. III, pg. 903 
(edited version)

3- FROGPOND, November 1987

4- H.R. Blyth, "Eastern Culture," HAIKU 
Vol. I, pg. 288

5- Alan Watts, THE WAY OF ZEN, pg. 186

6- R.H. Blyth, "Eastern Culture," pg. 186

7- AMBER, Spring 1989

8- William J. Higginson with Penny Harter, 
THE HAIKU HANDBOOK, Glossary, Pg. 293

9- R.H. Blyth, HAIKU Vol. IV, pg. 1185
(edited version)

8- DRAGONFLY, July 1973

11- translated by Dana B. Young

12- H.R. Blyth, HAIKU Vol. IV, pg. 1028

13- VIRTUAL IMAGE, Summer-Fall, 1982

BACK TO CONTENTS PAGE