BARN BURNING

I came across this translation of a 17th-century Japanese Haiku by Mizuta Masahide:

My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon

It doesn’t resemble its original poetic form in English, but it’s still one of the best poems I’ve ever read.  It is generally analyzed to mean that from everything bad comes something good.  It is used to comfort the bereaved, to console the lost, to bring hope to those in despair.  I would like to add that in these actions, this poem can mean so much more.

            With the loss of material things, the spiritual remains.  Focus not on earthbound gratification, but universal connection.  The space where I stored my life’s clutter has been cleared for expanded perspective.  Had I stood in a different spot, perhaps walked the way of the Tao, I could have enjoyed both my barn and the moon.  Had I known the moon was there, perhaps I would not have needed the barn at all.  I was not stupid, only innocent.  I could not have protected myself from that which I did not know existed.  From the ashes of my hopes and dreams rises the most beautiful vision of all.  I am both barn and moon.  I embrace.  I allow.  I am.