.蝶と共に吾も七野を巡る哉
[Chō to tomoni ware mo nana no o meguru kana]
A butterfly my companion,
through seven fields
we wander.
— Kobayashi Issa, (1795).
Among the four great Japanese “haiku masters”, Bashō, would come to be known as the most observant. But Issa is remembered as the most humane. Third among the revered poets of the tradition, alongside Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), Yosa Buson (1716-1784), and the later, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶), was born Kobayashi Nobuyuki, on June 15, 1763.
Issa, however, would likely have refused the title of a haiku master, or “haisei” (“俳聖”, literally, “haiku saint”), which had come to describe both Bashō and Buson. Unlike his predecessors, and despite a sincere devotion to “Jōdo Shinshū” (Pure Land) Buddhism, Issa never strove for Buddhist salvation through his meditations. Rather, he believed that a merciful Buddha would bring redemption to one’s spirit, despite our human imperfections, merely by living with peace and compassion.
.花桶に蝶も聞かよ一大事
hana oke ni chô mo kiku ka yo ichi daiji
on the flower pot
does the butterfly, too
hear Buddha’s promise?
– Issa (year unknown)
During his lifetime, Issa wrote various types of poetry in the “haiku”, “tanka”, and “haibun” forms, and also painted “haiga” (haiku paintings). As a well-known teacher of haiku in the Shinano region of Japan, Issa took on the “haigo”, or haiku penname that would become associated with his work. “Issa” (一茶), meaning, “One Tea”. His poems tended to express his humanity, addressing both the joys and the sufferings he felt in his life.
Issa was a prolific poet. Upon his death, he left journals containing more than 22,000 haiku. They express a caring perspective toward others, even for animals. He also voiced his joy in seeing the perspectives of children, their hopes for the future, and their places in his own life. And he was known for an irreverent humor, sometimes poking fun at both authority figures, as well as the rigidly stratified Japanese society of his time.
.松茸にかぶれ給ひし和尚哉
matsutake ni kabure tamaishi oshô kana
a matsutake mushroom
on his head…
high priest
– Issa (year unknown)
Much of Issa’s perspective of life might be traced all the way back to the death of his mother when Issa was just two-years old (by Western standards). While well cared for by his grandmother over the subsequent five years, he was returned to his father’s household when his father remarried. Then, his half-brother was born two years later, leaving Issa feeling estranged within his own family.
After his grandmother died when Issa was thirteen, he fell into a lonely despair. Within a year, his father sent him away to the city of Edo to find his own way in life. Eleven years later, at the age of twenty-five, Issa became a student of the Chikua’s Nirokuan (二六庵) school of haiku. When Chikua would die just three years later, Issa briefly took on the role of the school’s master, along with the name,
“一茶”, or “Issa”.
Inspired by the itinerant life of his famed predecessor, Bashō, he left the shelter of the school just a year later. Referring to his wanderings with the phrase “beggar’s world”, Issa was alluding to a life of poverty, supported only by the good will of those whom he would meet along the way. And yet during this time, his words often conveyed the discovery of great wealth in the beauty that surrounded him.
.雉鳴て梅に乞食の世也けり
kiji naite ume ni kojiki no yo nari keri
pheasant singing—
it’s a plum blossom-filled
beggar’s world now!
– Issa (1791)
Decades later, at around the age of fifty, Issa would return to his childhood home in the town of Kashiwabara in the mountainous Shinano province. But his stepmother and half-brother refused him access to the family home, and he found himself unwelcome in the town. Eventually, however, he was able to legally establish the inheritance of a partial ownership to his father’s property.
After a partition wall was constructed to split the house with his step-family, Issa was finally able to return to his childhood home. And a 52-year old Issa moved in to his half of the old house, along with his 28-year old bride, Kiku. Their son, Sentarō, was then born in the spring of 1816. Issa, however, recorded that Sentarō died just 27 days later. And then again in the spring of 1818, Kiku gave birth to a daughter, Sato. But the following year, Sato contracted smallpox and also died.
.花の世は石の仏も親子哉
hana no yo wa ishi no hotoke mo oyako kana
world of blossoms–
even the stone Buddhas
parents and children
– Issa (year unknown)
Issa wrote a deeply heartfelt account of Sato’s death. “Her mother holding tightly to her body, burst into tears. At that moment, though I tried to resign myself to the knowledge that water flows past not a second time, or that blossoms, once fallen, never return to the trees.… I couldn’t break the chain of love.”
In the autumn of 1820, Kiiku again gave birth to a boy, Ishitarō. But shortly after the New Year of 1821, a despairing Kiku would find that Ishitarō had suffocated while bundled on her back. Issa mourned terribly, lamenting that he would have no celebrating descendants to greet his own spirit when it visited the earth during the Bon festival.
.あきらめて子のない鹿は鳴ぬなり
akiramete ko no nai shika wa nakinu nari
resigned
to being childless
the silent deer
– Issa (1821)
Then, in the spring of 1822, Kiku gave birth to a third boy, Konzaburō. But in the spring of the following year, Kiku fell ill and died. And without his mother, Konzaburō died seven months later. Issa wrote of the depths of his loneliness during that time, comparing it to the moon in the night sky, and how he wished for even the nagging of his absent wife.
This perhaps explains why Issa remarried about a year later, in 1824… briefly. The wedding to his new wife, who was named “Yuki”, was in the Fifth Month. The divorce was in the Eighth. The 38-year old daughter of a local samurai, her name meant, “Snow”, which seemed fitting. She was a cold partner to the simple, old poet, and soon abandoned Issa to return to her parents’ home. Issa didn’t seem to mind.
.鬼虫も妻を乞ふやら夜の声
oni mushi mo tsuma wo kou yara yoru no koe
even the devil bug
calls for a wife…
night voices.
– Issa (1821)
Issa married again in 1826, at around the age of 63-years. His third wife was a 32-year old village woman named Yao. And soon, she became pregnant. But during the pregnancy, Issa’s divided house burned to the ground during a fire that swept through the town. For shelter, the couple had to live in a cold, grain-storage barn on the property.
It was as if Issa’s life was to demonstrate the Buddhist principle that all things are temporary. All that we yearn for, that we love, that we strive to create, everything to which we become attached eventually dissolves into oblivion. Yao would give birth to a daughter, Yata, the only one of Issa’s children to survive to adulthood. But Issa would never meet her.
This time, Issa would die from a stroke in January of 1828 while sheltering in the barn, five-months before her birth.
Issa’s writings spoke to both the beauty and the fragility of life, and to the elusiveness of joy. But there was never a bitterness in his voice, even in those moments where he might have placed blame onto others. Issa instead presented himself merely as a human, flawed and wanting, but grateful and aware, growing older while trusting in the “Namu Amida Butsu”.
.さすが花ちるにみれんはなかりけり
sasuga hana chiru ni miren wa nakari keri
when cherry blossoms
scatter…
no regrets
– Issa (unknown year)
A golden guitar jack she held in her teeth,
Being young and immortal, however, there was an infinite potential for becoming a more understanding partner. So to the chagrin of the local lifeguards, the risks were to me merely opportunities. But that was a long time ago.
Luminous Aether 
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