The Morning Glory! Poem by Kaga no Chiyo

about 'Oh, Morning Glory! ', here is a quote from D. T. Suzuki: ''The idea is this: One summer morning Chiyo the poetess got up early wishing to draw water from the well...She found the bucket entwined by the blooming morning glory vine. She was so struck...that she forgot all about her business and stood before it thoroughly absorbed in contemplation. The only words she could utter were 'Oh, the morning glory! '. At the time, the poetess was not conscious of herself or of the morning glory as standing against her. Her mind was filled with the flower, the whole world turned into the flower, she was the flower itself...

'' The first line, 'Oh morning glory! ', does not contain anything intellectual... it is the feeling, pure and simple, and we may interpret it in any way we like. The following two lines, however, determine the nature and depth of what was in the mind of the poetess: when she tells us about going to the neighbor for water we know that she just left the morning glory as she found it... she does not even dare touch the flower, much less pluck it, for in her inmost consciousness there is the feeling that she is perfectly one with reality.

'' When beauty is expressed in terms of Buddhism, it is a form of self- enjoyment of the suchness of things. Flowers are flowers, mountains are mountains, I sit here, you stand there, and the world goes on from eternity to eternity, this is the suchness of things. ''