College Research Paper: Buddhism and Noh Drama

In the Noh play Izutsu by Zeami (1363-1443) Buddhist concepts play a clear role in the poetic content of the text. In this poetry, the Buddhist philosophical concepts of material impermanence, human suffering (dukkha), and the unification of the spiritual self with the cosmos, appear throughout. These concepts also appear in the written words of Zen practitioners, whose poetry provides a window into the deeper Buddhist significance of the text.

Buddhist doctrine begins with the diagnosis and cure of humanity's suffering via the Four Noble Truths. The First truth holds that life is suffering, or dukkha. The Second Truth indicates that the cause of that suffering is egoistic desire, or tanha. This being the case, then the Third and Fourth Noble Truths prescribe a solution: desire creates suffering, and following the Eightfold Path means the cessation of both desire and suffering. The Eightfold Path extends the Buddhist teachings into a way of life whereby a person may separate him/herself from the suffering of life and attain an enlightened state, or nirvana. This diagnosis of humanity's universal problem plays a large part in Izutsu, as does the suggested cure.

The concept of human suffering related in the First Noble Truth connects intimately with the Buddhist concept of material impermanence; both have major significance to the Buddhist worldview, and both appear in Izutsu. As Tetto Giko, a Zen monk, wrote on his deathbed:

I look now at the very moment

Even the Buddha is dumbfounded.

All turns with a swing.

I land on the plain of nothingness (Hoffmann 121).

Every material object is momentary and impermanent. The fortunate person learns to recognize this fact and thus finds him/herself freed from the vital attachment to material presences. Once reached, this realization allows a cessation of desire, for it allows the mind to see that nothing exists that could be desired for. As Huston Smith describes, Buddhism entails a

Denial of substances [...] everything is impermanent, transitory, and yes, dying. 'Waves follow one another in eternal pursuit.' 'Life is a journey; death is a return to earth. / The universe is an inn; the passing years are like dust.' (78)

Smith describes here much the same concept as Giko expressed in his poem; all things change, pass, and die, leaving only "the plain of nothingness." This teaching may sound grim to a Western mind bent on emotional attachment to material presence, but in the Buddhist mindset it instead grants renewed life to an individual once burdened by suffering and desire. However, Izutsu recognizes the difficulty in following this teaching by noting that humanity instinctually creates attachments to the world of material things, a characteristic that creates Izutsu's profound sadness.

Attaching emotional desire to impermanent items inevitably creates tension and suffering because these items must eventually pass beyond a person's grasp. In Izutsu, the sadness of being deserted by material things expresses itself in longing descriptions that create a delicate sfumato that permeates much of the text. In Izutsu Zeami writes:

Forget-me-nots, how-long-ivy, hidden-longing-leaves -

call to mind a past now forgotten and gone;

how long shall I endure, longings hidden,

awaiting nothing? Truly everything leaves

memory to people in this mortal world;

in everything his memory still remains. (Brazell 147)

Here "memory" refers to emotional memory. Everything in the material world has an emotional attachment that makes the memory of Aritsune's lover apparent and painful. The line, "awaiting nothing" is suggestive because it signifies several ideas. First, the line reflects Aritsune's attachment to the material plane; her spirit waits for something material that will never return. Second, the idea of "awaiting nothing" reflects a state of consciousness that parallels the goal of Buddhists; that is, to see the world as it truly exists, as nothing but transitory cycles. Thirdly, the line connects to the preceding line "how long shall I endure?" in the sense that it reflects the suffering of enduring the transitive nature of the physical world. This endurance is the suffering of desire, the result of a life mired in the memories of the material plane.

The connection between human suffering, impermanence, and the sadness it brings, represents a repeating pattern in the poetic text of the play, as well as in the poetic text of Buddhist monks. As Zoso Royo wrote, also on his deathbed,

I pondered Buddha's teaching / A full four and eighty years / The gates are now all locked about me. / No one was ever here- / Who then is he about to die, / And why lament for nothing? Farewell! / The night is clear, / The moon shines calmly, The wind in the pines / Is like a lyre's song. / With no I and no other / Who hears the sound? (Hoffmann 129)

The lamentation of Royo is that of his passing, and yet why should he "lament for nothing?" After all, the Earth continues to move in its natural cycles of change, and the way things truly are is "like a lyre's song," a beautiful world that seems to be, and one in which there is no need of suffering. In like manner Izutsu pines:

The divine vow to illuminate delusion / the divine vow to illuminate delusion /

Revealed in the light of the dawn moon / headed toward the western hills / yet brightening the entire autumn sky; / the only sound, the voice of pines / swept by winds as stormy and uncertain / as this world of dream-deluded minds; / what sound will bring awakening? / what sound will bring awakening? (Brazell 147-48)

This text brings to the forefront many of the same images as Royo's death poem, in particular those of the changeable natural environment. Even the image of pines nearly replicates itself in both texts. The text notes that the world is full of "dream deluded minds" that attach to the material environment, minds that are whipped by the same "uncertain winds" as the natural world. These correlations between the ever-changing material world and nature give the text a mood of wistful sadness that permeates nearly all of the poetic metaphors, and leads into pleading questions which utilize metaphor to beg for release from material care.

The above quotation also represents a metaphorical exploration of enlightenment, a condition which brings the spirit to unification with the cosmos. At the end of the prayer, the Shite asks, "what sound will bring awakening?" Just as the Zen monk asks about sound, so does the Priest, and both mean sound as a metaphor for enlightenment. As such a metaphor, it is subtle to the point that it shows some of the characteristics of that enlightened state.

First of all, the state of enlightenment can be deduced as one of transitoriness; for once one achieves unification with the concept of impermanence outward appearances make no difference at all, and the consciousness becomes free to enjoy the world. Second, at the same time as it brings one to understand impermanence, it is wholly compassionate and calming. The images in the poetry are redolent with peace, a peace that again connects to the mind freed from the burden of transient existence. These verses establish enlightenment as being stable and yet changeable, calm yet active.

Moving into the second act, Izutsu reaches a literal climax and a Buddhist one by showing the unity of the self with a greater spiritual cycle. In Zen Buddhism, the connection of the self to a greater being is intrinsic to the process of enlightenment. Huston Smith describes one person's experience of enlightenment:

Ztt! I entered. I lost the boundary of my physical body. I had my skin of course, but I felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I saw people coming toward me, but all were the same man. All were myself. I had never known this world before. I had believed that I was created, but now I must change my opinion: I was never created; I was the cosmos. No individual existed. (90)

With a sense of the world's impermanence and the transcendence of the suffering this realization brings comes this sense of oneness with the universe. From this sense of connectedness with the cosmos the Buddhist finds harmony in all action, for "The perfect way knows no difficulties" (Smith 91). This one student's enlightened state is a contemporary indicator of a feeling many generations of Zen monks have experienced. In yet another poem, Yakuo Tokuken immortalized himself with these words:

My six and seventy years are through

I was not born, I am not dead.

Clouds floating on the high wide skies

The moon curves through its million-mile course. (Hoffmann 127)

Tokuken is one of many monks who felt this connection to a larger spiritual cycle far outside the bonds of the physical world. So in touch was he with this cycle, as were all the monks quoted in this essay, that they had predicted the times and days of their deaths. As a matter of fact, contemporary records write that Tokuken died sitting upright at noon on the nineteenth day of the fifth month in the year 1320. In this poem, the connection with the cosmos becomes synonymous with the inevitable cycles of the natural environment: the movement of the moon, the floating of the clouds. Both of these examples grasp at the final separation of the mind's reliance on the material plane; this represents the edge of enlightenment, as it can be intellectually understood.

In the climactic moment between Aritsune and the well this final step away from materialism becomes most apparent. Aritsune's spirit comes to the well covered over with pampas grass, knocks it aside, and looks down to see her lover's face in the well. She says a few simple words: "seeing it, I yearn / 'tis my own self, yet I yearn" (Brazell 156). In one sense, Aritsune has recognized in this moment that she bears an attachment to the material plane through the emotional energy she has connected to this material image.

In another sense entirely, Aritsune yearns for the connection of her spirit to the cosmos. In this meaning the play's beautiful and terrible sadness comes to its poetic climax. Aritsune, yearning to be one with her lover, is as far as she could ever get. Or rather, having fallen in love with the physical presence of Narihira, she has died without ever attaining the separation from the physical boundaries of her love. Now her spirit is caught between worlds, doomed to expend all the desperate yearning felt in the grip of unrequited passion, forever.

Like everything else in the physical realm, the Shite's dream also must end, and following this climax of deep calm and sadness the reflection in the well passes also. She says

A withered flower / color faded, only its fragrance / remains at Ariwara / Temple, the bell tolls faintly / dawn at the ancient temple, / pine winds tear plantain-leaf- / frail dream, too, breaks awake / the dream breaks to dawn. (Brazell 157)

The emotional memory of Narihira remains still, though its physical presence has been destroyed. Aritsune keeps this presence alive with her yearning for the re-establishment of the connection to her love, but even this dream-energy breaks away into the cosmos, for the cosmos stops for no one. The acceptance of this finality frees the Buddhist, but has trapped Aritsune in eternal distress. Thus Izutsu ends in a contemplative and beautifully wrought sadness. This play gives reinforcement to the idea that to be wrapped in the world of physical being is to be wrapped in a world of dreams; dreams that inevitably must break at the coming dawn of the next new day.

Inevitably, it is easy for Westerners to discount Noh drama as a boring and un-translatable dramatic experience. However, the concepts of Buddhist philosophy inherent in this text give the West a profound opportunity to learn stillness in the midst of the constant stream of activity forced upon it by the necessities of 'progress' in a capitalist economy. The poetry of Noh and Zen defies the impossible attachments and expectations of the materialistic society Westerners grasp at, only to find the next instant that, as Aritsune unfortunately found, the "dream [has broken] to dawn."

Works Cited

Brazell, Karen, ed. Traditional Japanese Theatre: An Anthology of Plays. New York: Columbia

University Press, 1998.

Hoffmann, Yoel, ed. Japanese Death Poems: Written by Monks and Haiku poets on the Verge of

Death. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1986.

Smith, Huston. The World's Religions. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991.