The Indifferent Sun

Rising early, before the fog yields to the morning sun, I give myself a gift — a slow walk through the small forest near Przasnysz. The leaves beneath my feet are damp, clinging to my shoes; the air smells of earth and smoke from the chimneys of little houses on the town’s edge. It is not a wild forest but a suburban grove — between the paths I saw a morning jogger, someone half-asleep walking an even sleepier dog, and in the distance the drowsy hum of cars. Yet all of it carries something of an ink-painted landscape from medieval Japan: the grayness of the air, the restrained colors, the light that seeks to illuminate nothing. We walk slowly, listening to the world breathe quietly. In the distance, above the line of trees, the sun timidly appears — red, yet seemingly without warmth. A heavy day awaits me, full of stress and struggle; I thought I would draw strength from the morning nature. But nature is indifferent to my little worries. And you know what? To my surprise, I draw strength precisely from its indifference.

あかあかと日はつれなくも秋の風

(Aka aka to / hi wa tsurenaku mo / aki no kaze)

The bright red sun —
indifferent still,
the autumn breeze.

— Matsuo Bashō, 1689, Kanazawa, Oku no Hosomichi

In this haiku* (I use the word “haiku” here for convenience, though it is technically an anachronism — see the “NOTES” section at the end of the article for explanation), Bashō captured a state that is difficult to name yet feels deeply familiar — the moment when the world ceases to respond to human emotion. The sun still shines, but not for us. The autumn wind stirs the air, but brings no relief. Between heat and chill, between life and its reflection, a state is born that the Japanese would call aware — a tenderness without tears, a shared sensitivity to the world in its impersonal truth.

In the word tsurenaku (連無く, or more commonly written in hiragana as つれなく — “indifferent,” “unmoved,” “cold,” “pretending not to notice”), there lies something more than coolness. It is the attitude of nature itself: not compassionate, not cruel, simply as it is. For Bashō, this is no cause for sorrow but revelation. The world need not harmonize with us to be beautiful. Here lies Japanese wisdom: beauty does not arise from alignment, but from the perception of difference — that thin space between “I” and what surrounds me.

In this brief scene, Bashō is not merely describing the weather — he is measuring the temperature of consciousness. The hot sun and cool wind are not opposites, but a coexistence that teaches calmness in the face of contradiction. Autumn, in his poetry, does not mean the end of summer but the moment when opposites cease to fight — when they become a single experience. It is in such tension, between warmth and a breath of chill, that one can feel the world’s true rhythm — not one of balance but of constant movement between one and the other. Bashō looked at the sun and saw in it a mirror of himself — a man who longed for serenity yet still felt the heat of thought.

From this perspective, nature’s “indifference” takes on another meaning — not the absence of feeling, but the highest form of its transparency. Nature pretends nothing: it does not strive to be beautiful, does not seek to console, offers no meaning — and yet becomes the place where meaning is born. It is a paradox known to all great Eastern traditions — that what is fullest is empty, and what is silent speaks most powerfully. Bashō understood that the autumn wind is neither cold nor gentle — it simply is.

Walking further through the autumn forest, one can feel something similar. The leaves rustle, but do not answer our thoughts; the sun flickers through the branches as if saying, “I am, but not for you.” And within this indifference of the world lies its purest grace — a lesson Bashō understood better than anyone. A lesson we will try to experience on today’s walk.

The Morning Moon

The path rises gently. The forest thins, and through the pines appears an open field — above it, the fading moon, still present though already retreating before the day’s sky. It seems pale, almost transparent, suspended between night and morning, between what has already passed and what is just beginning. I stop at the forest’s edge and for a moment think of Edo — that vast city where Bashō saw not only life but ceaseless noise — the hum of people, the sound of cart wheels, the mingling of scents and haste. In his urban world, as in mine, the sight of wild mountains was something extraordinary, and the still, motionless moon in utter silence — a miracle.

詠むるや江戸には稀な山の月

(Nagamuru ya / Edo ni wa marena / yama no tsuki)

In silent wonder —
a rare sight in Edo:
the moon above the mountains.

— Matsuo Bashō, c. 1680, Edo

When Bashō wrote these words, he did not merely mean a landscape. It was not a longing for the mountains (after all, Mount Fuji is visible from Edo), but for untainted seeing — for that moment when nothing obscures the world. In Edo, as in any city, emptiness was hard to find. Even the moonlight mingled with the smoke of hearths and the mist of human affairs. Thus, when Bashō looked at “the moon above the mountains,” he gazed at something more: the purity of perception — the moment when things appear without intention or emotion, simply as they are.

Looking now at the pale morning moon above the fields, I think that Przasnysz is my Edo. Not because this little town pulses with life (which, I might add a bit mischievously, it does not particularly), but because the mind, even in silence, remains crowded. Only when I fall quiet do I begin to see. Yet quietness must be learned, practiced. It does not come easily; it will not appear just like that. The Japanese practice of tsukimi — “moon viewing” — was not poetic sentimentalism. It was a form of spiritual training. It was not about emotion but about presence: about looking without the urge to possess, about contemplating a light that neither touches nor warms.

Bashō’s moon is not sad. It does not resemble European nostalgia, where the night light awakens memory and longing. The Japanese moon is calm, cool, devoid of emotion — like a mirror of the world in which not the human face, but reality itself, is reflected. That is why for Bashō it was so rare — because it is rare indeed to look truly, without the whisper of thought or expectation. To look as if seeing something for the first time: marena (稀な, from the poem — something so rare that we stop in awe upon seeing it).

Walking further along the path, I feel as if its light still brushes my cheeks. It carries neither warmth nor sorrow — only gentle clarity. And in that indifferent brightness lies something liberating. Perhaps true empathy with the world means just that: to behold its beauty as Bashō beheld the moon above the mountains — without the desire for that beauty to be ours.

The Intruder… Was Me

The cat sat by the gate, curled up as if it had long known that nothing in this day would demand anything of it… nothing at all. For today, it had appeared not as a participant but as a spectator. The sun was only beginning to push its way through the milky fog, and its fur — the color of earth — blended perfectly with its surroundings. It was part of the autumn scene, as natural as the moisture in the air or the rustle of leaves. As I approached in my contemplative walk, the cat raised its eyes. A wary yet bored look — it measured me. Then it decided: “too close.” Slowly, like someone offended but unwilling to make a scene, it withdrew deeper into the yard, disappearing between flowerpots and an old bucket.

Nothing happened — and yet something did. Two worlds crossed, two lines of consciousness, two existences that would never meet again. This is what an encounter in the natural world looks like: devoid of meaning, yet marked by presence. Meaningless does not mean insignificant. On the contrary — such a meeting will never occur again. It was brief, it has just ended, and it will never return. Therefore, it is important, though without meaning. It brings to mind Issa’s poem.

さをしかの角に結びし手紙哉

(Saoshika no tsuno ni musubishi tegami kana)

On the deer’s antlers
a letter
tied.

— Kobayashi Issa, c. 1810

Issa was a poet who could speak with “non-human” beings in a way people rarely manage even with each other — without questions, without expectations, with a tenderness that demands nothing. In this haiku, the letter — a symbol of human expression, emotion, and the need for connection — is tied to the antlers of a deer, a free, wild, independent creature. There is no irony in this scene, but neither is there sentimentality. It is an image of a world in which man seeks not answers but traces of coexistence.

The poem can be read literally — someone, perhaps in longing, tied a letter to an animal to carry it into the unknown. But it can also be read as a metaphor for the fate of every human emotion: spoken into a space that remains silent. For the world receives everything — grief, hope, loneliness — and sends nothing back. This is its “tender indifference.”

Issa does not write of tragedy. There are no dramas in his world — only understanding. Deer, cats, insects, even flies and fleas that so often appear in his haiku, all belong to the same web of being, in which man is not the center but merely one of many points trembling on the spider’s thread of existence. Only a poet who truly looks, and not merely sees, can write such a poem: brief, simple, and yet opening a space where human feelings become part of nature, not its opposition.

The cat’s gaze said: “Don’t go further; this isn’t your place.” And it was right. Every creature has its boundaries, its rhythm, its silence. We humans often try to cross them, to understand, to touch, to name. But perhaps true understanding lies precisely in stopping — in allowing the world to be itself, even when it is not for us. The cat was not for me. It would have done just fine if I did not exist at all. I was the intruder here.

Issa is a poet of coexistence, and his haiku is a letter that nature will never read — but will also never reject.

The Crow

From the forest, I step out into the open. The dirt road runs between gardens where the soil has already been turned over, and only a few scraps of greenery and crooked stems remain on the beds. The wind stirs a sheet of plastic stretched over a wooden frame — a dry, rustling sound, like someone carelessly flipping pages. On a telegraph pole, a crow has perched. It sits motionless, slightly turned sideways, looking somewhat displeased. It doesn’t caw, doesn’t take flight. It simply is.

枯朶に烏のとまりけり秋の暮

(Kareeda ni karasu no tomari keri aki no kure)

On a withered branch
a crow has perched —
autumn dusk.

— Matsuo Bashō, 1680, Edo

This haiku seems so simple that it’s easy to pass by indifferently. Yet within it lies the purity of perception that anyone who seeks to understand the Japanese view of nature dreams of attaining. Bashō does not tell us what he feels. He does not comment, does not suggest meaning. He doesn’t say it’s sad, or symbolic of transience, or that the crow foretells misfortune. No — he merely observes. He looks and records. In this simplicity, there is no coldness — there is acceptance.

In the “crow on a withered branch,” there is no drama, because there is no human being to create it. There is only the world — just as it is at dusk. The crow is a witness to this world, just as we sometimes are witnesses to our own lives: not participating, not intervening, merely accepting the image that unfolds before us. It is one of the purest Zen moments in all of Bashō’s poetry — an experience of emptiness in which the need for interpretation has already fallen away.

Autumn in this poem is not a mood or a metaphor — it is a space from which all that is unnecessary has been removed. What remains is the movement of the bird, the stillness of the branch, and the delicate light of the day’s end. Bashō did not try to hold on to this image; he allowed it to pass — like light that fades before we can describe it. And perhaps that is why this haiku feels so complete: because it needs nothing to be perfect.

Zen does not consist in searching for hidden meanings, but in reducing them. In Japanese poetry — especially in haiku — what is literal is often exactly what it is. The crow truly sits on the branch. The branch truly is dry. Evening truly approaches. This is not about multilayered metaphors or secret depths. No. It is about the crow. And the branch. Nothing more is needed. The Western reader often feels disoriented, expecting a symbol, an allegory, an emotional key. Yet often (though not always!) in haiku there is nothing “to interpret” — there is only a moment that can be co-experienced. Here lies the Zen paradox: truth reveals itself not through the giving of meaning, but through its absence.

For Bashō, looking was a form of meditation. He did not seek transcendence but presence. His poetry does not say: “understand,” but “see.” Not “feel more,” but “feel exactly what is.” In this way, haiku becomes not a description of the world but the world itself — a brief flash of awareness in which subject and object, poet and crow, sight and seer cease to be separate. This is what Zen teaches: that the moment in which we stop interpreting reality is the moment in which we truly live.

Cool Air

It’s getting colder. The wind carries with it the scent of damp earth and smoke. On the road, mud mixes with yellowing leaves that cling to my shoes. Rain begins to fall timidly, in fine drops that have nothing of the violence of a summer downpour — rather, it is a slow, stubborn filling of the air with moisture. This kind of delicate drizzle, a mist of tiny cool droplets, is called shigure (時雨) in Japan — a late autumn rain once regarded as the first touch of winter.

人々を しぐれよ宿は 寒くとも

(Hitobito o / shigure yo yado wa / samuku tomo)

Autumn rain,
wrap these people —
though the inn is cold.

— Matsuo Bashō, 1690, Iga Ueno

There is no loneliness in this haiku, though there is cold. Nor is there melancholy, though the rain is falling. Instead, there is something rare — compassion without sentimentality. Bashō, sitting with his disciples in a chilly inn, does not complain about the weather or discomfort. Instead, he addresses his words to the rain, as if to a living being: shigure yo — “O rain.” It is not a prayer, not a plea, but an act of shared existence. The rain touches people, people listen to the rain, and in that quiet exchange something arises that could be called the language of the world’s body.

In Japanese culture, shigure is more than a meteorological event — it is a gesture. A subtle joining of all that breathes into a single rhythm: rain tapping on the roof, vapor from one’s breath, the chill upon one’s hands. Bashō does not resist the cold but allows it to pass through him. For in Zen, the point is not to struggle against reality, but to let it flow through you so that nothing is held back.

Reading this haiku today, one can sense in it a lesson in subtle closeness. When it rains outside and the room grows cold, our natural reaction is to wrap ourselves in a blanket, close the window, shield ourselves from the chill. Bashō does the opposite. He opens himself to the rain, speaks to it as to a guest who brings not warmth but awareness — the awareness that we are all breathing the same air, beneath the same sky.

Here lies the essence of his wisdom — in attentiveness that does not flee from discomfort but allows it to exist. Shigure is not a lament over transience, nor a symbol of sadness. It is the touch of a silent world. In the cool, moist air, Bashō found something beyond words: that even coldness can be a form of tenderness, if one looks closely enough.

Returning

I slowly return. The suburban forest begins to thin; through the trees I can see the denser pattern of rooftops, and somewhere in the distance the sound of a truck. The world returns to its rhythm of obligations, intentions, tensions — to that endless “I must.” And though nothing has changed — the day is the same, the hour nearly so — I feel that I am returning different. The walk that began in silence became something more than a stroll: it was a lesson in seeing.

The masters of haiku — Bashō, Issa — did not teach us to escape the world, as poetry sometimes does in its dreaminess, but to be within it — firmly and attentively. Their verses did not search for meanings; they touched things as they are. Rain, a crow, the moon, the autumn wind — all exist without needing interpretation, yet all speak to us if we can listen. In their poetry, there is nothing “more” than what simply is — and in that “nothing more” lies all wisdom.

The walk is over. This morning will never return, like every moment that has gone unnoticed. If I was not fully present, if I let my thoughts run faster than my steps, then the walk has passed without a trace — and no memory will bring it back. Yet perhaps this is the lesson of the autumn haiku: that the world does not pause for us to understand it. It simply is — and it is up to us whether we can be with it, even for a moment, as it is with us: quietly, effortlessly, without purpose, yet attentively.

Note on the Use of the Term “Haiku”

In the text above, I use the word haiku in a slightly simplified sense — in keeping with the common habit established in both Western and Polish writing. I do so to avoid obscuring the message for readers who are not specialists in Japanese literature but simply wish to better understand the poetry of Bashō or Issa. In everyday usage, haiku has already become a synonym for short, concise Japanese verse — often reflective and nature-related — regardless of its historical context. Yet while writing this text, I could not in good conscience leave that simplification unclarified. So then...

In the time of Matsuo Bashō, that is, the 17th century, haiku in the modern sense did not yet exist. What was written then was hokku (発句) — literally “opening verse,” the first stanza of a longer linked poem called renga or haikai no renga. It was only in the Meiji period, in the 19th century, thanks to the poetic reforms of Masaoka Shiki, that hokku was separated as an independent form and began to be called haiku (俳句).

In other words, when we speak today of “Bashō’s haiku,” we are using a term that postdates his work — as if we were to call Chopin an “Impressionist composer.” Despite this anachronism, it has become customary to refer to Bashō’s haiku out of respect for the continuity of tradition — for the spirit that unites ancient and modern poets. The word, though later in origin, best conveys the essence of what Bashō sought to express: attentiveness, simplicity, and purity of perception.

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"Strong Japanese Women"

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    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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