Hay-Ku of the Day (What Problem?)

Richard, I have been sitting here trying to sort through my feelings for this haiku and found myself lacking. I hate to leave comments like I liked this one. or Good one. (no offense to anyone that does), but cannot place into words what I am feeling, I am at a loss. It is an excellent poetic idea and question. Thank you for sharing this @ Art - Any Medium!

Again, the socratic method should be used. First, ask yourself, can anyone unthink? The answer to this question will ultimately lead to another, and another until you find that your poem is untrue.

Dear Albert,

RE: Again, the socratic method should be used. First, ask yourself, can anyone unthink? The answer to this question will ultimately lead to another, and another until you find that your poem is untrue.

[Rich Note: Using the method suggested, I conclude that a “false premise” (or assumption) will lead to a “false conclusion” (assuming, of course, that one’s logic in concluding so is valid). A conclusion that has some rather nasty implications if "who I think I am" is the false premise I am living my life in accordance with (even though “I” have never taken the time to fully investigate it).]

In this particular case, Albert, to understand what the poem points to you would first have to ask the right question. In this case, the question "can anyone unthink" is off point. As such, you have come to a "right answer" (depending on what you mean by "unthink") to the "wrong question" (re: not the one that the poem was really asking). Thus, it seems you may have “missed the point” the poem was actually attempting to make.

Following your advise, the first question should be “can anyone not think," and the answer, of course, is yes, we do it all the time; and further that “a problem” is a function of "someone (I think I am) thinking” he is having one (a problem). Or in other words, without “a me” thinking “I am having” something “I conceived or define” as a problem," no problem is possible.

As somewhat of an aside, I would also like to know how a question (which is the form in which the poem was presented) can be untrue? And, if what you meant to say was that it was a "false or circular question" (re: chicken and egg) that has no possibility of a logical answer, I would have to disagree and contend that it does actually have a true and valid answer: “No one can have a problem they don’t think they have.”

Here an old favorite that makes a "similar point" less cryptically:

Thinking of myself
In relative terms I am
Subject to objects*.

[Rich Note: *And suffer and/or "have problems" accordingly.]

Unthink is to put out of mind. This is impossible because hypnosis can resurface the thought at anytime because it has become a part of the subconscious. Therefore, no one can truly put things out of their minds.
Being part of the subconscious the thought(problem)could surface in a dream and start the entire process all over again.
This is the point which you insist isn't the point.

Lets not forget that this is a poetry group. For the moment I did, Amen

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I like it, is very true as well. Today I foresee no problem because I'm here to see that.

Thanks for posting to Haiku Only

Dear Albert,

RE: Unthink is to put out of mind.

I agree the word "unthink" is both a clumsy word and concept.

However, and I thought I made it rather clear, Albert, you continue to “miss the mark.” The point is not that “I can’t get rid of a previous thought” that something was a problem based on my “personal and particular” interpretation of a circumstance (that another might see as good and thus not a problem from a personal perspective).

RE: This is impossible because hypnosis can resurface the thought at anytime because it has become a part of the subconscious. Therefore, no one can truly put things out of their minds. Being part of the subconscious the thought (problem)could surface in a dream and start the entire process all over again.

What you keep pointing to assumes that “I” have already “thought of a circumstance,” in relation to myself as being a problem (as previously explained), and that I can’t really unthink it (at least subconsciously); and this is the false premise you keep proving rather admirably.

The point the poem (or whatever else “you” might like to interpret or define it as being) makes is that “If I (as an assumed personal state of relative mind, thought and being) don’t think or interpret a circumstance to be a problem in the first place, “I” can’t have one.

RE: This is the point which you insist isn't the point.

While this may be “the point you are reading into the poem and wish to make” (or the sub-conscious you refer to is projecting into it – perhaps as a means of avoiding what is actually being pointed), it is definitely not the one that (and I can say this from the standpoint of having been present at the piece’s creation) either intended or implied.

Once again, your analysis is correct (and very well stated), but you are, once again, only succeeding in proving your own point, and not the point the poem was making.

RE: Let’s not forget that this is a poetry group. For the moment I did, Amen

I’ll leave it up to the moderator of the group you are referring to to determine whether the “heartfelt insights” that are offered here fit into a poetry, prose or hybrid format and/or classification (one of the reasons I call it hay-ku instead of haiku or senryu).

Besides, defining “poetry” (which is a matter of the heart) with “conceptual terms” (which are of the head) is tricky business at best. For after all, if anything can be classified as “the mysterious approaching the mystical” (at least to the mind) it is poetry.

But with regard to this daily BLOG, which I have been doing for the last year or so ( and share on any number of groups other than those that are “poetry only”), your comments have offered a wonderful opportunity to “plumb the depths” of what is being offered. As such, I offer my heartfelt thanks for your sharing them and encourage you to do so whenever you are so moved or called (poetry group or not).

Dear Chana,

RE: Richard, I have been sitting here trying to sort through my feelings for this haiku and found myself lacking. I hate to leave comments like I liked this one. or Good one.

"I don't know and/or understand" is, as some have said, the truest thing (some would say the “one true thing") the mind (or "me, myself and I as I think I am") can ever really say [at least with regard to the "Pre-Conceptual State of Pure Being or Awareness" these hay-ku (in one way or another) are, in some way, shape or form, really "pointing" to].

That because "abiding in and with this unknowing" is actually staying with the Preconception I Amness at the Heart of All that is unknowable because it is inconceivable (unlike anything it can be defined or describes in terms of) and/or trans-conceptual.

Seen in this light, being unable to find the “right words” to capture a "non-relative," unitary and ultimately un-relatable state of Awareness, and simply staying with the "unknowingness," is probably much closer to the Ultimate Truth of Being than any "words that might reflect it" can ever hope to be.

Just letting me know you are out there and enjoying the offerings, irrespective of the particular length or depth of specific comments, is more than enough encouragement on “this end.”

Benny returns:

"When one stops identifying oneself as a separate body/ego identity (a who) then there is nothing left but love, joy and the peace of God. No problem!!!

Love and gratitude, Benny"

Beautifully executed, Richard.

Well done, Richard.