Songs from My Heart

Poems of Life and Nature

Daisaku Ikeda

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781784530907
• eBook ISBN: 9780857737007
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

For many years Daisaku Ikeda has used poetry to express his innermost observations and sensations. He has given poetic voice to feelings that have emerged from real life, and from the activities of an internationally known champion of peace and education and the leader of a worldwide lay Buddhist movement. With a vigour and simplicity that derive from a style rooted in classical rather than colloquial traditions, his poems celebrate the themes of youth and of progress, and the mysteries of the natural world: whether a wind that sighs 'with its melancholy chant to the traveller', or a 'great sky with its transcendent beauty and stillness', or a moon that shines with the light of the 'silver monarch'. These are poignant meditations above all on time, transience and the eternal - rendered visible through a palette of diverse poetic colour, and framed within a universe where all people are called to strive for a better world. Such a world is characterized not by division, but by peace and love. In that sense, these are verses expressive of the author's deepest hopes and sentiments: not merely poems, but keenly felt songs from his heart.

Songs of the revolution

A believer

Nature has its clear-cut cycle of spring and autumn

the globe its steady revolution of the twenty-four hours

All these

accord with the path of the eternal laws of the universe

But what are the laws of this little universe called ‘self’?

The stars of the heavens and the inner moral code—

so thought Kant

The ultimate law

wherein join those distant paths,

which mingles this dimension of the life within me

to the unending movements of the universe,

this I make my faith

Making my way home when scenes of turmoil are ended,

looking up at the stars that spread the sky with their shining,

I verify the laws that abide in the depths of my breast

And then,

while raging at the misery and injustice on this earth,

I proceed stage by stage along the path of human life, of birth, old age, sickness, and death

Today once more

I vow to be a true pioneer

Springing from the earth

Traveller!

where have you come from?

where are you going?

The moon has set

the sun not yet risen

in the chaos before the dawn

searching for the light

I press onward

To drive back the dark clouds of the mind

I seek the great tree unshaken by the storm—

will I spring up from the great earth of life?

Weeds

They live

rank on rank of them in their green nakedness

they live vigorously

never flinching from the autumn frost, unbending in will,

through the supple resilience that is their heaven-given nature

they live on in joy

They live greedily they live

never the least air of gloom about them

to the life-giving springs of the great earth their mother

calling out in answer

multiplying their friends as they live on

In the light of the heavens they live discordantly

giving thanks to the dews and springs of the earth

they live serenely

Sternly they battle with their surroundings

freely they take delight in their surroundings

day by day they carve out a life of fullness

with the drought, the gale, the drenching rain,

the morning dew, the sunset, the stars that fill the sky

they live on, dancing and singing

The burning heat relentlessly torments them,

the parching dryness, when one drop of water is a precious pearl,

the desperate fight—

The sudden storm in its madness would destroy them

but though they sway and bend to the ground

their chests swell with pride

The squalls attack, washing them, trying to down them,

but though their front ranks, their rear ranks are swamped,

unenraged they pick themselves up from the water

Waves of ordeal are never easy to bear

Sustained endurance in the face of life and death,

the unfaltering resistance that alone conquers all,

they who know no surrender

they who exude a thriving vitality

and they whose smiling faces never change—

even deserts are a waterside to them

even foul mud is an oasis

even barren fields are a longed-for paradise

And at last there comes to them

a time of rest

Morning dews gently call them to waking

little b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface to the first edition
• Translator’s note
• Song of youth
• Looking at nature
• The heart of the moon
• Songs of the revolution
• Words of encouragement