Men and women,
their shadows, too,
dancing.
That is a Haiku written by Santoka Taneda (1882-1940), the great modern Haiku poet. Taneda lived most of his life as a poor itinerant Zen monk of no standing, wandering Japan begging for food. He was also an alcoholic and drank too much sake and shochu. He had a sincere Zen mind, but he also lived in thrall to his addiction and was a self-consciously imperfect, self-deprecating man.
This poem makes me think about how as we live we drag our shadows behind us, and as we dance they are dancing too. In fact we might also be chasing our shadow, running until we are exhausted or reaching for its beguiling form only to crash our fingers into the cement of reality.
We may be unaware of our shadows, or perhaps we are painfully aware. I think zazen (seated zen meditation) or any contemplative practice where we turn our attention inward to fully inhabit ourselves and be totally aware of what we are doing in the present moment— is a place where we can stop our hypnotized shadow dancing.
Metaphorically speaking, when we are still, when we are focused, when we are taking full responsibility for ourselves, we have no shadow.
This is not because we have no shadow, but because we have become one with it.
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This is a substantially revised version of a post I originally published on my substack Van Dharma.