However, it was not until a misfortune changed all my life,my fate even my religion belief (you can say my whole soul was crushed all of sudden!)that I understood what Mono no aware (物の哀れ) means like I got a "sudden enlightment" as Buddhism claims.
Many people speak about this; I listen to a lot of spiritual type speakers like Ekhart tolle and Alan Watts and Alan Watts talks about this very thing. He says that he had a good friend who was very settled in the Buddhist way, very detached from ego, who set up a meditation retreat in the black forest in Germany in the 1950's where he saw a lot of soldiers, and other people who had faced a cataclysmic event (where it seemed inevitable they were going to die) but they survived miraculously. Example might be a soldier who's platoon was hit by a shell and everyone else died but they were thrown clear by the blast with no shrapnel, or any damage and just got up and walked away.
He described that all of these people reported a complete stillness and peace, like their mind had stopped and all the chatter, fear, emotions and everything that human's condition each other to think/be/do had just gone. Then when they came back to normal life they felt this disconnect, but all the conditioning started to come back. Alan Watts described that his friend at their meditation retreat taught these soldiers meditation and they realised that rather than what their families had been saying "oh you just went through trauma and were left hallucinating" that place of quiet peace is actually where we as humans are born into, it is where we create our best things/words/thoughts, it is not an unnatural state, it is just one that the world and other people teach us not to abide in.
At the same time Haiku also reflects a specific philosophy, a view of life. We must accept the transcience of our life without suffering, since it is just the truth of life itself. Reading Haiku gives me huge comfort!
Yes, I 100% agree with what you're saying here. It is something at the core of any good meditation teaching as well, suffering is inevitable in life but we cause pain and misery to ourselves and others by identifying with that suffering, by making it our own. By not recognising that it is universal and therefor acceptance is the only logical path to not letting it have power over you. I personally can find a place of peace through both reading and writing poetry, and sometimes it is almost the opposite - I wrote a poem yesterday and I had to bite back the tears, but eventually just let them flow.
I think you hit on something very true about haiku in your comment @kaixin when done well they put you in a perfect little moment, a place where the mind can be still and focus on one clear and healing image.
That is how I feel about haiku.
It is also why I always distinguish between Senryu and Haiku in my posts. If I write a Senyru which I like, I am happy with it, but I feel Haiku is the more pure form, harder to achieve as good haiku should flow like water, like something from the tao te ching. Haiku should capture a perfect moment, whereas Senryu are more about the human side of existence.
RE: A beautiful Chinese legend about lentils