Session 10—Tu, Sep 27: Mujōkan / mono no aware I: Introductory comments; transience as expressed in the Kokinshū's five books of love

Topics

❖ Some brief comments on love and Confucianism, love and Buddhism
❖ Koi (恋, "longing"): as connectedness
❖ Mujōkan and mujōkan in a romantic context: Episode 24 of The Tales of Ise, the five books of love in the Kokinshū

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

While our primary topic over the next several sessions will be mujōkan and mono no aware, we will be situating these within narratives and an important aspect of Genji's narrative is romance and so, in order to make sense of the narrative itself, I need to make some introductory comments about romantic love as portrayed in Heian onnade texts.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Read the entry on the terms page for mujōkan.

✓ Kokinshu love poems (bSpace, PDF). Read these ahead of class and be ready to suggest how each of the five books is different. (This PDF is not required Fall 2011, nor tested.)

✓ Read in McCullough, Tales of Ise "Introduction", "Episode 24" and any other episode you find interesting. Read a few. I discuss Episode 24 in terms of "about to expire" as a romantic frame of mind. I also use it to intorduce Tales of Ise in general and discuss Heian-style love more generall, including the "iro-otoko" "man of love" grounded in the concept of irogonomi (色好み iro-gonomi; color/sensuality-to like, so "loving love"). ("Introduction" is not required Fall 2011, nor tested.)

✓ Reread this (from McCullough 155, the final paragraph of the first part of The Gossamer Journal). A good example of time slipping away in a disappointing fashion:

"So time passes, but the advent of a new year brings no joy to one who is sunk in grief, her life far from what she would have desired. When I reflect on the perpetual uncertainty [mono-hakanaki] in which I exist, it seems to me that this had been the journal of a woman whose fortunes are as evanescent [aru ka naki ka] as the gossamer shimmer of a heat wave in the sky."

かく年月はつもれど思ふやうにもあらぬみをしなげゝばこゑあらたまるもよろこぼしからず猶ものはかなきをおもへばあるかなきかの心ちするかげろふのにきといふべし。

Multimedia notes

◊ Gunma Prefecture, Tsumagoi ["Wife-loving"] Village (群馬県嬬恋村): "Call Out I Love You" event (NHKS news clip)

Links

⇢ None.

Other

Terms and such mentioned this day that are not otherwise in an obvious place on the web site, the powerpoints, the assigned reading, etc. (to help with capturing items mentioned, perhaps quickly, in class, not for test purposes)

mujōkan = 無常感・無常観, mono no aware = もののあはれ, Tales of Ise is in McCullough and I read from Section 24, which is also in McCullough. I also mentioned koi （こひ）恋 and its manyogana common rendition of 孤悲 (lonely-sadness). I also mentioned おもふ omou, to think / to think about one's lover.

I also mentioned the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism:

Life is suffering (dukkha)

Suffering is caused by craving/desire (tanha)

Craving can be stopped

The way to stop craving is through right opinion, right activity, right means of existence, right effort, right attention, right concentration