Weekend Musings: The Leap of the Frog — A Moment in Haiku

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 An old silent pond—
a frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

This weekend’s Musings arose from an invitation to reflect on these lines by Matsuo Bashō. What began as an invitation soon turned into a gentle challenge, as it became clear that the poem invites many ways of seeing. It can even invite silence, as we honour the stillness of the pond.

The image is simple, almost bare. A still pond. A sudden leap. A brief splash. And then silence again. Nothing is explained, nothing is concluded. What is offered is a moment, complete in itself.

Yet, being a Musing, I must still arrive at my own reading.

In these lines, Bashō draws us into a world where there is no past or future — both constructs of the mind, or the ego. He lives entirely moment to moment, in full awareness of it. The past becomes nothing more than memory, a storehouse of conditioning, biases, and habits. The future is merely the drama projected from that past.

In such a state of awareness, action is no longer planned or postponed; it simply happens. Like the frog’s leap, action arises not under the pressure of time, but from complete presence in the moment.

The haiku tradition rests on the simple insight that life does not wait to be lived later. The frog does not deliberate, hesitate, or prepare. It simply jumps. The moment is captured exactly as it is — without interpretation, without postponement. There is no anxiety about what comes next, no reflection on what has just passed. The moment arises, expresses itself, and dissolves back into stillness.

Perhaps the haiku is not asking us to extract meaning, but to notice how naturally life moves when it is not postponed, rehearsed, or resisted. Action does not disturb silence; it returns us to it.

And maybe that is the quiet invitation hidden in these lines — to step into life as it presents itself, to act when action arises, and to trust that stillness knows how to take care of itself.

You may also want to read my piece on:  Weekend story - The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1831)

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