Haiku

Haiku are found in Shinto and are somewhat similar in their objective to a koan.  A Haiku is a three line poem.  In order to use a Haiku, you can simply read the poem ‘in your head’ as it were. 

Although Haiku have been taken up as a form of beautiful poetry, which they are, the original Haiku were intended to be used for spiritual experience and were largely meaningless – beautiful but meaningless.  By reciting a large number of them, the idea was that eventually you would stop searching for an ‘answer’ or meaning and stop using your system of Reason.

You have no need for repetition with haiku.  If you have a book of them, you read them one after another.  Do it slowly and savour the effects.

Remember, the objective is to still the function of Reason, but also remember that they are meant to appeal to our sense of  beauty, even though they have no meaning.  For example:

Kago no Chiyo (1703-75) wrote:
A morning glory
Has usurped my well bucket
I can go next door

Matsuo Basho (1644-94) wrote:
Summer quietness
Cicada voices burrow
Into the cliffside