Reweaving the Web of the World

Reweaving the Web of the World

One of the reasons I find Renga attractive, and a reason that I have stuck with the practice of Renga for so many years, is that the practice of Renga teaches one a way of looking at the world that I find healing and expansive. I refer to this effect of practicing Renga as “reweaving the web of the world”.

Renga is about noticing how two situations/images/manifestations are similar; that’s the linking aspect. The connection between these two images is often subtle, but it is nevertheless there. After some time of Renga practice, I found that I would spontaneously notice how situations were connected, how they were similar. So Renga is a kind of gentle mind training/heart training.

Normally, as we go about our day, the mind separates things into distinct categories. This is natural. If I want my car fixed I want to distinguish between those who are good mechanics and those who are not. If I go grocery shopping I want to distinguish between fresh vegetables and those that are too far gone. There’s nothing inherently wrong about making these kinds of distinctions, but it sets up a strong habit of mind, a cultivated tendency, that takes for granted that this is the only way to approach the world.

The practice of Renga opens up another way of approaching the world and that is approaching the world in order to comprehend what things share, rather than what distinguishes them. Perhaps what they share is a kind of motion (falling things, rising things), or what they share is the emotional response they illicit in me (the autumn moon, dispersing incense), or maybe what they share is their freshness (spring flowers, a new author I’m just getting to know), etc. What I love about Renga is that it is a method for learning this way of approaching the world without being overt about it. It is a simple result of the practice of Renga that one begins to perceive things in this way.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

Note: I previously posted the above at the ahapoetry.com forum.