Death Poems
The Rinzai school continued the practice of the katsu, as can be seen through the examples of the death poems of certain Rinzai priests:
Katsu!On the death bed — Katsu!
Let he who has eyes see!
Katsu! Katsu! Katsu!
And once again, Katsu!
Katsu!
I often cried Katsu! to no avail.
And now, while dying,
Once more to cry Katsu!
Won't change a thing.
In Japanese history (and other countries as well), elderly martial artists who practiced the arts all their lives were honored and respected by their students and the population of the towns they live in. In particular for two distinct reasons. The obvious one was their ability to hurt and kill people. The other fact not well known to most people was these elderly martial artists' abilities to heal people. Martial artists placed (some still do) much value on healing and resuscitation arts as they did on their fighting techniques. These arts are known as "Katsu of Kappo", gave the practitioner the ability to restart someone's heart, resume breathing or treat other injuries. These tactics were a natural outgrowth of martial arts practices where the need to reverse techniques was commonplace.
Gary Kwack, The Martial Art/Healing Connection,April/May 2003 Massage and BodyWork
Read more about this topic: Katsu (Zen)
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or poems:
““Promise me solemnly,” I said to her as she lay on what I believed to be her death bed, “if you find in the world beyond the grave that you can communicate with me—that there is some way in which you can make me aware of your continued existence—promise me solemnly that you will never, never avail yourself of it.” She recovered and never, never forgave me.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8 B.C.)