Sansei Yamao – Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 poet

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

.

Sansei Yamo was born in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 in 1938. He studied western philosophy at Waseda University

Waseda University

, abbreviated as , is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan and Asia. Its main campuses are located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed "Waseda University" in 1902. It is known for its liberal climate...

, but dropped out before graduation. In the latter half of the 1960s, he and his companions Nanao Sakaki

Nanao Sakaki

Nanao Sakaki was a Japanese poet, author of Bellyfulls and leading personality of the Tribe. He was born to a large family in the Kagoshima Prefecture, and raised by parents who ran an indigo dye-house....

 and Tetsuo Nagasawa started a commune called Buzoku

The Tribe (Buzoku)

The Tribe was the best known name of a loose-knit countercultural group in Japan in the 1960s and 70s.Central figures of the group's beginnings in Shinjuku and leadership included Nanao Sakaki, Tetsuo Nagasawa, Sansei Yamao, Mamoru Kato, and Kenji Akiba, who shared an interest in an alternative...

 (tribe), with an aim to change society. In 1973, he went on a pilgrimage

Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...

 to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Nepal

Nepal

Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

 with his family for a year. Upon returning to Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, he moved with his family in 1977 to a ghost village on Yaku-Shima, an island located in the south of Japan, famous for the Japanese Joumon cedar, which lives for several thousand years. He began to build a village at Shirakawa mountain. He wrote poetry and prose, and farmed his field there until his death. He visited his old friend poet Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

 in the spring of 1997 at Snyder's house in the Sierra Nevada. In 1966 Sansei Yamao had initially met Snyder, who travelled to Japan to receive his first Zen training in Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

. At that time, Sansei Yamao and Gary Snyder traversed the Ominesan mountain range in Nara, which is known as the Shugendō

Shugendo

is a highly syncretic Buddhic religion or sect and mystical-spiritual tradition which originated in pre-Feudal Japan, in which enlightenment is equated with attaining oneness with the . This perception of experiential "awakening" is obtained through the understanding of the relationship between...

 mountain, together for a week. After Snyder went back to the USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, while Sansei went to India and then subsequently moved to Yaku-Shima, the two had not been in contact with each other. Therefore, when Sansei Yamao met Gary Snyder again in 1997, he was surprised to learn that Snyder's recent emphasis was bioregionalism

Bioregionalism

Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics...

, because he, too, had been thinking about very similar things for 20 years. He said, "The earth is just a region, a region is just the earth." The year following their second meeting, "聖なる地球のつどいかな" (Seinaru chikyu no tudoi kana) was published in Japan, a collection of their dialogues held in the Sierra Nevada.

Sansei Yamao died on 28 August 2001.

Selected bibliography

• Seirojin (1981)

• No no michi - essays about Kenji Miyazawa
  Kenji Miyazawa
  was a Japanese poet and author of children's literature in the early Shōwa period of Japan. He was also known as a devout Buddhist, vegetarian and social activist.-Early life:...
  
  (1983)

• Jomonsugi no kokage nite (1985)

• Birobaboshi no sitade (1993)

• Seinaru chikyu no tudoi kana (1998) , a collection of dialogue with Gary Snyder

• Kokode kurasu tanoshimi (1999), a collection of essays

• Animism to iu kibo (2000), 5 days lectures at University of the Ryukyus

• Minami no hikari no nakade (2002)

• Inori / prayer (2002)

• Sansei Yamao Poetry Works (translated into English)

"Make the fire," "Mitto-kun and a cloud," "A Moonlit Night," "Dawn Cafe Au Leit," "At the Mountain," "Sea," "Wind"

"Index page", happano.org

SINGLE BLISS: Yamao Sansei Translations by Scott Watson.
Gardnerville, NV. Country Valley Press. 2007.

"After Rain." Translated by Scott Watson. Atlanta, GA. Atlanta Review. Spring/Summer 2002, p.52.

"An Island of Life." Yamao Sansei translations by Scott Watson. Sendai, Japan. The Tohoku Gakuin University Review, No.139. Nov. 2004, pp. 91 ~ 112.