In Haikus events and experiences are described, which are realistic and can typically happen to anyone. Since metaphors, puns and abstractions are avoided, one can see it that way, that phenomena are described there. Haikus refer to Basic experiences without metaphysical superstructure. Thus they offer a platform, where phenomenology can be discussed. Because of its brevity they demand a great deal of skill from the poet. Conversely a recipient assumes that every word has been chosen carefully. This reveals the limits of linguistic possibilities. Since an event is always meant, into which a recipient can imagine himself the linguistic inadequacies in contrast to what is meant are easily recognizable. Especially the experience itself cannot be expressed in words, but only the circumstances that cause it. But these are conventions, abstractions, social contexts, which are not meant, but which in fact constitute a form of understanding.

Edmund Husserl is the founder of the philosophical direction "phenomenology". There are treatises by him, in which he endeavors to create a phenomenological method to develop like for example in "Cartesian Meditations" and also in other of his late writings. Two central phases, which succeed each other, are immersed there on: The phase of the "exclusion" of the natural attitude, called epoché and the eidetic variation. In the following these two phases are presented in an understandable way by means of haikus. The whole thing is intended as a simplified, first introduction to the subject matter, which should lead to an in-depth study of the Husserl's writings. Specifically, we ask you to read the first four meditations carefully so that they can be discussed later.

As a representative of the large community of haiku poets, haikus of Masaoka Shiki are used in German translation. Shiki experienced the beginnings of industrialization in Japan and by this is also reflected in his poetries, he moves closer to of today's industrial society, but is at the same time a mediator between the old Japanese society and the present one. Shiki was very sickly. This burden is also reflected in his poems. This expressive existential depth, makes his poetries to be a rich source of phenomenologically effective expressions.

Of course, the interpretation of these poems is not the only way to convey phenomenology as a method. Rather, it is more likely to work if the inner process of the recipient himself is taken into focus.

Many terms appear here to clarify the situation: Silkworms, mulberry leaves, night. However, it is probably more about experiencing nocturnal sounds. Here already the inadequacy of the use of language becomes apparent, on the basis of which what is meant cannot be conveyed directly, but only via detours, that is, by reference to shared conventions and shared knowledge. All this is included in what Husserl calls the "natural attitude" of man: We see ourselves as persons acting in an external world. There are things there and we share the knowledge of these things with our fellow human beings. The experience of nocturnal sounds, this phenomenon, can become a subject of experience, memory or imagination beyond this natural attitude. We do not need the natural attitude to be with our consciousness in this phenomenon. However, in order to give other people an idea, a memory, or the attention to this phenomenon, we cannot avoid making use of the shared natural and institutional concepts and the idea of an external world.

Now, one could call what is conveyed in the haiku purely subjective, or psychologically dependent, and, on the other hand, assign the dominant role to the conveyed objective facts. This attitude will probably be especially shared by people who also say that they cannot do anything with poems. From such a perspective, the terms silkworms, mulberry leaves, and night mentioned at the beginning have a much higher claim to existence than the experience of nocturnal sounds. Husserl now argues analogously: What is more real than that which is given to us as a phenomenon, that is, than that which is given to us as the content of consciousness? These phenomena are our only access to the world. We have nothing other than this access. Therefore, every science should start there and not with concepts and with a world that is set as existing in our imagination. First there are the nocturnal noises and only then come concepts that are related to this phenomenon. Despite all the subjectivity of experience, the noise described here does not stem from processes in our psyche, but we are quite certain that its cause lies in the external world surrounding us, whose existence we also consider to be completely certain. In this respect, the phenomena are not something that is purely subjective, nor are they purely objective. They initially move outside of these categories and help us to conclude and understand a world that exists outside of ourselves. Husserl calls this step "transcendent", that is, transcending. And when he speaks of "transcendental phenomenology" in his late work, he means precisely this step from the phenomenon back to the world and our relationship to it.

The few words in the haiku do not suffice to reproduce beyond doubt the scene that may originally have given rise to the writing of these three lines.

So what do we do to justify to ourselves whether we interpret the lines in an appropriate way?

In our fantasy the described scene changes in a certain range. It makes sense that the person describing the scene lies on his bed. Because we experience this focus on sounds especially when there are only a few of them left, i.e. at night. And at night, at any rate later in the night, at some point we lie in bed. In any case, this is a place where sounds like the ones described here are more likely to get our attention. We are not busy there with anything else but hopefully soon to fall asleep. The windows are probably open, in any case the Sounds without being stopped to the person describing the scene. All these are circumstances that are important to ensure that the described experience can take place at all. It does not matter, however, from what kind of is the bed, if applicable. It does not matter what to the person in question otherwise happened on the day of the event.

With all that has been enumerated now, what the situation in which the experience took place might have looked like, there are points in which I might agree with other people who interpret this poem and points that would evaluate them differently. In some cases I may realize that I have omitted some detail in the poem that may suggest the other person's assessment rather than mine. In other cases, the insufficiently detailed description in the poem leaves it open which view is more meaningful. By playing through all these possibilities of interpretation myself in my imagination, the scene establishes itself for me in my imagination in different variations that are conceivable in a meaningful way. All these meaningful variations coexist equally and overlap in my imagination. They revolve around a core that one could call the quintessence of what is meant. It would be the one on which all intersubjectively can agree that it is most likely meant here.

Suppose we were now the author of the haiku ourselves. We would record our experience in the three lines. But we ourselves could now also record this variation of the scene in our imagination and thus imagine other variants, in which the same expresses what is written in the poem, but which is a little different from the original. In Husserl's opinion, such a variation of what is meaningfully is also possible, that the essence / eidos of a thing in the center is intersection of all these variations.

This haiku reminds us a little bit of the life worlds of animals and humans, as they are described by Jakob von Uexküll and were the topic of the last seminar: For humans, the rails have the meaning of travel and sometimes arouse a feeling of wanderlust. Also the wild geese migrating there may arouse similar feelings. However, what we call rails are for the wild geese rather insignificant. Maybe the rails help them to find their way, who knows. All this comes together as an experience with the describing person, because the scene is illuminated by the full moon. This is also a carrier of meaning for our experience. Its light is rather described as cold and, in connection with this autumn scene, refers to the approaching winter cold.

To reduce this poem to a mediation of an experience of wanderlust would certainly not do justice to the matter. But to understand the principle of "eidetic variation", it helps to start from this simple case: We can cite many life situations that make us feel in a similar way as when we settle into the situation described in the haiku lines.

Both haikus are now not characterized by the fact that they let the reader experience a completely surprising change of context. They are rather examples of everyday moments in which we escape from our urban everyday life with all its contexts of meaning that cause us worry and mean responsibilities for us. We escape simply by directly experiencing something that is not mediated by our idea of an external world and our relationship to it, but which immediately comes to our consciousness as a phenomenon. Heidegger, who rather examines the conditions under which one or the other kind of relationship between man and the world comes about, describes such a state as authentic being, the other as an inauthentic being. Husserl, who in his philosophy strictly remains with the phenomena, distinguishes between degrees of fulfilment of different intentions, i.e. the degree to which what is meant is suddenly as a phenomenon stands before us. Example: Do I mention to someone a person by name, the name is first a placeholder, the can more or less fill my counterpart with content. Dealing with such abstractions, is important in order to be able to to be able to cope. However, abstraction is always less than the original, even hides this and a constant operating in bare abstractions, leads in the long run also with ourselves to unfulfilled life.

Now it may be that our everyday context no longer allows us to experience many things as existential, which are part of the surrounding diversity of a rich world. This everyday context limits our imagination in certain areas to abstractions, to intentions that are only very weakly fulfilled. Thus we may perceive some people as colleagues only, and this status obscures something of their personality that is worth perceiving. Or we perceive a landscape only as our way to work and overlook its peculiarities. The following haikus by Shiki all open up a perspective for the recipient, which they probably would not have found otherwise, without the respective haiku. In this perspective, the haiku poet also gains the status of an intelligent travel companion through life, rather than being merely entertaining and the occupation with the poems a nice pastime: