Yume ya yume utsutsu ya yume to wakanu kana ika naru yo ni ka samen to suran - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

夢や夢うつつや夢とわかぬかな
いかなる世にか覚めんとすらん

Roma-ji: Yume ya yume utsutsu ya yume to wakanu kana ika naru yo ni ka samen to suran
English Translation: Is the dream a dream,
or is waking but a dream?
I cannot tell which—
in what world, then, I wonder,
will I ever come to wake?
Meaning: Is the dream the dream, or is waking life the dream? I cannot tell them apart—in what world will I ever wake?
Commentary: Book Twenty Buddhist Poems 1972

Headnote: "On the meaning of 'This body is like a dream,' from among the ten similes of the Vimalakīrti Sutra."
This is the eighth poem in the sequence of poems by various poets on scriptural phrases and Buddhist observances, closing that sequence. Unable to tell whether the dream is the dream or waking life is the dream, the poet wonders in what life she will ever wake. According to the headnote, it was composed on the meaning of "This body is like a dream," one of the ten similes of the Vimalakīrti Sutra.
It laments that this body and this world are as fleeting as a dream, and asks when one will ever wake from the dream of delusion into awakening.
The author, "Akazome Emon," was a lady-in-waiting and poet of the mid-Heian period, daughter of Akazome no Tokimochi and wife of Ōe no Masahira. She served Rinshi, wife of Fujiwara no Michinaga, and Jōtōmon-in Shōshi.
The Expedient Means chapter of the Vimalakīrti Sutra sets out ten similes for the fragility of the body: a mass of foam, a bubble, a mirage, a plantain, an illusion, a dream, a shadow, an echo, a floating cloud, and lightning.

The first line, "yume ya yume," asks with the particle "ya": is the dream a dream? Following the preceding poem's "yume zo kanashiki," the arrangement links by the word "dream."
The second line, "utsutsu ya yume to," repeats the question—is waking life the dream?—unsettling the boundary between dream and reality. The first two lines repeat "dream" three times.
The third line, "wakanu kana," means "I cannot tell them apart," and the exclamatory "kana" marks a break.
The fourth line, "ika naru yo ni ka," asks with the particle "ka": in what life? It seeks awakening not in this life but in one to come.
The last line, "samen to suran," closes the kakari-musubi of "ka" with the attributive "ran," wondering when one will wake. It turns the scripture's "like a dream" into the wish to awaken from the dream.
Author: Akazome Emon
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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