Gokuraku wa harukeki hodo to kikishikado tsutomete itaru tokoro narikeri - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

極楽ははるけきほどと聞きしかど
つとめて至る所なりけり

Roma-ji: Gokuraku wa harukeki hodo to kikishikado tsutomete itaru tokoro narikeri
English Translation: Paradise, I heard,
was a place so far away,
yet now I know it
as a place where one arrives
by morning, through devotion
Meaning: I had heard that paradise lay far, far away, yet it turns out to be a place one can reach by devotion, even by early morning.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1201

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
I had heard paradise was far away, but it is a place one reaches by devotion, he says. The Pure Land is said to lie countless worlds away in the west, yet it can be reached by devoting oneself to the nembutsu, and the poem teaches the worth of striving on the Buddhist path. Playing "tsutomete" as both striving in practice and early morning, he speaks as if the faraway paradise could be reached within a morning, and therein lies the humorous spirit.
The author, "Kūya Shōnin," was a monk of the mid-Heian period. He traveled the provinces spreading the nembutsu and was called the Saint of the Marketplace.
This poem closes the book and ends the series of humorous poems. Where the long poem opening the book, 1160, voiced the lament of one who longed for the next world yet could not leave this one, and its envoy, 1161, grieved that the world clings to the body like a shadow, this closing poem teaches that devotion leads to paradise, so the lament over the world at the book's beginning is resolved by the road to paradise at its end. It also shares with the preceding poem, 1200, a concern with the Buddhist path and the course of life; where the preceding poem lamented drawing nearer to death, this one sings of the hope of reaching paradise.

First line, "Gokuraku wa": "Gokuraku" is the Pure Land of the west where Amida Buddha dwells.
Second line, "harukeki hodo to": "harukeki" means far removed, and "hodo" distance.
Third line, "kikishikado": "shika" is the perfective form of the past "ki," and "do" an adversative conjunctive particle.
Fourth line, "tsutomete itaru": "tsutomete" plays on striving on the Buddhist path and on "tsutomete," early morning.
Fifth line, "tokoro narikeri": "keri" is an exclamatory auxiliary of realization, expressing the awakened heart that says, "so it is a place one can reach."
Author: Kūya
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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