Nikāya Puritans would always acknowledge 5, but if you’re “truly” a “radical” Puritan (he said, with an eyebrow raised), you only acknowledge 3 nikāyā, namely Aṅguttara, Majjhima, and Saṁyutta.*
I don’t consider a Puritan a “good” thing to be necessarily, maybe that is an inadvertent exhibition of a Canadianism. If that’s so, in the above haiku, with the meaning I intended, I don’t think anyone should be a “purist” that way. Maybe it didn’t some across right when read. It’s certainly possible. It wouldn’t be the first time I had a hard time “explaining myself,” so to speak, in prose or poem.
*That is to say, there is a movement in EBT subculture, chiefly prevalent on web forums thankfully unlike this one, that devalues the Dīgha & Khuddaka as authentic.
It strikes me that that last New Year’s haiku is only a haiku if you have a Canadian or Northern US accent maybe, where “encircling” is four syllables, the “l,” with a preceding schwa, forming its own syllabic nucleus, or “ɪnˈsɜrkəlɪŋ,” as one might be tempted to spell in IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet.
In some accents, “encircling” is three syllables, “ɪnˈsɜrklɪŋ.” Sometimes the diversity of nuances of language, even something mundane as regional accent, strikes you and you are just left to wonder at what you don’t regularly consider.
I’m copying this back over here, to make sure no haiku-lover misses it.
Of course the associated non-haikus were pretty cool too:
@karl_lew I have a Mara-inspired urge to edit you last line, tho if ‘twit’ is pronounced in you dialect with 2 syllables ‘t-wit’ I’m completely out of court and apologise immediately.
This nonsensical verse,
dare I disperse?
Or abide with mute wit,
and still be a twit.
Of course
MN96:8.3: …They refrain from using speech that’s false, divisive, harsh, or nonsensical…
And now - for one time only - I can like my own post: on the ground that its substantive content is all quoted from others.