Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Old dark sleepy pool... Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!
A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
Seek on high bare trails Sky-reflecting violets... Mountain-top jewels
Twilight whippoorwill... Whistle on, sweet deepener Of dark loneliness
With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice... Or backyard love?
Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.
Traveler's heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.
Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice
For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice.
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.
Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.
The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering.
Along my journey / through this transitory world, / new year's housecleaning.
Ballet in the air... Twin butterflies until, twice white They Meet, they mate
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree; And from the bamboo, of the bamboo
Sadly, I part from you; Like a clam torn from its shell, I go, and autumn too.
Now the swinging bridge Is quieted with creepers ... Like our tendrilled life.
Fresh spring! / The world is only Nine days old - / These fields and mountains!
O cricket from your cherry cry No one would ever guess How quickly you must die.
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count -- / Festival of the Souls.
A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water - A deep resonance.
Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.
I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine.
I hope to have gathered To repay your kindness The willow leaves Scattered in the garden.
Farewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer?
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
There is nothing you can see that is not a Bashoflower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.
He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.
No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.
Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?
The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.
The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, "I shall be unhappy without loneliness," shows that he made loneliness his master.
The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.
the universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.
There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores
When your consciousness has become ripe in true zazen-pure like clear water, like a serene mountain lake, not moved by any wind-then anything may serve as a medium for realization.
Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things-mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity-and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves.
The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
Go to the object. Leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Do not impose yourself on the object. Become one with the object. Plunge deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there.
When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.
Operating superficially, the mind is random in its activity and stale in its insights and images. However, with practice and experience the mind is freed from the skull, and the fresh and new can appear as though for the first time. It
Sabi is the color of haikai. It is different from tranquility. For example, if an old man dresses up in armor and helmet and goes to the battlefield, or in colorful brocade kimono, attending (his lord) at a banquet, [sabi] is like this old figure.