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.
MATSUO BASHOFirst snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.
More Matsuo Basho Quotes
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Traveler’s heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.
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Old pond, frog jumps in – plop.
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Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
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April’s air stirs in Willow-leaves, a butterfly Floats and balances.
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Old dark sleepy pool… Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!
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I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
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He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.
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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.
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Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind.
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Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
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Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.
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The moon is brighter since the barn burned.
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Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
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Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water – A deep resonance.
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Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die.
MATSUO BASHO