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Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.

Matsuo Basho

With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.
MATSUO BASHO

Butterfly Change Mindset Place
Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
MATSUO BASHO

Live Nature Ourselves Tree
How I long to see among dawn flowers, the face of God.
MATSUO BASHO

Face Flower God Myself See
Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind.
MATSUO BASHO

Oneself Solitude Sound Wind Winter
A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
MATSUO BASHO

Memories Skeleton
From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree; And from the bamboo, of the bamboo.
MATSUO BASHO

Knowledge Nature Tree Wisdom
Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.
MATSUO BASHO

Carry Enlightenment Water Wood
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.
MATSUO BASHO

Clear Conscious Purity Realize Service Water Yourself
Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps’ nest.
MATSUO BASHO

Home Insect Rain Spring
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 BASHO

Breathe Compose Dangerous Enemy Fall Hairs Mindset Tree Writing
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.
MATSUO BASHO

Bloom Flower Poverty Truth
Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end – tonight’s moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Moon Night Tree
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
MATSUO BASHO

Day Destination Home Journey
Don’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fruit Imitation Myself
The basis of art is change in the universe.
MATSUO BASHO

Art Change One Liner Universe
The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.
MATSUO BASHO

Beginning Lonely Master Myself Poem

Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.

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Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.

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