“Learn the rules, and then forget them.”

He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.

Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?

Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water – A deep resonance.

An autumn night – don’t think your life didn’t matter.

How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers.

Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.

Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine.

The universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.

The moon is brighter since the barn burned.

Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.

Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps’ nest.

Summer grasses — all that remains of great soldiers’ imperial dreams.

Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.

Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and you do not learn.

Don’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.

This autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds.