black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Matsuo Basho

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

Fall Moon Night Tree
How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers.
MATSUO BASHO

Desire Flower Moon Myself
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO

Age Float Time World
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
MATSUO BASHO

Moon Myself Night Water
Fresh spring! / The world is only Nine days old – / These fields and mountains!
MATSUO BASHO

Age Fresh Mountain Nature Spring Time World
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.
MATSUO BASHO

Deep Enough Gide Leaving Object Subject Yourself
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.
MATSUO BASHO

Knowledge Learning Leaving Nature Wisdom Yourself
Learn the rules, and then forget them.
MATSUO BASHO

Forget Inspirational Learning Rule
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
MATSUO BASHO

Eat Fast Glory Morning Myself
Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.
MATSUO BASHO

Death Life Moments Poem
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Food Tree
The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.
MATSUO BASHO

Avoid Believe Break Desire Divine Human Myself Noise Silence Sound
A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.
MATSUO BASHO

Dreams Summer Warrior
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.
MATSUO BASHO

Bloom Flower Poverty Truth
Sadly, I part from you; Like a clam torn from its shell, I go, and autumn too.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Break Up End Leaving Myself Relationship Yourself
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
MATSUO BASHO

Growth Nature Quiet Spring

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

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

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More Matsuo Basho Quotes