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

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.

Learn the rules, and then forget them.

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.

Farewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer?

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

Old pond, leap-splash – a frog.

No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.

A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.

Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.

Come, butterfly It’s late- We’ve miles to go together.

How I long to see among dawn flowers, the face of God.

For it is a serious thing to have been watched. We all radiate something curiously intimate when we believe ourselves to be alone.

The completely solitary self: that’s where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis, and those crises are often very intimate also.

It is the mark of a great poet to write words that feel as though they have stood witness to your most intimate memory of love.

Yes, I think it is entirely possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never met. Physicality is an expression of intimacy- not an indication of it.

I consider abortion to be a deeply personal and intimate issue for women and I don’t believe male legislators should even vote on the issue.

I thought I had learned how to have an intimate relationship. And I thought I’d learned how to be happy. Everybody has issues. For me, the challenge is intimacy, but I really didn’t start to get that until I turned 60.

He was also removing all traces of any tiny leftover parts, and suddenly a ritual which I’d always found incestuous and gross seemed to me more like a desperate act on Joseph’s part to get out, to leave, to extract every little last remnant and bring it into open air.

I do not condemn any personal choices for intimate relationships. Love is love.