black
grey
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Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

Matsuo Basho

I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
MATSUO BASHO

Eat Fast Glory Morning Myself
Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.
MATSUO BASHO

Carry Enlightenment Water Wood
The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.
MATSUO BASHO

Animal Call Darkness Sea White Wild
On a bare branch a crow is perched – autumn evening.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Evening
When I speak My lips feel cold – The autumn wind.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Cold Feeling Lips Myself Talk Voice Wind
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
The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.
MATSUO BASHO

Goodness Hide Mystery Poem Reveal
Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end – tonight’s moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Moon Night Tree
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO

Cat Love Starve
Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count — / Festival of the Souls.
MATSUO BASHO

Count Festival Soul Thinking
Poverty’s child – he starts to grind the rice, and gazes at the moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Children Moon Poverty Start
At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.
MATSUO BASHO

Pond Sound Water
Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind.
MATSUO BASHO

Oneself Solitude Sound Wind Winter
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
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO

Age Float Time World
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
MATSUO BASHO

Growth Nature Quiet Spring

Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

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Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

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Popular Authors

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