black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.

Matsuo Basho

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

Carry Enlightenment Water Wood
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO

Cat Love Starve
There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores
MATSUO BASHO

Day Journey Myself Sea Wind
Spring rain conveyed under the trees in drops.
MATSUO BASHO

Drop Spring Tree
For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Food Love Poverty Togetherness
Learn the rules, and then forget them.
MATSUO BASHO

Forget Inspirational Learning Rule
Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?
MATSUO BASHO

Bone Cold Deep Fragrance Nature Perfume World
This autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Disappear Growth Myself Old
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
MATSUO BASHO

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

Desire Flower Moon Myself
The universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.
MATSUO BASHO

Empty Intimate Relationship Unique Universe
A flute with no holes is not a flute.
MATSUO BASHO

Deep Instrument One Liner
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
Old pond, leap-splash – a frog.
MATSUO BASHO

Frog Old
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
MATSUO BASHO

Growth Nature Quiet Spring

All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.

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All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.

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