“Traveler’s heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.”

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.

April’s air stirs in Willow-leaves, a butterfly Floats and balances.

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

I hope to have gathered To repay your kindness The willow leaves Scattered in the garden.