black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Old pond, frog jumps in – plop.

Matsuo Basho

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

Carry Enlightenment Water Wood
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
The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
MATSUO BASHO

Age Deep Destiny Forever Home Journey Life Moon Old Sun Time Travel
Don’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fruit Imitation Myself
The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.
MATSUO BASHO

Animal Call Darkness Sea White Wild
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
All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.
MATSUO BASHO

Friendship Moon Ugly View
Year by year, the monkey’s mask reveals the monkey.
MATSUO BASHO

Animal Character Deep Face Reveal
When composing a verse let there not be a hair’s breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.
MATSUO BASHO

Breathe Compose Dangerous Enemy Fall Hairs Mindset Tree Writing
First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.
MATSUO BASHO

Bridge Fall Snow
The basis of art is change in the universe.
MATSUO BASHO

Art Change One Liner Universe
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Moon Nature See Thinking Yourself
Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.
MATSUO BASHO

Journey Path Seek Wisdom
Old pond, leap-splash – a frog.
MATSUO BASHO

Frog Old
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Food Tree
Summer grasses — all that remains of great soldiers’ imperial dreams.
MATSUO BASHO

Dreams Greatness Summer

Old pond, frog jumps in – plop.

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Old pond, frog jumps in – plop.

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