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

Matsuo Basho

Go to the object. Leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Do not impose yourself on the object. Become one with the object. Plunge deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there.
MATSUO BASHO

Deep Enough Gide Leaving Object Subject Yourself
The journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHO

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

Carry Enlightenment Water Wood
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
I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
MATSUO BASHO

Air Home Quite Sleep
Old dark sleepy pool… Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!
MATSUO BASHO

Dark Expectation Old Sleep Water
At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.
MATSUO BASHO

Pond Sound Water
Summer grasses — all that remains of great soldiers’ imperial dreams.
MATSUO BASHO

Dreams Greatness Summer
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.
MATSUO BASHO

Deep Seek Teaching Wisdom
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 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
Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
MATSUO BASHO

Live Nature Ourselves Tree
The moon is brighter since the barn burned.
MATSUO BASHO

Bright Burn Moon One Liner
Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine.
MATSUO BASHO

Existence Plant Rope Twisted
He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.
MATSUO BASHO

Creation Life Master Poem Poet Time Writing
This autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Disappear Growth Myself Old

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

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

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