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Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?

Matsuo Basho

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things-mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity-and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves.
MATSUO BASHO

Companion Humanity Leaving Mindset Mountain Universe Wisdom Yourself
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
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
The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Interest Tree
Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.
MATSUO BASHO

Deep Learning Listen Nature Talk Wisdom
At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.
MATSUO BASHO

Pond Sound Water
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
MATSUO BASHO

Moon Myself Night Water
An autumn night – don’t think your life didn’t matter.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Life Night Thinking Yourself
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
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
MATSUO BASHO

Growth Nature Quiet Spring
Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end – tonight’s moon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Moon Night Tree
Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count — / Festival of the Souls.
MATSUO BASHO

Count Festival Soul Thinking
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
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Food Tree
Friends part forever wild geese lost in cloud.
MATSUO BASHO

Cloud Forever Friendship Lost Wild
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

Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?

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Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?

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