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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

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

Deep Seek Teaching Wisdom
Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.
MATSUO BASHO

Death Life Moments Poem
I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
MATSUO BASHO

Air Home Quite Sleep
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
MATSUO BASHO

Growth Nature Quiet Spring
Fresh spring! / The world is only Nine days old – / These fields and mountains!
MATSUO BASHO

Age Fresh Mountain Nature Spring Time World
Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water – A deep resonance.
MATSUO BASHO

Break Deep Frog Resonate Silence Water
The journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHO

Home Journey Myself
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
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
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
Sadly, I part from you; Like a clam torn from its shell, I go, and autumn too.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Break Up End Leaving Myself Relationship Yourself
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO

Cat Love Starve
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
Learn the rules, and then forget them.
MATSUO BASHO

Forget Inspirational Learning Rule
Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.
MATSUO BASHO

Deep Learning Listen Nature Talk Wisdom
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
MATSUO BASHO

Day Destination Home Journey
Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps’ nest.
MATSUO BASHO

Home Insect Rain Spring
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
MATSUO BASHO

Moon Myself Night Water
The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.
MATSUO BASHO

Animal Call Darkness Sea White Wild
The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.
MATSUO BASHO

Goodness Hide Mystery Poem Reveal
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
A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
MATSUO BASHO

Memories Skeleton
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.
MATSUO BASHO

Bloom Flower Poverty Truth
Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.
MATSUO BASHO

Awake Ice Night Sound Water
Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine.
MATSUO BASHO

Existence Plant Rope Twisted
Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.
MATSUO BASHO

Beginning Dawn Hands Moon Summer

He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.

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He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.

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Popular Authors

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