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Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.

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

Cat Love Starve
Collecting all The rains of May The swift Mogami River.
MATSUO BASHO

Collection Rain River Water
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
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
Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.
MATSUO BASHO

Be Yourself Identity Imitation Myself Original
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
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
Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine.
MATSUO BASHO

Existence Plant Rope Twisted
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
Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps’ nest.
MATSUO BASHO

Home Insect Rain Spring
Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water – A deep resonance.
MATSUO BASHO

Break Deep Frog Resonate Silence Water
This autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Disappear Growth Myself Old
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.
MATSUO BASHO

Knowledge Learning Leaving Nature Wisdom Yourself
Friends part forever wild geese lost in cloud.
MATSUO BASHO

Cloud Forever Friendship Lost Wild
An autumn night – don’t think your life didn’t matter.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Life Night Thinking Yourself

Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.

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Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.

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