black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.

Matsuo Basho

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
A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
MATSUO BASHO

Memories Skeleton
Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water – A deep resonance.
MATSUO BASHO

Break Deep Frog Resonate Silence Water
Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.
MATSUO BASHO

Journey Path Seek Wisdom
Friends part forever wild geese lost in cloud.
MATSUO BASHO

Cloud Forever Friendship Lost Wild
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO

Fall Food Tree
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
MATSUO BASHO

Better Choice Leadership Life Original Poetry Reality Write
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?
MATSUO BASHO

Cat Love Starve
Old pond, frog jumps in – plop.
MATSUO BASHO

Old Pond
Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.
MATSUO BASHO

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

Deep Seek Teaching Wisdom
For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Food Love Poverty Togetherness
All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.
MATSUO BASHO

Friendship Moon Ugly View
With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.
MATSUO BASHO

Butterfly Change Mindset Place
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO

Age Float Time World
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.
MATSUO BASHO

Bloom Flower Poverty Truth
Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
MATSUO BASHO

Live Nature Ourselves Tree
Farewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer?
MATSUO BASHO

End Fan Myself Old Summer
Don’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fruit Imitation Myself
On a bare branch a crow is perched – autumn evening.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Evening
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
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
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
MATSUO BASHO

Growth Nature Quiet Spring
Winter garden, the moon thinned to a thread, insects singing.
MATSUO BASHO

Insect Old Pond Sing Winter
Learn the rules, and then forget them.
MATSUO BASHO

Forget Inspirational Learning Rule
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

Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.

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Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.

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