Matsuo Basho Quotes

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

No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.

Mountain-rose petals Falling, falling, falling now... Waterfall music

Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.

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.

Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.

A flute with no holes is not a flute.

Come, butterfly It's late- We've miles to go together.

From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree; And from the bamboo, of the bamboo

An autumn night - don’t think your life didn’t matter.

Even in Kyoto/Hearing the cuckoo's cry/I long for Kyoto

Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.

the universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.

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

The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.

The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.

Year by year, the monkey's mask reveals the monkey

Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.

With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.

How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers

Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die

From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.

Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering.

Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.

Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.

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

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

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.

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

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

Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.

Orchidbreathing incense into butterfly's wings

The basis of art is change in the universe.

Old pond, frog jumps in - plop.

Friends part foreverwild geese lost in cloud

Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps' nest.

How I long to see among dawn flowers, the face of God.

Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.

Learn the rules, and then forget them.

All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.

Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.

Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.

Year's end still in straw hat and sandals

Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice

The moon is brighter since the barn burned.

Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.