Matsuo Basho
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.Collection: Brainy
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.Collection: Home
The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.Collection: Nature
Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.Collection: Water
Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.Collection: Speak
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.Collection: Beautiful
No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Fall
Learn the rules, and then forget them.Collection: Forget
The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.Collection: Believe
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.Collection: Inspirational
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.Collection: Flower
A flute with no holes is not a flute.Collection: Flutes
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.Collection: Bamboo
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.Collection: Horse
Come, butterfly It's late- We've miles to go together.Collection: Butterfly
What is important is to keep our mind high in the world of true understanding, and returning to the world of our daily experience to seek therein the truth of beauty. No matter what we may be doing at a given moment, we must not forget that is has a bearing upon our everlasting self which is poetry.Collection: Self
Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to dieCollection: Cicadas
Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.Collection: Lasts
Traveler's heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.Collection: Travel
Old pond, frog jumps in - plop.Collection: Ponds
Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.Collection: Flower
Operating superficially, the mind is random in its activity and stale in its insights and images. However, with practice and experience the mind is freed from the skull, and the fresh and new can appear as though for the first time. ItCollection: Time
In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes.Collection: Writing
April's air stirs in Willow-leaves...a butterfly Floats and balancesCollection: Spring
Mountain-rose petals Falling, falling, falling now... Waterfall musicCollection: Fall
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.Collection: Morning
Orchidbreathing incense into butterfly's wingsCollection: Butterfly
He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.Collection: Three
Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.Collection: Learning
Don't imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.Collection: Two
Sabi is the color of haikai. It is different from tranquility. For example, if an old man dresses up in armor and helmet and goes to the battlefield, or in colorful brocade kimono, attending (his lord) at a banquet, [sabi] is like this old figure.Collection: Men
Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the iceCollection: Ice
The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, "I shall be unhappy without loneliness," shows that he made loneliness his master.Collection: Loneliness
Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.Collection: Summer
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.Collection: Flower
A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.Collection: Summer
I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.Collection: Home
Seek on high bare trails Sky-reflecting violets... Mountain-top jewelsCollection: Jewels
Friends part foreverwild geese lost in cloudCollection: Clouds
Twilight whippoorwill... Whistle on, sweet deepener Of dark lonelinessCollection: Sweet
Along my journey / through this transitory world, / new year's housecleaning.Collection: New Year
Ballet in the air... Twin butterflies until, twice white They Meet, they mateCollection: Butterfly
Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.Collection: Cutting
Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.Collection: Nature
First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.Collection: Fall