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

Matsuo Basho

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Matsuo Basho
Age: 50 †
Born: 1644
Born: January 1
Died: 1694
Died: November 28
Artist
Poet
Writer
Vaxjo
Matsuo Basho
Bashō
Bashô
Basho
Matsuo Bashou
Viewing
Bunch
Ugly
Moon
Friends

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The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.
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A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.
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April's air stirs in Willow-leaves...a butterfly Floats and balances
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Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.
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Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?
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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.
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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.
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I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
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I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
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Poverty's child - he starts to grind the rice, and gazes at the moon.
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Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.
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Spring rain conveyed under the trees in drops.
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The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.
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My body, now close to fifty years of age, has become an old tree that bears bitter peaches, a snail which has lost its shell, a bagworm separated from its bag it drifts with the winds and clouds that know no destination. Morning and night I have eaten traveler's fare, and have held out for alms a pilgrim's wallet.
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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.
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Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.
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If I had the knack I'd sing like Cherry flakes falling
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Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
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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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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.
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