Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

This autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds.

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

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

Go to the object. Leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Do not impose yourself on the object. Become one with the object. Plunge deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there.

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

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.