What is essential is not the answer but the questions; the answers indeed are the death of the life that is in the questions.

These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.

Regarding R. H. Blyth: The first book in English based on the saijiki is R. H. Blyth's Haiku, published in four volumes from 1949 to 1952. After the first, background volume, the remaining three consist of a collection of Japanese haiku with translations, all organized by season, and within the seasons by traditional categories and about three hundred seasonal topics.

Zen is the unsymbolization of the world.

Think of Zen, of the Void, of Good and Evil and you are bound hand and foot. Think only and entirely and completely of what you are doing at the moment and you are free as a bird.

There is nothing intrinsically more beautiful or poetical about the moon than about a dunghill; if anything, the contrary, for the latter is full of life and warmth and energy.

There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful people.