Snow over the temple's roof

In a lonely place

 

In a lonely place,
I encountered a sage
Who sat, all still,
Regarding a newspaper.
He accosted me:
"Sir, what is this?"
Then I saw that I was greater,
Aye, greater than this sage.
I answered him at once,
"Old, old man, it is the wisdom of the age."
The sage looked upon me with admiration.

- Stephen Crane

My Unattainable

"Warm light rain falls, trickled down by tear-drops on my window and? 

I long for you, my unattainable."

花鳥風月

花鳥風月 (Kachou Fuugetsu)

Literally: Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon

This means: Experience the beauties of nature, and in doing so learn about yourself.

 

門前の小僧習わぬ経を読む。

門前の小僧習わぬ経を読む。 (Mon zen no kozō narawanu kyō wo yomu) 

 

Literally: An apprentice near a temple will recite the scriptures untaught.

This means: The environment makes our characters.

Kobayashi Issa

"New Year's Day-- everything is in blossom! I feel about average."

"What a strange thing! To be alive beneath cherry blossoms."

"No doubt about it, the mountain cuckoo is a crybaby."

 "In this world, we walk on the roof of hell, gazing at flowers."

"Asked how old he was, the boy in the new kimono stretched out all five fingers."

"At my daughter's grave, thirty days after her death:

Windy fall-- these are the scarlet flowers she liked to pick."

- Kobayashi Issa

Matsuo Basho

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

 

 

"A field of cotton-- as if the moon had flowered."

 

 

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

- Matsuo Basho

Vintage Stuff

I've been here in another Life

 

How easy one can be forgotten

La Vie Parisienne

Wisdom of a Mustache

"Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers.

In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a Godis not

disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache."

 

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

Audrey Hepburn

"As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands,

one for helping yourself, the other for helping others."

- Audrey Hepburn

 

 

In Childhood - a japanese poem

Things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?

- Kimiko Hahn

Lights

“A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds;

it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities 

that were somehow absent before the change.

“these lights are so bright. white lights in the night. they keep me from sleeping, 

but i am still dreaming. i dream of your smile. i remember your kiss. in the light of the night.”

 

 

“An optimist is a person who sees only the lights in the picture, 

whereas a pessimist sees only the shadows. An idealist, however,

is one who sees the light and the shadows, but in addition sees something else:

the possibility of changing the picture, of making the lights prevail over the shadows.”

 

If i had half of the nature of an animal

"If i had half of an animal's nature,
i'm sure i would be more true to my existing,
less egocentric and materialist."

- Me