GREAT ZEN

Ryusyu, a Zen poet, wrote:

Among the countless affairs of men, nothing compares to sleep. They rush, hurrying to old age, racing west and east. If one lives in a mountain hut, sitting peacefully and sleeping, all joys will vanish by themselves, and with them, all sorrows.

You cannot steal the moon. Ryonan, a Zen master, lived a simple life in a small hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, a thief broke into the hut and found nothing to steal. When Ryonan returned, he found the thief there. "You have traveled a long way to visit me," he said to the wanderer, "and you must not return empty-handed. Please, take my clothes as a gift." The thief was astonished. He took the clothes and quietly left. Ryonan sat naked, admiring the moon. "Poor fellow," he said thoughtfully. "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon."

Frost covers him, the wind spreads his bed. An abandoned child,

In the sky, the moon is like a tree cut down at the root. The fresh cut shines white.

A yellow leaf floats. On what shore, cicada? Will you suddenly awaken?

The willow bends and sleeps. And it seems to me that the nightingale on the branch... is its soul.

Clip-clop, my little horse. I see myself in a painting - in the expanse of summer meadows.

Suddenly, a "swish-swish" sound. A longing stirs in my soul... Bamboo in a frosty night.

The flight of butterflies awakens the quiet clearing. In the sunlight,

How the autumn wind whistles! Only then will you understand my poems, when you sigh in the field.

And in autumn, one wants to live like this butterfly: drinking quickly the dew from the chrysanthemum.

The flowers have withered. The seeds scatter, fall, as if they were tears...

A gusty wind has hidden itself in a bamboo grove and gradually subsides.

Look closely! You will see the flowers of shepherd's purse under the fence.

Oh, wake up, wake up! Become my companion, sleeping moth!

A jar for storing grain is all I have! Light, like my life