Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)
Writing is joy -- so saints and scholars all pursue it.
A writer makes new life in the void, knocks on silence to make a sound, binds space and time on a sheet of silk and pours out a river from an inch-sized heart.
As words give birth to words and thoughts arouse deeper thoughts, they smell like flowers giving off scent, spread like green leaves in spring; a long wind comes, whirls into a tornado of ideas, and clouds rise from the writing-brush forest.
Translation by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping in The Art of Writing (1996) Boston: Shambhala.
I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.
Without desire everything is sufficient. With seeking myriad things are impoverished. Plain vegetables can soothe hunger. A patched robe is enough to cover this bent old body. Alone I hike with a deer. Cheerfully I sing with village children. The stream under the cliff cleanses my ears. The pine on the mountain top fits my heart.
Translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Daniel Leighton in Essential Zen (1994) HarperSanFrancisco.
Passage O soul to India! Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables.
Not you alone, proud truths of the world, Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science, But myths and fables of eld, Asia's, Africa's fables, The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos'd dreams, The deep diving bibles and legends, The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions; O you temples fairer than lilies, pour'd over by the rising sun! O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heaven! You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish'd with gold! Towers of fables immortal, fashion'd from mortal dreams! You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest! You too with joy I sing.
Passage to India! Lo, soul! seest thou not God's purpose from the first? The earth to be spann'd, connected by network, The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near, The lands to be welded together.
A worship new I sing, You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours, You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours, You, not for trade or transportation only, But in God's name, and for thy sake, O soul.
When an author composes too short a poem, it trails off with a lonely feeling like looking down at solitude with no friends or peering into the vast sky, disconnected. One string on a harp is crisp and sweet but sings without resonance and harmony.
Translation by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping in: The Art of Writing (1996) Boston: Shambhala Publications.
My spirit is too weak -- mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep That I have not the cloudy winds to keep Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. Such dim-conceived glories of the brain Bring round the heart an undescribable feud; So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old time--with a billowy main -- A sun--a shadow of a magnitude.
"Time to put off the world and go somewhere And find my health again in the sea air," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, "And make my soul before my pate is bare;
"And get a comfortable wife and house To rid me of the devil in my shoes," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, "And the worse devil that is between my thighs.
"And though I'd marry with a comely lass, She need not be too comely -- let it pass," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, "But there's a devil in a looking glass.
"Nor should she be too rich, because the rich Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, "And cannot have a humorous happy speech.
"And there I'll grow respected at my ease, And hear amid the garden's nightly peace," Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck, "The wind-blown clamor of the barnacle-geese."
Tiger Riding for Beginners 