Ryougi Shiki Quotes

Having examined three thousand haiku poems - two persimmons. ~ Masaoka Shiki

the wall iris
opens its buds:
before my eyes
the last spring
begins to fade ~ Shiki Masaoka

So you can't make a living as a novelist - why not try farming or teaching? Or even begging - what difficulties would that present? Were you born into the world to make a living? Or have you another aim, that of becoming a novelist or something akin? If you want to become a novelist but are worried about how you will eat, then let me share my bowl of rice with you (though
I am not as well off as I once was). If, in return, you become a great novelist,
it will be my greatest joy. . . . I do not presume to urge you to become a novelist. I say only this - be firm of purpose and don't worry about trivialities.

And remember the saying: the final tax you pay to achieve your goal is your life. ~ Masaoka Shiki

two feet tall,
the crimson-budded roses,
their young thorns
tender in
the soft spring rain ~ Shiki Masaoka

She told me it's called the Maka Hanya Haramita Shingyo,69 which means something like the Great Most Excellent Wisdom Heart Sutra. The only part I remember goes like this: Shiki fu i ku, ku fu i shiki.70 It's pretty abstract. Old Jiko tried to explain it to me, and I don't know if I understood it correctly or not, but I think it means that nothing in the world is solid or real, because nothing is permanent, and all things - including trees and animals and pebbles and mountains and rivers and even me and you - are just kind of flowing through for the time being. ~ Ruth Ozeki

wakened by pain
from a dream of pain
I wipe the sweat
and rose petals
scatter ~ Shiki Masaoka

This time, I won't lose my way. I'm going to believe in myself. ~ Satoshi Shiki

If we get rid of all wishful thinking and dubious metaphysical speculations, we can hardly doubt that – at a time not too distant – each one of us will simply cease to be. It won't be like going into darkness forever, for there will be neither darkness, nor time, nor sense of futility, nor anyone to feel anything about it. Try as best you can to imagine this, and keep at it. The universe will, supposedly, be going on as usual, but for each individual it will be as if it had never happened at all; and even that is saying too much, because there won't be anyone for whom it never happened. Make this prospect as real as possible: the one total certainty. You will be as if you had never existed, which was, however, the way you were before you did exist – and not only you but everything else. Nevertheless, with such an improbable past, here we are. We begin from nothing and end in nothing. You can say that again. Think it over and over, trying to conceive the fact of coming to never having existed. After a while you will begin to feel rather weird, as if this very apparent something that you are is at the same time nothing at all. Indeed, you seem to be rather firmly and certainly grounded in nothingness, much as your sight seems to emerge from that total blankness behind your eyes. The weird feeling goes with the fact that you are being introduced to a new common sense, a new logic, in which you are beginning to realize the identity of ku and shiki, void and form. All of a sudden ~ Alan W. Watts

Such a little child
To send to be a priestling ...
Icy poverty ~ Shiki

Take your materials from what is around you - if you see a dandelion, write about that; if it's misty, write about the mist. The materials for poetry are all about you in profusion. ~ Masaoka Shiki

It might be difficult to gain the strength I need right now... but I need to try. I have to overcome my limitations. ~ Satoshi Shiki

how much longer
is my life?
a brief night... ~ Shiki Masaoka