Sublime

An owner and his home vie in their impermanence, as the vanishing dew upon the morning glory.

TRULY, I love this life of seclusion. Carrying my staff, I walk toward a friend’s cottage. The trees in his garden, soaked by the evening rain, Reflect the cool, clear autumnal sky. The owner’s dog comes to greet me; Chrysanthemums bloom along the fence. These people have the same spirit as the ancients; An earthen wall marks their separation from

Teishin,

The tonseisha’s niche between the mundane and monastic worlds produced not only freedom but, frequently, a difficult tussle between ways of being that were at bottom hard to reconcile.

Han-shan.

I had never had wife and children, so there were no close ties that were difficult to break. I had no rank and salary to forgo. What was there to hold me to the world? I made my bed among the clouds of Ōhara’s mountains,35 and there I passed five fruitless years.

Soon this short verse sprang free from renga and began to articulate aesthetic qualities, such as a sense of beautiful aloneness (sabishisa) and restrained elegance (furyu).