Saigyo Quotes

#1. Limitations gone: Since my mind fixed on the moon, Clarity and serenity Make something for which There's no end in sight.

Saigyo

#2. The mind for truth
Begins, like a stream, shallow
At first, but then
Adds more and more depth
While gaining greater clarity.

Saigyo

#3. Last year, Yoshino,
I walked away bending branches
To point me to blossoms
Which now are everywhere and I can
Go where I've never been before.

Saigyo

#4. Every single thing changes and is changing always in this world. Yet with the same light the moon goes on shining.

Saigyo

#5. This place of mine never is entered by humans come for conversation, only by the mute moon's light shafts that slip in between the trees.

Saigyo

#6. Whatever it is, / I cannot understand it, / although gratitude / stubbornly overcomes me / until I'm reduced to tears.

Saigyo

#7. Tightly held by rocks
Through winter, the ice today
Begins to come undone:
A way-seeker also is the water,
Melting, murmuring from the moss.

Saigyo

#8. I'd like to divide myself in order to see, among these mountains, each and every flower of every cherry tree.

Saigyo

#9. Beyond this life and
This world I'll have it til
My heart's content:
The bright moon that passed over
The horizon before I had my fill.

Saigyo

#10. The cherries' only fault: the crowds that gather when they bloom

Saigyo

#11. Now seen ... now gone, The butterfly flits in and out Through fence-hung flowers; But a life lived so close to them I envy ... though it's here and gone.

Saigyo

#12. Returning to where
It used to see blossoms,
My mind, changed,
Will stay on at Yoshino ...
Home now, and see anew.

Saigyo

#13. Today's satori:
Such a change of mind would
Not exist without
My lifelong habit of having
My mind immersed in blossoms.

Saigyo