Excerpt: These quotes from Narrow Road To The Interior capture a beauty in what’s seemingly plain that’ll elevate your perspective for better living.
“[Bashō] prized sincerity and clarity [in poetry] and instructed, ‘Follow nature, return to nature, be nature.’ He had learned to meet each day with fresh eyes. ‘Yesterday’s self is already worn out!'”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 191)
“[Bashō’s] fundamental teaching remained his conviction that in composing a poem, ‘There are two ways: one is entirely natural, in which the poem is born from within itself; the other way is to make it through the mastery of technique.’ His notion of the poem being ‘born within itself’ should under no circumstances be confused with its being self-originating. A fundamental tenet of Buddhism runs exactly to the contrary: nothing is self-originating.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 190)
“[Bashō] believed that poetry should arise naturally from close observation, revealing itself in the careful use of ordinary language.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 187)
“I tried to give up the Way of Elegance and stop writing poems, but something always stirred my heart and mind—such is its magic.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 185)
“In the end, without skill or talent, I’ve given myself over entirely to poetry. Po Chü-i labored at it until he nearly burst. Tu Fu starved rather than abandon it. Neither my intelligence nor my writing is comparable to such men. Nevertheless, in the end, we all live in phantom huts.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 182)
Sick on my journey,
only my dreams will wander
these desolate moors
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 179)
All along this road
not a single soul—only
autumn evening
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 168)
Lonely stillness—
a single cicada’s cry
sinking into stone
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 155)
Long conversations
beside blooming irises—
joys of life on the road
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 138)
“The Kiso road was dangerous, winding over several steep mountain passes. Much as we tried to help one another, our inexperience showed. There were many mistakes. Nervous and worried, we made mistakes, but learning to laugh at them gave us courage to continue.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 89)
“Each twist in the road brought new sights, each dawn renewed my inspiration. Wherever I met another person with even the least appreciation for artistic excellence, I was overcome with joy. Even those I’d expected to be stubbornly old-fashioned often proved to be good companions. People often say that the greatest pleasures of traveling are finding a sage hidden behind weeds or treasures hidden in trash, gold among discarded pottery. Whenever I encountered someone of genius, I wrote about it in order to tell my friends.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 81)
“Nothing’s worth noting that is not seen with fresh eyes. You will find in my notebook random observations from along the road, experiences and images that linger in heart and mind—a secluded house in the mountains, a lonely inn on a moor.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 67)
“The silence was profound. I sat, feeling my heart begin to open.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 26)
“With every pilgrimage one encounters the temporality of life. To die along the road is destiny. Or so I told myself.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 14)
“Abide by rules, then throw them out!—only then may you achieve true freedom.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXIII)
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By: Matsuo Bashō
Book Overview: A masterful translation of one of the most-loved classics of Japanese literature—part travelogue, part haiku collection, part account of spiritual awakening
Bashō (1644–1694)—a great luminary of Asian literature who elevated the haiku to an art form of utter simplicity and intense spiritual beauty—is renowned in the West as the author of Narrow Road to the Interior, a travel diary of linked prose and haiku recounting his journey through the far northern provinces of Japan.
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