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Quotes from Narrow Road to the Interior

    “[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)

              “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)

                    “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)

                      “Only the one who attains perfect sincerity under heaven may discover one’s ‘true nature.'”

                      Confucius, via Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXXVII)

                        “Abide by rules, then throw them out!—only then may you achieve true freedom.”

                        Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXIII)

                          “Despite his ability to attract students, he seems to have spent much of his time in a state of perpetual despondency, loneliness everywhere crowding in on him. No doubt this state of mind was compounded by chronically poor health, but Bashō was also engaging true sabishi, a spiritual loneliness that served haikai culture in much the same way mu or ‘nothingness’ served Zen.”

                          Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXXI)

                            “His journey is a pilgrimage; it is a journey into the interior of the self as much as a travelogue, a vision quest that concludes in insight. But there is no conclusion. The journey itself is home. The means is the end, just as it is the beginning. Each step is the first step, each step the last.”

                            Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXIII)

                              “The attitude is paradoxical: the Zen poet believes the real experience of poetry lies somewhere beyond the words themselves but, like a good Confucian, believes simultaneously that only the perfect word perfectly placed has the power to reveal the authentic experience of the poem.”

                              Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XVIII)