“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)
Sam Hamill Quotes
“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)