Zen Monks Quotes

“When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.”
― Bashō

“Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life.”
― Santoka Taneda, Mountain Tasting: Haiku and Journals of Santoka Taneda

“Real haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one's heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your era, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations—there you will find the essence of true art, religion, and science.”
― Santoka Taneda, Mountain Tasting: Haiku and Journals of Santoka Taneda

“When Japanese Zen monks began to marry in the nineteenth century (and almost all of them are married today), they gave up the defining practice of monasticism—celibacy, aloneness. But they refused to turn in their costumes or close their theaters. Instead, they altered the forms.”
― Michael Downing, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center