Drew Rhine’s Reviews > Travels with a Writing Brush: Classical Japanese Travel Writing from the Manyoshu to Basho > Status Update

Shells washed about in the waves at the water's edge, and seeing them it struck me that though they were carried in and left the sea behind, they felt no sorrow; though drawn back to the sea, they felt no joy. Nothing is sadder than us creatures that have been given life. Suffering and joy in this world -- both are finally sorrow. Understanding this all to well, I can only say these shells are most enviable of all.

"How pointless, I thought, to pile thought upon thought like these snows, when I must come to nothing in the end."