"Teach me your mood ...."

Teach me your mood, O patient stars!

Who climb each night the ancient sky,

Leaving on space no shade, no scars,

No trace of age, no fear to die.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The bloom is not a bloom"

The bloom is not a bloom,

The mist not mist.

At midnight she comes,

And goes again at dawn.

She comes like a spring dream - how long will she stay?

She goes like morning cloud, without a trace.

Bai Juyi

"Things of the past ...."

Things of the past are already long gone

and things to be, distant beyond imagining.

The Tao is just this moment, these words:

plum blossoms fallen; gardenia just opening.

Ch’ing Kung

"Nothing, nothing at all ...."

Nothing, nothing at all

is born,

Dies, the shell says again

and again

from the depth of hollowness,

         Its body

Swept off by tide – so what?

         It sleeps

in sand, drying in sunlight,

         bathing

in moonlight.  Nothing to do

         with sea

or anything else.  Over

         and over

it vanishes with the wave.

Shinkichi Takahashi

To see clearly ....

To see clearly

To listen sharply

To speak consciously –

Into the Year of the Monkey.